Puzzlewood and The Kymin: Forest of Dean Part 3

An Unusual Wood and a Gentleman's Picnic House Above the River Wye

Puzzlewood

Gloucestershire

Forest of Dean

We had intended to visit Puzzlewood yesterday, but missed the sign and went on to the Clearwell Caves. That could have been that, but we were in no particular rush to get home today, and when we talked to our daughter last night, she brought up Puzzlewood and strongly recommended we go. So we did.

The owners are developing Puzzlewood as a family attraction, but we felt we could ignore the play area and the farm animals, though I could not resist a photo of a chicken – a silkie, I believe, originally a native of China.

A silkie at Puzzlewood

The wood itself is a remarkable landscape; a confusion of boulders, trees and twisted roots, covered with a rain-forest thick layer of moss. We followed the forest paths, which divided and then looped back on themselves and then divided again.

Puzzlewood

Navigation was a minor puzzle and there are no maps but the fields on the far side are only 300m away, and if we walked further than that to get there, we were usually going in the right direction.

Puzzlewood and a 'rickety bridge'

There are fairy doors, and rickety bridges (though more firmly constructed than they are made to look)  and places to pause and access the Puzzlewood app – provided your phone (unlike ours) has the right operating system - but what makes the landscape unique to the Forest of Dean and unusual even within it are the scowles.

Scowle, Puzzlewood

Scowles are labyrinthine defiles several metres deep, though in many places the sides have been eroded into discrete blocks of stone.

An eroded scowle

Long thought to be the remnants of iron-age open-cast iron ore extraction, geologist now believe them to be natural features, though enlarged and exploited by mining activity.

A Gloucester County Council archaeological information sheet entitled The Scowles of the Forest of Dean suggests the present view is that they originated as a natural underground cave system which formed in the Carboniferous Limestones of the Forest of Dean many millions of years ago. Uplift and erosion eventually caused this cave system to become exposed at the surface. The exposed caves were rich in iron ore were easy pickings for the earliest miners and their work and further erosion produced the landscape we see today.

Lynne plods up through another scowle

Our daughter had been right, Puzzlewood is well worth a visit and we spent over an hour wandering round in the wood. Returning to the café we drank cappuccinos (cappuccini?) beneath a sizeable sword. Looking closer, I learned that it was made of Valyrian steel and was formerly the property of Eddard Stark.

The Valyrian steel sword known as Ice wielded by Eddard Stark (allegedly)

I am not aware of Puzzlewood being a location in Game of Thrones, but it does feature in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, four separate episodes of Dr Who, two episodes of Merlin and the BBC’s 2016 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. JRR Tolkien was a frequent visitor and used the wood as a template for some of Middle Earth’s Forests, and maybe Harry Potter’s ‘Forbidden Forest’ is also a relative.

The Kymin

Monmouthshire

Wales

It was time to leave the Forest of Dean so we headed west towards Monmouth which lies beside the River Wye and – more importantly to us – the A40.

We were still a mile or two short of Monmouth when we passed a Croeso i Gymru sign; we had entered our ancestral homeland but were still east of the Wye. I had always believed the border ran along the River Monnow to its confluence with the Wye and then down the Wye to the coast, but not so - for reasons known only to long dead cartographers there is a fun-sized chunk of Wales on the wrong side of the Wye opposite Monmouth.

Always a welcome sight to the exile

Having left the Forest of Dean, in political fact if not quite in spirit, we turned off the main road, following the National Trust signs to The Kymin. The road, narrow with the occassional hairpin, climbed steadily from the Wye Valley to a viewpoint 250m above the river.

In the late 18th /early 19th centuries "the principal Gentlemen of Monmouth and its vicinity" formed the Monmouth Picnic Club or Kymin Club (from the Welsh Cae y Maen – Field of Stones) "for the purpose of dining together, and spending the day in a social and friendly manner". Everyone enjoys a picnic in good weather, but the Monmouthshire weather gods are a fickle bunch, so Philip Meakins Hardwick suggested building a roundhouse for "security from the inclemency of the weather". The members, headed by the Duke of Beaufort and 8 MPs paid subscriptions and building started in 1794.

The Kymin

The Kymin, as it became known, had kitchens on the ground-floor and a banqueting room above. The view is spectacular and the banqueting room was – and still is - equipped with a telescope. In time the club ran out of steam and eventually the building became a dwelling. That ceased in the early 20th century when the roundhouse was restored and duly found its way into the care of the National Trust.

Banqueting Room, The Kymin

The view is variously said to encompass nine or ten counties. Monmouth is a long way down beside the river and a great deal of effort would be required to drag a picnic/banquet all this way. I doubt that troubled the members, they had servants for that sort of thing and all they had to do was trot up on their nags – a little more effort than my driving up, but they could park closer to the house.

