{"id":17315,"date":"2016-08-31T10:30:45","date_gmt":"2016-08-31T09:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=17315"},"modified":"2016-08-31T02:10:31","modified_gmt":"2016-08-31T01:10:31","slug":"tintern-massive-flabby-fish-and-a-big-gun-a-quick-look-around-chepstow-south-wales-in-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/tintern-massive-flabby-fish-and-a-big-gun-a-quick-look-around-chepstow-south-wales-in-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Tintern Massive, flabby fish and a big gun: A quick look around Chepstow, South Wales: in photos"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

En route to the lovely Green Gathering<\/a>\u00a0festival earlier this month, there was time to take a short walk around Chepstow\u00a0in Monmouthshire, Wales, a small town (pop: 12,300) adjoining the border with Gloucestershire, England.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Chepstow is popular with tourists, being a convenient springboard for trips up the glorious Wye Valley, an\u00a0Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and an internationally important protected landscape, straddling the border between England and Wales.<\/p>\n

\"Tintern<\/p>\n

One of the most dramatic and scenic landscape areas in southern Britain, it was once served by the Wye Valley Railway<\/a>, which crisscrossed the River Wye several times on its way\u00a0to Monmouth (above: Railway promotional poster, 1930).<\/p>\n

Sadly, the\u00a0line closed to passengers in 1959 with the tracks being ripped up in 1964, although the former station at Tintern has been restored<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

In the town’s main square can be found this naval gun from the German submarine SM UB-91, which stands as a memorial to\u00a0William Charles Williams VC<\/a> (15 September 1880 \u2013 25 April 1915), a Chepstow-raised\u00a0recipient of the prestigious Victoria Cross.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Looking down the High Street, towards the River Wye.<\/p>\n

Up the hill in the opposite direction is\u00a0Chepstow Castle, which is often cited as the oldest surviving stone castle in Britain.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

War memorial.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The\u00a0local vicar, the Rev. Edward Davies, bigged up the area in his 1786 poem, claiming that,”No better cider does the world supply,\u00a0Than grows along thy borders, gentle Wye.”<\/p>\n

This, along with other triumphant couplets, can be found etched into the stone walls along the High Street.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

“A Chepstow\u2019s salmon\u2019s worth his weight in gold, Unlike the flabby fish in London sold,” insisted the vicar.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

This is a wonderful touch: on the pavements outside businesses on the High Street can be found these plaques listing the shop’s former occupants.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Formerly the junction station for the Wye Valley Railway to Monmouth Troy Station,\u00a0the attractive single-storey buildings of Chepstow station are stone and timber-built structures, built in an Italianate style, and completed in 1850 for Brunel’s South Wales Railway.<\/p>\n

\"Chepstow<\/p>\n

The station’s\u00a0cast-iron footbridge is a now-rare survival of a typical GWR iron pattern, still with its wooden cladding and canopy, and is Grade II listed.\u00a0It was cast in Edward Finch’s ironworks, adjoining the station.<\/p>\n

More Wales photos here<\/a>.
\nChat about Wales here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

En route to the lovely Green Gathering\u00a0festival earlier this month, there was time to take a short walk around Chepstow\u00a0in Monmouthshire, Wales, a small town (pop: 12,300) adjoining the border … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17,193,90,198,16],"tags":[199,1483,1475,60,1482,1200,207,1194],"class_list":["post-17315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photos","category-places","category-railways","category-wales-places","category-wales","tag-architecture","tag-border-town","tag-chepstow","tag-history","tag-momouthshire","tag-railways","tag-station","tag-wales"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/chepstow-wales-photos-01-1.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-4vh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17315"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17323,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17315\/revisions\/17323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}