More About the River Wye
With Stella & Rose’s Bookshop sitting on the banks of the River Wye it’s natural that it holds a fascination for us. With the river being tidal from its junction with the River Severn, for about 15 miles to Brockweir the next village upriver from Tintern, the vista is constantly changing.
The valley of the River Wye has some of the most breathtaking landscapes in the UK. In fact, Tintern, where our shop is located, has been referred to as “Little Switzerland” due to the dramatic scenery surrounding the village. Being an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (ANOB) and a Site of Special Scientific Interest, (SSSI) and thus protected, the Wye Valley and Tintern offers much to lovers of wildlife, hiking and, of course, books!
The river itself is approximately 150 miles (250 kilometres) long and straddles the borders of England and Wales. The area has not always been so beautiful – in the 17th century hundreds of people were employed in the wireworks industry, the largest industrial enterprise in Wales. The blast furnace was operated day and night and by the 19th century there were 22 waterwheels along the Angiddy river which runs into the Wye and one massive waterwheel which stood on the river bank in Tintern. Today just one remains. It has been lovingly restored and can be seen at the Abbey Mill in Tintern.
Early records of transport on the Wye are scarce but it seems that the river was used to carry iron from the Forest of Dean as early as the 11th century and, certainly by the 13th century, iron was being transported from multiple forges along the river, including Bicknor, Lydbrook and Monmouth. Navigation was made difficult by the presence of weirs which provided waterpower for the mills and forges. Various schemes to improve navigation were proposed and abandoned as too costly. Eventually in 1695 the Rivers Wye and Lugg Navigation Act came into force which allowed for the purchase and removal of all mills, locks and weirs on the two rivers.
By the start of the 19th century the flat-bottomed cargo boats or trows were being hauled by gangs of men, as many at times as ten or eleven. But men were in short supply so eventually 37 miles of towing path for horses was constructed which ran from Lydbrook to Hereford. Goods that were transported on the river included coal, iron, timber, lime, stone, cider and corn. By the end of the 19th century the quarrying of limestone was so great that, for a time, the trows had to be aided by tugs hauling convoys of barges.
The 18th century also saw the birth of tourism with The Wye Tour being the first organised tour in Britain. It consisted of a boat tour down the River Wye from Ross-on-Wye in the north to Chepstow in the south. Once William Gilpin’s book “Observations on the River Wye” was published in 1782, demand for boat trips down the valley grew so much that by 1808 there were eight boats taking visitors on trips through the picturesque Wye valley.
Nowadays there is very little traffic on the river in Tintern – the occasional small boat or water-skier who comes up on the incoming tide. However, in recent years I was amazed to look out of the window and see a huge narrowboat moored up on the river. This turned out to be the Wye Invader Two, the first narrowboat ever to make the journey from Chepstow up the River Wye to Monmouth. The original Wye Invader, a 38 metre Dutch barge constructed in 1930, had previously made the seemingly impossible 75-mile journey up the Wye to Hereford, in 1989. Navigating several tight and well-known bridges, as well as the famous Symonds Yat Rapids, due to the low river levels that year the actual journey of 20 hours was spread over a period of six months!
I hope you have enjoyed this potted history of transport on the Wye. Information was gleaned from ‘Chepstow Packets’ and ‘The Port of Chepstow’, both by Ivor Waters, Wikipedia and The Wye Invader website www.wyeinvader.uk.
Contributed by Chris
(Published on 1st Mar 2025)