Monmouth and the Wye Valley from the Kymin

The Naval Temple

In 1800, to commemorate the second anniversary of Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile and in recognition of the victories of fifteen other Royal Navy Admirals, the Kymin Club built The Naval Temple.

Tne Naval Temple, The Kymin

This was the early days of tourism; the Wye Valley was prime tourist country and Nelson himself came floating down the river with Lady Hamilton and her husband Sir William Hamilton (as a prize gooseberry). Nelson was greeted by a cannonade and the band of the Monmouthshire Militia playing See, the Conquering Hero Comes (they don’t do that for tourists these days, or was it just me?). During his brief stay in Monmouth, Nelson breakfasted at the roundhouse and visited the Naval Temple of which he said "it was the only monument of its kind erected to the Royal Navy in the Kingdom," which was diplomatic. Others have been more forthright, ‘In very bad taste,’ said antiquarian, archaeologist and artist Sir Richard Colt Hoare in 1803 while architectural historian John Newman has described it as ‘hard to come to terms with.’ And this retired maths teacher and artistic ignoramus agrees with Hoare and Newman - and no doubt he will find that a great relief.

Naval Temple, The Kymin

[Afterthought: November 2019] Being in Wales all the signs were bilingual. It might be worth mentioning that Welsh was the main language of the Forest of Dean until the 9th century, ‘scowles’ probably deriving from the Welsh ‘ysgil’ meaning ‘a recess’. If the English electorate support Boris Johnson’s plan to break up the United Kingdom, then Wales will probably cling on to England like Montenegro clung to Serbia, but in the end it will go. And then maybe we will want our forest back.

And so we left the Kymin and headed home.

Forest of Dean

Part 1: Into the Dean, Goodrich and The Speech House

Part 2:Coleford and Around

Part 3:Puzzlewood and The Kymin

Goldcliff, Redwick and Magor

Wales

Gwent (Monmouthshire)

Pottering back slowly from South Wales to Staffordshire we turned off the M4 west of Newport and followed the ring road south of the city. We passed the old transporter bridge and the docks before reaching Liswerry, where a minor road took us into the Caldicot Level, the alluvial wetland that lies between the M4 and the Severn estuary. This dank, flat marsh was the home of my paternal grandmother’s family until they moved into Newport at the start of the last century, and we were in search of family graves.

Where we Going?

When I was small my (maternal) grandmother taught me to recite the 13 counties of Wales. The local government re-organisation in 1974 reduced that to 8 while another in 1996 introduced 22 single-tier local authorities which now call themselves counties. A further suggested rearrangement in 2015 was overtaken by events. To avoid confusion (largely mine) I will stick to the 13 'historic counties' I learned at my grandmother's knee. These counties were created by Thomas Cromwell at the request of Henry VIII in 1530.

The Historic Counties of Wales

SE Wales with the approximate extent of the cities of Cardiff and Newport
and position of the relevant villages

I prefer the old counties, though, this map appends an inappropriate 'shire' to Glamorgan among others. My father, a native of Newport always claimed to be a citizen of the Autonomous State of Gwent, though he spent his last 45 years in Buckinghamshire. I am thus duty-bound to prefer 'Gwent' to 'Monmouthshire'.

Goldcliff

We drove through depressing territory all the way from the last urban and industrial gasp of Newport right out to where wet cows chew dispiritedly in meadows of long wet grass. Drizzle fell from a grey sky; it seemed the natural state of affairs.

Goldcliff has no gold and no cliff. The name originates from the siliceous limestone bank by the coast at Hill Farm; sadly quartz is not gold and an 18m high bank is neither a hill nor a cliff.  This world is flat and protected from the sea by a concrete wall. Drainage channels covered in green scum keep the land just about dry enough to be pasture. We found no centre to Goldcliff, though there is a church somewhere, but what we did find was a mile long dribble of houses lining the narrow road. There are well built farmhouses and a sprinkling of new buildings, many of them large, some of them very large. People with money have chosen this bleak place to build their homes. I have no idea why. I am forced to conclude that this landscape has charms I fail to see.

Redwick

We had to track a mile or two inland and then back out toward the estuary to find Redwick. The village is remoter and closer to the coast than Goldcliff, not that there is any sign of salt water. There is no harbour between Newport and Chepstow, the tidal mudflats being unable to shelter even the smallest fishing boats, and the villages have turned their back on the coast and made their living from agriculture - at least until the boom in commuter housing.

