The beautiful British valley where tourism was invented

“Hell is other people,” a wise Frenchman once said. “Particularly tourists,” he didn’t add – but he might as well have done.

All over the world from the Canary Islands to Bali, people are rising up against the tourist masses that are making life unbearable for the locals. One place that still welcomes tourists, however, is the peaceful and achingly beautiful river valley where it all began.

The Wye Valley has it all. Gorgeous scenery, dramatic castles, romantic ruins, mysterious caves and monuments, historical towns, pretty villages – and blissfully few visitors.

In 1745, clergyman John Egerton, alive to the beauties around him, began taking his friends on boat trips down the Wye to Chepstow from his rectory at Ross-on-Wye. The trips became all the rage and eventually matured into Britain’s first organised tour, the Wye Tour, popularised by the Rev William Gilpin in Britain’s first tour guide, Observations on the River Wye, published in 1782. In it Gilpin encouraged the traveller to see “the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty”, thus introducing us all to the “picturesque”.

Pope, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Thackeray, Turner and countless other artists and poets have since done as he suggested. And so can you.

Ross-on-Wye, the starting point of the tour, is a handsome market town of narrow cobbled streets perched on a steep bank above the river. At its heart, a large 17th-century stone market house stands on open arches between black and white buildings, while nearby St Mary’s Church boasts the tallest spire in Herefordshire, 205ft high, a notable landmark for miles around. Beside the church, the Prospect Garden commands tantalising views across a horseshoe bend of the river with the Welsh mountains as a distant backdrop. Seen from the Wye, Ross and its slender church spire framed by hills is one of the great iconic vistas of England.

Across the river, spanned here by a sturdy Elizabethan bridge, lie the substantial ruins of Wilton, a Norman castle destroyed by Royalists in the Civil War and now privately owned.

A few miles downstream, standing solitary on a mound among green fields, Goodrich Castle (run by English Heritage) is one of the best preserved of the Marcher castles built by the Normans to guard against the Welsh. The ford which the castle was built to defend is now crossed by Kerne Bridge and from here the river winds sinuously through deep wooded valleys around a series of oxbow bends that bring it almost back to Goodrich until it reaches the famous beauty spot of Symonds Yat.

Symonds Yat West and Ye Old Ferrie Inn of 1473 come first, while half a mile downstream is the Saracens Head in Symonds Yat East. Both establishments have hand-pulled ferries carrying foot passengers to and from the opposite bank. Such ferries are believed to have been operated since pre-Roman times to transport men and livestock across the river.

From the Saracens Head a steep footpath leads up to Symonds Yat Rock, 1,650ft high and blessed with another of England’s great views, seen in films such as Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and an excellent place from which to watch peregrine falcons, buzzards, ospreys and kestrels.

Just below the Saracens Head is a series of man-made rapids which would not have been there to trouble our 18th-century tourists but today provide an exciting white-water experience for canoeists and kayakers.

The next point of interest is Biblins Rope Bridge, popular with ramblers, that spans the international border between England and Wales, From here, the border cuts south to near Monmouth and then follows the Wye down to Chepstow.

The river now comes into view from the wooded hill country, and just before arriving at Monmouth passes by the frequently flooded Norman church of St Peter, its quaint stone spire peeping above the willows

The 840ft Kymin Hill overlooks Monmouth and is topped by a Naval Temple built to commemorate Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Nelson himself visited the temple in 1802 and afterwards dined in the Round House next door, a whimsical castellated building put up in 1794 as somewhere for local gentlemen to picnic and enjoy the view.

Pleasant Monmouth rather turns its back on the Wye and instead the main street climbs gently uphill from a tributary, the River Monnow, guarded by the mighty 13th-century Monnow Bridge with its towering gatehouse, Britain’s only surviving fortified bridge. Colourful market stalls, Georgian shop fronts and medieval coaching inns line the streets, while the spire of St Mary’s Priory Church at the top of the town marks the site of the priory where, in around 1135, Geoffrey of Monmouth is said to have written his epic History of the Kings of Britain, in which he introduces us to King Lear, King Arthur and the wizard Merlin.

A later warrior king, Henry V, looks down from his pedestal on the front of Shire Hall in Agincourt Square, towards the remains of the castle where he was born in 1386. Below the king stands a statue of another Monmouth hero, aviator and motoring pioneer Charles Rolls, the co-founder of Rolls-Royce and the first Briton to be killed in a flying accident. His ancestral home, the Hendre, lies a few miles to the west.

Downstream from Monmouth stands the jewel of the Wye Tour, the hauntingly romantic ruin of Tintern Abbey, framed against the wooded hills and rhapsodised by Wordsworth and Tennyson. The abbey was begun by Cistercian monks in the 12th century and added to in the 14th century before being abandoned during the dissolution of the monasteries, leaving what many see as the loveliest ruin in the land.

A couple of miles south, on the Welsh bank, is Wyndcliff Wood, through which climb 365 steps to a spectacular viewpoint known as Eagle’s Nest. From here you can see across the Wye to the Severn Bridge and beyond to the Cotswolds and the Mendips.

Finally, where the Wye meets the Severn estuary, lies Chepstow and the end of the tour. Chepstow, at the southern end of Offa’s Dyke, is home to the oldest stone castle in Britain, built by William the Conqueror’s cousin William FitzOsbern in 1067. The remains of the castle, standing on a high bluff above the Wye, are magnificent and best seen from the graceful Old Wye Bridge. Constructed in 1816 from a design by John Rennie, it is one of the oldest and largest iron arch road bridges in the world.

Meanwhile, Chepstow’s long high street, accessed through the narrow 13th-century Town Gate, slopes sleepily down towards the river among Tudor and Georgian inns and shops and houses.

As the Rev William Gilpin said: “If you have never navigated the Wye, you have seen nothing.”

How to do it

While all the attractions of the Wye Tour can be reached by car and on foot, the best way to experience the Wye Valley is from the river. Canoes, kayaks and other boats can be hired for half-day trips or longer from Ross-on-Wye Canoe Hire and Symonds Yat Canoe Hire.

Where to stay

The Royal Hotel, Ross-on-Wye, is an excellent place to spend the night before setting off: a comfortable, olde-worlde, dog-friendly hotel that offers glorious views over the Wye Valley, hinting at the delights to come.