This walk visits all three, but begins in the town of Magor, which looks out over the Caldicot Level to the sparkling blue expanse of the Bristol Channel. Near the start is the ruined Procurator's House. The Procurator — a wealthy priest well versed in law — presided here some 600 years ago over a court that settled local disputes, rates of pay, and boundaries, as well as collecting rents and taxes on behalf of the Church of Rome (the grandeur of his house shows he was well rewarded).
Behind the ruins of the Procurator's House is St Mary's parish church, founded in the 7th century by St Cadwalader. A new church with a central tower and elaborate nave arcades adorned with 28 spirited angels was built in the 13th century, and the ivy-clad remains of a late medieval priory can be seen on the north-west side of the churchyard.
In the centre of Magor's pretty village square, enclosed by colourful washed buildings, is a huge war memorial featuring a handsome bronze medallion with a portrait of Lord Rhondda, the Welsh mine owner and Liberal politician. During World War I he was sent to the USA to negotiate the supply of munitions, and his success there earned him a peerage. On his death in 1918, his daughter Margaret Haig Thomas (who had been arrested for suffragette activities) endeavoured to take her seat in the House of Lords as Viscountess Rhondda, though she was only prevented from doing so after protracted legal proceedings.
As you cross an open field, Wilcrick Hill Iron Age Fort rises beyond the M4 motorway to your left, while away to your right is Upper Grange Farm, which was once owned by the monks of Tintern Abbey.
Pen Coed Castle was once the stronghold of a Norman knight, Sir Richard de la More, though the majority of the buildings seen today date from the reign of Henry VIII. In the early 1900s it was part of the vast Herrick Estates of Leicester; Sophie Perry-Herrick, the Lady of the Manor, was a staunch teetotaller who closed many of the pubs in Magor (including the Red House, Half Moon, Bell Inn, and Rock and Fountain). Following her death in 1915, the castle became the property of Lord Rhondda, who was responsible for the modern extensions completed in 1920.
Today Pen Coed is abandoned — not yet beyond reprieve, but quietly crumbling with each passing year. Himalayan balsam, red campion, and wall pennywort colonise fissures in the paved courtyard, and jackdaws tumble in exuberant aerobatics between the decaying embattlements of its once-mighty towers, leaving the broken outlines of the castle and its ruined Tudor dovecote as an evocative sight.
Coed Wen, a semi-natural wood managed as a nature reserve, stretches out along the slopes of a dry limestone valley. Coppicing has been reintroduced to encourage indigenous ash, field maple, wild cherry, and wych elm. Mighty oaks, limes, and yews form a dense canopy over a woodland floor carpeted with enchanter's nightshade, bluebells, dog's mercury, and wood anemones, as well as less common species such as Tintern spurge, wild daffodil, green helleborine, lesser periwinkle, and bird's-nest orchid (all indicators of ancient woodland).
The path winds uphill onto rich farmland where, on warm summer days, ripening ears of wheat whisper in the breeze and a swaying field full of pale blue flax makes a truly unforgettable sight.
Penhow Castle and its church stand on the brow of a hill. In the early 12th century, most of Wales was controlled by local princes, and the town of Chepstow was a rare Norman stronghold defended by a surrounding ring of knights' castles. In 1129 Henry I entitled one of these knights, Roger de St Maur, to seize Penhow Castle from its native prince as a reward for his help in suppressing the Welsh. The St Maur (or Seymour) line prospered and became one of the most noble families in the land, making their home at Penhow for around 400 years.
In the early 18th century the castle declined into a rather grandiose farmhouse owned by absentee landlords, and its fortunes fell further until by 1966 it was virtually derelict (the impressive spiral staircase, magnificent lower hall, and Norman tower were little more than filth-encrusted chicken runs, granaries, and apple stores). In that year, writer and film director Stephen Weeks bought Penhow and set about gradually restoring it, employing carpentry and masonry skills of past centuries in a painstaking attempt to recreate the castle's authentic original atmosphere.
During Stephen Weeks' tenure, the castle was open to the public while also serving as his residence. Sold in 2002 and reverting to a private home, Penhow is frequently claimed to be the oldest continuously inhabited castle in Wales.
The Church of Penhow was founded by the Normans and rebuilt in 1914, though the tower still bears its distinctive arrow loops — an effective rearguard defence if the castle was under attack. An inscribed tombstone in the porch commemorates one Elizabeth Tamplin, who died in 1783 at the remarkable age of 111, while inside an unusual stone chancel screen was recut earlier in the 20th century, and the columns on the south aisle still bear the marks of 18th-century box pews whose high sides helped keep out the worst of the draughts.
Down the quiet lane at the heart of St Bride's Valley is a lonely parish church built in the 1800s but with a history dating back to the early 10th century. The inscribed Angelus bell is dedicated to St Bridget (whose many miracles reportedly included changing stones into honey, ashes into butter, and the Lord Mayor of London into a horse!).
The graveyard is all a country churchyard should be, its timeworn yews once having furnished longbows to the archers of the South Wales Borderers who fought in English armies against the French at Crécy, Poitiers, and Agincourt, as well as against the Scots.
A few grassy tumps in an adjacent field are all that remain of the once-prosperous medieval village of St Bride's Netherwent. The distinct mounds of houses congregate along a central hollow that marks the sunken village's main street; nobody knows for certain how the community was wiped out, though it may have happened as early as the mid-14th century when the Black Death swept through Europe.
Further down the lane on the way back to Magor you pass Salisbury Farm, a 17th-century building away to your right.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