Around Redwick the land seems lusher and the atmosphere less desolate – though perhaps I was fooled by a pause in the drizzle. The village does at least have a centre - a pub facing a church across a bend in the road. The pub looks well kept and cheerful, festooned with colourful hanging baskets. It also boasts a ‘Piste de Boule’ suggesting the Bristol Channel is not the limit of its horizons.

St Thomas', Redwick

Outside the church a stone shelter houses a collection of artefacts from the agricultural past, most notably a cider mill and press. I had never thought of my Monmouthshire ancestors as cider drinkers despite the county bordering the English cider heartland.

Cider Mill and Press, Redwick

St Thomas’ church is an ambitious structure, big enough to accommodate the whole of Redwick and still squeeze in several bus loads of visitors. They are proud of their peal of bells and, helpfully, have a list of who is buried in the churchyard. None of them were the ancestors we sought.

St Thomas' Redwick

Outside, on the porch, a scratch shows the high water mark of the great flood of January 1607, though as New Year then started in March the scratch is dated 1606. On the 30th of that month a huge storm surge – or possibly a tsunami – rolled up the Bristol Channel. The Welsh coast was inundated from Laugharne in Carmarthenshire all the way up to Chepstow, while on the English side the water swept across the Somerset levels as far inland as Glastonbury Tor. 200 square miles were flooded, livestock and villages were swept away and over 2000 people died. And this was where my ancestors chose to live.

Flood marker, St Thomas', Redwick 

Barely a thousand people live in Goldcliff and Redwick put together but Magor is a much bigger village, maybe even a town. We parked by the ruins of the 13th century Procurator’s House and strolled into the central square. There are dignified old buildings, shops, pubs, restaurants and a profusion of hanging baskets and flowerbeds. The town looks smart, freshly painted and prosperous. It is also far enough inland to have grown a modern estate to the south, spreading up the side of the rise which protects Magor from the sea. To the north there is a little industry, the M4 and Magor’s very own motorway service station.

Magor

If Redwick church is too big for the village, the 13th century builders of St Mary's evidently expected Magor to grow into a city. 

St Mary's Magor

It is surrounded by a well-tended burial ground and we scanned a few gravestones searching for the ancestral Attewell family.

Magor churchyard

Lynne is openly scornful (but, I think, secretly impressed) that the graves of my mother’s family can usually be found by locating the largest monument in the cemetery. It worked at Trealaw where my great-great grandfather’s statue sits on a plinth even Nelson might envy while his son and much of the rest of the family lie under a substantial tangle of angels and cherubs in the more bucolic setting of Penderyn. The biggest monument in Magor churchyard is not huge or excessively showy, but it does tower over its rivals and yes, it is the resting place of the Attewells.

Me and the Attewell Monument, Magor

The spire-shaped monument was built to mark the grave of Mary Attewell, my great-great-great grandmother who died in May 1887. My great-great-great grandfather William Attewell joined her there in 1890, followed by an assortment of sons, daughters and in-laws though not my great-great grandfather Thomas Attewell who was born in Magor in 1833 but had moved to Newport before he died in 1917.

The grave of Mary Attewell, my three greats grandmother

Inside the church we met a friendly local engaged in writing a history of the church. Old photographs, she informed us, showed the now weathered Attewell monument to have once been shining white. Maybe they, too, enjoyed being just a little showy.

The Attewells had a farm near Magor and their sons and daughters married natives of Goldcliff and Redwick. They clearly made some money; William and Mary lived lives which were long and, I presume, comfortable by the standards of the day. I was surprised to find that all three villages were prosperous and remain so, though now for rather different reasons. Clearly there are those who do not find the landscape of the Caldicot Level desolate and depressing but I am not one of them. I am glad Thomas Attewell left, even if Newport is hardly the city of anybody’s dreams. They all went eventually, but even so the population of the coastal wetlands looks to be growing, not shrinking. And as for the people who live there now – well they’re welcome to it; this branch of the Attewell family is unlikely to want it back.

Abergavenny and The Walnut Tree

Over the Welsh Border to a Town of Charm and History and a Once Great Restaurant Recently Restored to Glory

Wedding anniversary dinners have become a tradition over the last few years, and this year we went to Abergavenny to celebrate our 35th. 35th? Surely that can’t be right - but it is. Where did all those years go?

Abergavenny Castle

It’s a pleasant, prosperous looking little town, Abergavenny. It has a castle and a museum, water meadows where we strolled in sunshine beside the tumbling River Usk, an ancient church and an 11th century Tithe Barn containing a 21st century café and exhibition. And it’s full of people who welcome you and tell you things you never knew you wanted to know but are actually quite interesting.



