Description
PLEASE NOTE, our last copy is a bit bumped on the bottom of the spine, hence sale price
‘A succession of nameless wonders’ was how the 18th-century poet Thomas Gray described a journey down the River Wye. The Wye has long been celebrated as one of Britain’s most beautiful rivers. But the Wye is one of Britain’s longest rivers, with its source in the Cambrian Mountains of mid Wales, and it has a rich heritage that remains under-appreciated.
Many aspects of the river’s history have been forgotten, and this book makes an effort to recover and value them. The river has been an active player in events that have shaped the history of the region. It has been a mode of transport, carrying vessels down with the current and upriver with the tide, and once turned the waterwheels of industry. It was also the source of a once abundant supply of delicious and nutritious food, something that allowed early Christian hermits to settle beside it. Crossing the river has tested human ingenuity and inspired works of engineering, some of which like the old Chepstow road bridge and Chepstow railway bridge are landmarks in engineering history.
Having both a Welsh and an English heritage, the Wye has a special unifying role in British culture, as well as exhibiting some of the classic features of a border. The river has been a psychological barrier separating cultures by language, religion and politics, and a physical barrier separating hostile rivals. By tradition the Wye was the last refuge of Vortigern and of Owain Glyndwr, and down the river floated timber for building the ships that took on the French at Trafalgar. The landscape of the Wye valley is part of our national story.
Richard Hayman is an historian and archaeologist, author of several books on the history of Britain and the British landscape. Wye is a companion to his earlier book Severn (updated 2018), also published by Logaston Press.
Paperback | 272 pages | 242 x 171 mm | 2016
Colour illustrations
ISBN 978-1-910839-09-6
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