Off to Wales

We left Wokingham and headed to Chepstow, just over the border from England into South Wales. The drive was easy, straight along the M4 motorway with good weather, which meant no rain.

Chepstow is just over this bridge, one of two that cross the River Severn at this point.

Chepstow is a small, walled market town.  We really liked the feel of it. On its outskirts is a very large castle, the oldest Norman castle in Britain with work starting only one year after the Norman conquest in 1066.

Part of the town's old walls.

Walking along a path toward the castle entrance gives some idea of it's size.

A photo that gives some idea of the castle size, it is really big! It is hard to imagine the scale of the effort to build this structure a thousand years ago.

This large section had several stories when built. You can see the pocket holes in the walls where floor beams must have been.

Another attempt to give some idea of scale.

This was the wine cellar, it would work very well today. Hard to imagine this full of wine flasks.

Views down to the river which also afforded protection from attack in that direction.

Spiral stone stairs up to the battlements, life in a castle such as this is hard to imagine.

I would just love to have seen this place in it's early glory.

This is the base of what must have been a highly decorated arch that can also be seen in the photo of the large room above. Apparently this section of the castle was three stories high.

We stayed in a B&B just outside of town and this was the scene we could see from our room.

All of the grass was chopped up and blown into the trailer pulled by the second tractor. It was quite an operation and the field was cleared in an afternoon. We noticed other farms doing this and wondered how the chopped grass was used, maybe for silage.

We say goodbye to Chepstow and head further west toward Pembrokeshire.
Stay tuned.