Distance: 8 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: medium
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Walk along the Upper River Wye Valley Gorge from Goodrich famed for its castle, via Symonds Yat East and The Biblins, to the historic Welsh market town of Monmouth.
The Story
Route Notes
Getting Back
Once Midlands, Now Welsh
Monmouth is a Welsh town that once sat within the English Midlands.
Up until local government reforms in the 1970s, when Monmouthshire, the wider county for which Monmouth is the historic county town, was emphatically declared Welsh, the area had an ambiguous status between England and Wales. Much like the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed’s historic relationship with England and Scotland.
Monmouth however, situated as it is where the River Monnow joins the Wye (hence the name) in contrast to more westerly parts of Monmouthshire, was English at the time of the Domesday Book, having then comprised part of Herefordshire. It is noted, for instance in Tom Bullough’s recent book Sarn Helen: A Journey Through Wales, Past, Present and Future, that the cultural, and therefore often the political boundaries between Wales and England have been quite porous. Famously as recently as the 18th Century parts of Herefordshire and Shropshire remained Welsh speaking, while communities further west had been anglophone since various points in the middle ages.
Monmouth is therefore fittingly a bit a blend between the two nations. Its castle, still partially standing and relatively unusually still in military use, comprising a regimental headquarters, was where the future English King Henry V was born in the late 14th Century. It was Henry V who commanded the victorious English army at Agincourt in 1415. Other aspects of the town feel more Welsh, like the prominently sited branch of the Principality Building Society, and the plethora of daffodils in buttonholes encountered along the high street on St. David’s Day.
In 2003 the Council for British Archeology declared Monmouth on the UK’s most historic towns, and amongst the richest archaeologically. This is evident above as well as below ground, in striking structures like the incredibly well preserved, now pedestrianised Monnow Bridge, to the south of the town centre, an unusual surviving medieval bridge, and a symbol of Monmouth. At the other end of the town centre, down a narrow road, closed to cars, between the main square where the county hall stands, and the town’s parish church, lies the Savoy Cinema. This amazing one screen survival is known to be the oldest cinema in Wales.
Not that Monmouth is entirely stuck in the past. These days it is a thriving centre on the lower reaches of the River Wye, home to around 10,500 people. A population swollen for much of the year by the presence of a large public school dating back to the early 17th Century. The town sits amongst the short stubby, heavily wooded, hills of the Wye Valley, just south of the Upper Wye Gorge. A deep sided river cutting famed for its beauty and striking resemblance to the Bodetal and Elbe Gorges in central Germany. A suggestion that Monmouth’s international air extends beyond its mixed English and Welsh history.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the gpx. from Dropbox
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This walk to Monmouth, via Symonds Yat and along the Upper Wye Gorge, begins from Goodrich.
Alighting the bus in central Goodrich, turn left heading away from the driveway up towards the famous castle and in the direction of the village’s primary school.
Before reaching the school, turn right and pick up a footpath running up towards Goodrich’s village church.
Having crossed the churchyard you pick up a green lane running away from the southern edge of the village and out onto a steadily descending footpath running down towards the River Wye.
Before you reach the river you cross a busy main road, and then taking care, because there are plenty of tight bends and fast moving cars, pick up the lane running across the Wye plain towards Symonds Yat East.
You cross the Wye by means of a road bridge across part of one of the meandering bends which characterise this part of the Wye’s course.
On the far side continuing along the lane, you approach the short, steep, heavily wooded hill, partly comprised on exposed limestone and sandstone, upon which stands Symonds Yat Rock.
Entering the woodland at the base of the hill you continue along the road, descending towards the banks of the River Wye at the junction where the road forks, one fork running uphill towards Symonds Yat Rock, the other heading towards Symonds Yat East village.
Once beside the River Wye the road runs straight along the imposing gorge towards Symonds Yat East. The much larger, but more residential village of Symonds Yat West, rises steeply up the banks on the opposite side of the gorge.
Upon reaching Symonds Yat East, which to my mind has a decidedly central European feel, something accentuated by the wooded sandstone river gorge it sits within, continue straight along the road.
At the bottom of the village you cross a car park constructed on the site of Symonds Yat’s former railway station. In the mid-19th Century a railway was constructed between Monmouth and Ross-on-Wye which ran along the base of the Upper Wye Gorge, so as to easily traverse the area’s hilly terrain. The railway endured until 1959, when passenger services were withdrawn, and 1965 when it was closed entirely. As was often the case with routes like this in rural areas of significant natural beauty the line was constructed to serve industrial users, in the case of the Wye Valley, timber companies, mining and quarry operations and ironworks, but rapidly came to be used by tourists as the 19th Century progressed.
The former station site stands at the top of a section of the Wye, altered to benefit canoe users, known as Symonds Yat Rapids where the river foams and looks very choppy. Beyond the station you start walking along the trackbed of the former railway line, now converted into a cycling and walking path.
This stretch of the route, around three miles long, is amongst the most beautiful, comprising a dramatic, fairly narrow, very heavily wooded, stretch of the Upper Wye Gorge.
Presently as you walk along the trackbed of the former railway you reach The Bibbins, where there are a couple of cafes and an outwards bound centre, in central European looking buildings on the far side of the river. They are linked by an impressive rope suspension bridge structure, first constructed by the Forestry Commission in the late 1950s, and maintained ever since.
Past The Bibbins you continue along the former railway path, through a dramatic section of the gorge.
Eventually, now well over halfway through the walk, you emerge from the gorge into the hilly countryside surrounding Monmouth.
Here, opposite a large estate at Wyastone Leys, the path runs away from the river across a relatively flat chunk of land, past a couple of outlying houses.
Soon you reach a place where the former trackbed was converted into a road. You follow the road for a mile or so, now close to the Wye once more, nearing the industrial estates on the edge of Monmouth.
Reaching the busy A466, which runs across the Wye into Monmouth town centre, you turn right, and head over a road bridge across the river for the second time on the journey. Ahead of you the centre of Monmouth, dominated by the imposing edifices of its public school, who have extensive sports fields on the banks of the Wye, is near at hand.
On the far side of the river an underpass takes you beneath the A40, which semi-morphs into the M50 just north of Ross-on-Wye, and into the town centre.
From there continue to Agincourt Square in the very heart of the town, which is named after the most famous English victory in the Hundred Years Wars presided over by King Henry V, who was born in Monmouth Castle during the late 14th Century. On the way you walk past the Savoy Cinema, Wales’ oldest. From Agincourt Square to reach the notable Monnow Bridge turn left and walk down Monmouth High Street.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
At the time of writing in March 2025 Monmouth was served by numerous bus routes especially running south to places like Newport and Chepstow, which are served by the national rail network. There are also services running north to Abagerveny, Hereford, and back to Ross-on-Wye. Abagerveny and Hereford both have rail connections east into the Midlands as well as towards northern England and Wales. At the time of writing these services ran every two or three hours throughout the day into the evenings, on weekdays and Saturdays. Many services did not run on Sundays. So be sure to check current timetables and route availability before setting out.