Abergavenney Tithe Barn

We visited on the wrong day for the market, but the town has long had a foodie reputation, and the first and foremost reason for that, and for our visit, is The Walnut Tree restaurant a few miles away in the hamlet of Llanddewi Skirrid.

Opened in 1963 by Franco and Ann Taruschio, The Walnut Tree was once a beacon in an era of gastronomic darkness. They maintained the highest of standards for over thirty years, but after their retirement the restaurant fell on hard times. It eventually closed in 2007 despite, or maybe because of, featuring in the first of Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant rescue series. It reopened in 2008 and Shaun Hill, who held a Michelin star at the Merchant House in Ludlow, has returned the restaurant to its former glory and to Michelin star status.


The Walnut Tree, Llandewi Skirrid near Abergavenney

Restaurant reviews traditionally start with the décor. That’s not my interest, but I did notice that we sat in a rustic style bar for our pre-prandial Pernod before going through to a restaurant which was much bigger inside than it appeared from the outside. Not all the twenty four tables were full on the day of our visit

Tinned tongue used to be a Saturday lunch regular in my youth, but I haven't seen it for years. Lynne’s starter of poached tongue bore only a slight resemblance to the Sixties stand-by. Thin slices of tongue surrounded a salad of rocket and green beans like the petals of a flower. Such soft and exquisite meat with a fine, delicate flavour required, and got, a salad with a gentle and unemphatic dressing. It seems a shame that tongue is so rarely available in supermarkets.

My monkfish sat on what the menu called a tomato, ginger and chilli sauce, though it was actually half way between a sauce and a salsa. If the tail was char grilled to perfection, the deceptively simple sauce was possessed of magical properties. At first it seemed merely tomato, then the ginger emerged, growing gently to dominance before finally the chilli ran a little dance round the edge. Another forkful was required to see if it happened again. I could quibble by saying a sauce should accompany the fish, not vice versa, but it was too good to bother with such trifles.

Sadly, Lynne's main course sole was also char grilled, and what may be appropriate for a robust monkfish was far less suitable for a delicate sole. It was over cooked and over-charred. A complaint brought an offer of an alternative main course (but by then it was already eaten and the human stomach is finite) but no apology and no visitation from the chef to discuss the issue.

I had rack of lamb on a casserole of spring vegetables. The tender, pink chops were from the youngest of lambs and provided texture, while the lamb breast in what was really a cawl beneath provided as much sheepy flavour as anyone could want. The spring vegetables, even the remarkably earthy potatoes, were packed with flavour and freshness.

We took a rest for digestion and to finish our wine. With the mix of fish and meat we had required two half bottles, thus effectively reducing the vast wine list to about a dozen choices. For the white we chose a Chardonnay from the Ste Michelle winery in Washington (the west coast state, not the east coast capital city), the red was a Gigondas from a well know producer. I ordered the Chardonnay with trepidation; during our time in Washington we learned that the locals had no great regard for their state's oldest and largest producer. But that was twenty five years ago, this unoaked chardonnay was light bodied but had varietal character, good acidity and a pleasing dryness. The Gigondas, though, was disappointing. I always look at the appellation and the bottler, but need to remember to check out the vintage; I am sure this will open up in a few years and be a fine wine, but it was too young, too dark and too closed to live up to expectations.

Lynne’s dessert involved intensely flavoured redcurrant and blackcurrant sorbets presented in a brandy snap basket. I had Bakewell tart with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. When I was little and holidays meant two weeks with my grandmother in Porthcawl, a visit to Borza's ice-cream parlour was a special treat. Their ice-cream was like nothing else I had tasted and I used to spend weeks anticipating the visit. The secret, I know now, was real vanilla; while the rest of the world used vanilla as a synonym for 'plain', Borza's treated it with respect. Borza's is long gone from Porthcawl and many of the Borza clan now lie beneath a modest mausoleum in the municipal cemetery (just across the path from my grandmother). This scoop of vanilla ice-cream took me back to my childhood and was undoubtedly the best I have eaten for fifty years. The Bakewell tart became something of a sideshow, so its amazing lightness was almost unappreciated, and its lack of jammy/marzipanny flavours somewhat overlooked. I drank an Austrian Beerenauslese with the Bakewell tart which was, in its very different way, as sweet, subtle and wonderful as the ice-cream.

Overall, four and three quarter wonderful dishes out of six, is not bad, but the amuse-bouche were no more than a tiny cheesy biscuit and the limp cherry hiding in the petit fours was disappointingly slimy. The meal was touched with greatness, as it should be in any Michelin starred restaurant, but there were faults, too. Maybe we were unlucky on the day, but we have eaten better at this price elsewhere.

'Fine Dining' posts

Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)
The Cross, Kenilworth (& Kenilworth Castle) 2024