Attractions and Places To See around Welsh Newton - Top 20

Monmouth is a charming historic market town that sits right on the confluence of Rivers Wye and Monnow. It's noted for its 13th-century gated bridge and being the birthplace of Henry V. The River Wye separates the town of Monmouth to the east from Wyesham to the west and provides a scenic wonderland for many river activities. I have finished many a DOE gold award canoe trip at this point.

Intermediate to advance ride, moderate fitness level. Some steep climbs but great fun. Can get really busy with visitors on the weekend, so arrive early. Beautiful, serene, thrilling in places, really great fun. I found the 2nd half of the ride the most enjoyable, with rollers, loads of berms, and switchbacks. Honestly a great locations, lots of different levels of trail to try after you finish on this one.

The Verderer blue run needs decent fitness & moderate skill level, we hired EMTB’s from “Wye Bikes” so was easy on the inclines. We picked up the last part of the red which was technical, narrow & the tight turns made it more challenging on a heavy emtb , Canop is a great place , food avail £8.50 for a burrito so expensive

Great viewpoint gor the river Wye and Goodrich castle.

It was a very nice and enjoyable walk good if you don't like very hill walks. when we got to the caves we decided to take another footpath that said it was quicker and because it was raining and the path was next to a cliff face we were stuck for like half an hour until we found a dirt road that lead down the hill . other than that good walk and cool bridge

Quite a local landmark hereabouts, especially if you are on the river. An ancient crossing point that has been about in one way or another since roman times. An important bridge connection on the Wye that at one stage was tolled. Failure to pay the toll made you liable to a £5 fine. Some things have never changed!

Just to the side of the bridge are some basic bike tools and track pump

Kerne Bridge was built over the River Wye in the County of Herefordshire, England in 1825–28, on the site of an ancient ford crossing known as Flanesford. It is designated as a Scheduled Monument. Carrying the B4229 road, it connects the parishes of Walford on the river's left bank and Goodrich on the right. It is situated in the heart of the Wye Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and marks the northern end of the Upper Wye Gorge. Kerne Bridge was built on the site of a Pre-Roman ford across the River Wye. This ancient crossing came to be known as Flanesford long before 1346 when the first stone of Flanesford Priory was laid nearby "in loco Flanesford vulgariter nuncupato" (in the place commonly called Flanesford). The origins of the name Flanesford are obscure. It has been suggested that it was derived from an English-Welsh conjunction, the Welsh llan (church or enclosure) joined to the English ford, or possibly the Welsh ffordd (way) but it is more likely the prefix is the Old English flanes from flan (arrow). On the Forest of Dean side of the ford, on the left bank, a primitive manually-operated mill for grinding corn came to be established. This type of mill was known in Old English as a cweorn. The presence of the mill gave the name - The Cweorn - to the small settlement which became established there. Over time the spelling of the name of the settlement was simplified to The Quern. Records show that it was still known that way until at least 1815, but by the mid-1820s spelling simplification had further altered its name to The Kerne. Flanesford became an increasingly crucial river crossing for trade and the delivery of commodities from the Forest of Dean to the city of Hereford and south Herefordshire generally. Of most importance was the transport of iron from the Bishopswood ironworks on the left bank of the Wye just downstream from Flanesford, and of coal from the collieries of the Forest of Dean (particularly as the fast-growing population and industry of Hereford required increasing amounts of coal). As well as iron and coal the 18th and 19th centuries saw a steady growth in south Herefordshire "in the numbers of wagons and carts drawn by horses or oxen. Daily commodities of stone, brick, timber, poles, lathes, lime, ... corn, hay and manure were conveyed.". The ford, however, could only be used when the river was not in flood. While travellers on foot deemed it acceptable to wade across up to armpit depth and horses could be taken across up to chest height the river had a tendency to flood extremely quickly following poor weather upstream, which writers of the early nineteenth century wrote gave the river "a force which defies all the ordinary means of resistance and control". When Flanesford and other fords nearby were unusable, and the local ferries capable of carrying animals were unable to sail, the only alternatives for road transport were the bridges upstream at Wilton, near Ross-on-Wye, and downstream at Monmouth (Trefynwy). They were 21 river-miles apart and because of the poor roads and the mileage involved, diversions via the bridges were long, time-consuming and expensive. An alternative means of transport - using barges on the river - was equally unfeasible at times of flood, or in dry summer when the river bed was "barely covered with the stream". The 35-miles distance to Hereford by the river was also two-thirds further than by road. A further obstruction to trade was that the roads in Herefordshire were historically in a neglected and wretched condition. One Herefordshire historian has described the roads in the county as "impenetrable and impassable, churned into mud by horses hooves and deeply rutted by wheeled vehicles". Though the county's roads were being steadily improved after the mid-eighteenth century by the introduction of turnpike trusts, in 1825 the first few miles of parish roads from Flanesford towards Hereford remained in an appalling state. Source: Wikipedia