Dymock Poets Cottages Walk

There are a number of walks, varying in length, set between Dymock and Preston on the B4215. 

The Dymock Poets countryside covers an area from May Hill in the south to the Malvern Hills in the north, most famous for its wild daffodils, which once grew in profusion in the meadows and woods. Despite changes in farming practices there are still many places where wild daffodils can be seen in late March and early April. 

May Hill is wonderfully mysterious. The clump of Scots pine trees on top of what looks like an upside down soup plate make the hill a visible landmark from all over Gloucestershire and Herefordshire.

Shortly before the First World War, three poets – Lascelles Abercrombie, Wilfrid Gibson and Robert Frost – came to live near Dymock in Gloucestershire. Three poets visited them: Rupert Brooke, John Drinkwater , Edward Thomas and Eleanor Farjeon. All the cottages that the poets lived in are passed on various walks, but they are now private properties. Their move to Dymock was a conscious decision to work in and respond to the English countryside, to seek a literary idyll. They produced their own journal, New Numbers. At the encouragement of Frost, in particular, Edward Thomas turned from literary journalism, to become one of the great English poets of the century. Frost himself gained a new impetus, while Rupert Brooke found Dymock and its occupants a fixed artistic centre during his world-wide travelling.

Robert Frost and Edward Thomas walked May Hill, and Frost and his wife could see it from their cottage, Little Iddens, which we passed on our walk. They referred to it in letters home. And it’s on May Hill that Edward Thomas began writing Words.

Glyn Iddens temporary home of Eleanor Farjeon

Littel Iddens the 1914 home of the Frost Family

the village water supply

There is a permanent exhibition about the Dymock Poets in St Mary’s Church, put together by local people. March and April a dedicated team women provide tea and cakes for travellers and walkers.

Golden Triangle 2016

Know I've waxed a bit lyrical about the daffs this year but the conditions have been just right and the gardens and wood around Gloucester are carpeted in gold. Wild daffodils flower from February to early April in the UK and are blooming in the woods, meadows, hedgerows, gardens and some churchyards. In north Gloucestershire/South Herefordshire, many of the sites have been joined together by the creation of a circular walk called the Daffodil Way.

The Daffodil Weekend

Oxenhall

Oxenhall is a small village situated in the north of the district, renowned for its wild daffodils.  Every year Oxenhall is host to its annual Daffodil Weekend in March, taking in amazing woodland walks. The Dymock Woods site comprises Dymock Wood, Daw's coppice, Betty Daw's Wood and Colonel's Grove.

Betty Daw's Wood is a large ancient woodland best known for its spectacular show of wild daffodils but it also contains a wealth of other plants and animals such as the wild service tree, small-leaved lime and rare wood white butterfly.

Kempley

The village, apart from the Daffodil Way, is probably best known for the Kempley Tardis, a redundant telephone box, containing local information and walking maps of the area (one house in the village has a real Tardis!) 

St Mary's Church, Kempley has in its chancel "the most complete set of Romanesque frescos in northern Europe", some created as early as 1120. On the walls of the nave are further images, including a wheel of life, showing the life cycle of man. These are worked in tempera painted on dry lime mortar, unlike those in the chancel which are true frescoes. The Church has the oldest roof of any building in Britain, dating from 1120-1150 and has an unusually well-preserved interior.

The Church of St Edward built in 1903 was described by Betjeman as "a mini-cathedral of the Arts and Crafts movement", built from local materials and local labour. The church was planned by the Lord of the Manor and major landowner, William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp, because St Mary's was too far away from the main centres of population in the parish at Kempley Green and Fishpool, and liable to flooding. The walls of the church are in Forest of Dean red sandstone.

time for a well earned rest

before ending where we began the daffodil way, at Dymock. As last year we shared tea and cake with the owners of vintage Morgan V-twins.

Drama and Daffodils III

So to the last of the three Golden Triangle weekends, this time Dymock.

a great year for celandines too

Then off to Wales for the theatre, this time an audience with the incomparable Dylan Moran at the amazing Donald Gordon Theatre in the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

just an amazing stained wood interior

It was packed to the rafters. Moran's unique brand of humour left - very reminiscent of the early days of Billy Connelly -  you with aching sides. Have to say, though, on balance his Black Books side kick Bill Bailey has the edge on sheer versatility and vitality.

Also had time to peruse Cardiff Castle and its neighbouring park. Seems much of South Wales was colonised by the Earl of Bute and his cohorts bringing their own unique style of interior decorating to the area:

The Roman fort at Cardiff was probably established at the end of the 50s AD, on a strategic site that afforded easy access to the sea.

After the Norman conquest, the Castle’s keep was built, re-using the site of the Roman fort. The first keep on the motte, erected by Robert Fitzhamon, Norman Lord of Gloucester, was built of wood.

The Castle passed through the hands of many noble families until in 1766, it passed by marriage to the Bute family. The 2nd Marquess of Bute was responsible for turning Cardiff into an international coal exporting port. The Castle and Bute fortune passed to his son John, the 3rd Marquess of Bute, who by the 1860s was reputed to be the richest man in the world.

From 1866 the 3rd Marquess employed the genius architect William Burges to transform the Castle lodgings. Within gothic towers he created lavish and opulent interiors, rich with murals, stained glass, marble, gilding and elaborate wood carvings. 

The 3rd Marquess and Burges went on to create Castell Coch, which can be seen in the distance from the battlements of Cardiff Castle:

During the war reinforced battlement corridors were opened as air raid shelters holding almost 2,000 local residents.

Following the death of the 4th Marquess of Bute, the family decided to give the Castle and much of its parkland to the city of Cardiff. For 25 years, the Castle was home to the National College of Music and Drama.

Earl of Bute's country seat :)

There is a wonderful walk along the river in Bute Park which begins and ands at the wonderfully atmospheric Pettigrew Tea Rooms.