Situated between Hereford and Hay-on-Wye, Lower House Barn is the perfect place for friends or…
Merbach Hill: a climb to the top
4.75 miles (7.7kms)
About the walk
A truly idyllic and peaceful setting at the foot of Merbach Hill and in the valley of the River Wye, Bredwardine offers a get-away-from-it-all destination.
On the banks of the River Wye, across the water from the village of Bredwardine, sit the Victorian terraced gardens of Brobury House. Originally laid out in the 1880s, when the house was built, the formal gardens offer panoramic views of the beautiful surrounding countryside.
Most of the trees within the garden were a part of the original design although subsequent owners have enhanced these plantings with striking features such as the stand of Paper Birches.
It is the present owners Keith and Pru Cartwright, however, who have embarked on an ambitious programme of restoration since 2001 in conjunction with garden designer Peter Antonius. Water is a recurring theme, complementing the riverside setting. Three formal water features have been introduced within the original terraces including a Lutyens inspired pool. A bog garden is well established with a feeder stream in woodland leading to the watermeadow. Elsewhere borders are alive with colour all year round with magnolia trees, wisteria, rhododendrons and dahlias.
From the grounds you can look across the valley to the Regency-style Bredwardine Vicarage, where the Reverend Francis Kilvert, the Victorian diarist, lived and is buried. Brobury House is built on the old vegetable garden of the vicarage and Kilvert is said to have planted the Mulberry tree that graces the top lawn. The eight-acre gardens are open to the public all year.
One mile south of Bredwardine is Moccas Park, a National Nature Reserve managed by Natural England. It is one of the largest and most diverse examples of wood pasture remaining in Britain. The ancient area of wood pasture was enclosed in Norman times and was subsequently transformed into a designed landscape park in the 17th century. There continues to be a managed herd of fallow deer in the park today.
It’s not just deer that inhabit the Park, which is unfortunately not open to the public, but over 200 species of lichen have been recorded and some are very rare. The reserve also has considerable importance for invertebrate groups with 1000 species of fly recorded there. Thirteen bat species are present as is the polecat, once thought to be extinct in England.
Walk directions
Take the steep lane right from the pub. Continue 500yds (458m), turning right along a bridleway track past a cottage. At a sharp right bend, go forward through a field gate. Climb beside the left hedge to find a small gate. In the adjoining field, climb across the slope of the hill, passing through a broad gap in the end hedge. Keep the same line, shortly intersecting a gravel track from Benfield Farm by a telegraph post. Follow it to the right.
Approaching Woolla Farm, watch for a path branching off left. Rising into the woodland fringe, skirt the farm to rejoin the track. Carry on uphill to a gate. Ignore the crossing track beyond and climb to a small gate beside corrugated barns. Keep going by the right boundary, then along a short track to continue with the hedge now on your left. Later crossing a stile onto bracken common, walk forwards a few paces before turning right to another crosspath. By a plaque explaining Merbach Hill Common to the left, a bridlepath cuts through the bracken and scrub. Ignore a later path off right and then, at a three-way split, take the middle branch. A final pull leads to the hilltop trig column. The view is superb. To the north beyond the Wye Valley is distant Hergest Ridge, and to the southwest Hay Bluff and the Black Mountains. Below your feet lies the Golden Valley.
Walk forward past the trig column and swing left above the edge. Carry on towards a wicket gate that soon appears at the far side of the common. Keep ahead across open grazing above a fringe of scrub, the trod later curving left above a boundary. Eventually, join a track rising from Golden View to leave on to the bend of a lane.
Turn left and follow the lane for 0.6 miles (1km). At Hollybush Cottage turn right signposted a bridleway and then left in a few paces through a gate on a footpath. Follow the stream across three fields, crossing a small spring at the third and pass through a small wooden gate by a large hazel bush to pass by the garden and house of Pystil Gwm. Turn left and follow the lane down, up and round, back to Bredwardi
Additional information
Minor lanes, good tracks, meadows
Hills and livestock meadows with very attractive hill views
On lead across farmland (many fields potentially with sheep), but some freedom on the Common
OS Explorer 201 Knighton & Presteigne or OS Explorer OL13 Brecon Beacons National Park
Roadside parking in Bredwardine
None on route
WALKING IN SAFETY
Read our tips to look after yourself and the environment when following this walk.
Find out more
Also in the area
About the area
Discover Herefordshire
Herefordshire is split in two by the River Wye which meanders through the county on its way to the Severn and the sea. Largely rural, with Hereford, Leominster, and Ross-on-Wye the major towns and cities, its countryside and ancient villages are the county’s major asset.
Visitors can take advantage of a number of the trails which will guide them through areas of interest. Those especially interested in historic village life should try the Black and White Village Trail, which takes motorists on a 40-mile drive around timber-framed villages from Leominster to Weobley (established in the 17th century and known as a centre of witchcraft in the 18th), Eardisley (where the church boasts a 12th-century carved font), Kington, Pembridge and others. Other trails include the Mortimer Trail, the Hop Trail and the Hidden Highway, which goes from Ross-on-Wye to Chester. Hereford has a small Norman cathedral, which has a great forest of pink sandstone columns lining the nave. Inside is a chained library, a 13th-century Mappa Mundi (map of the world) and one of only four copies of the 1217 version of the Magna Carta.
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