Offa’s Dyke Path – Montgomery – Buttington Bridge Walk – 18.06.2011

If you are wondering how I managed to have any photos on my any of blogs after my bold declaration in my last post of “I have lost all my photos forever” Someone had kindly lent me there camera so I had a spare one with me 🙂 how wonderful!

We started out from the Bed & Breakfast which was in fact not very far from the path at all – which was lovely.  It was nice to know that today’s walk was not going to tackle as many hills as the day before.   Although I let out a sigh of relief at this piece of knowledge we did have to tackle a hill straight way!  We took it slowly and although at one point the path did seem a little steep to climb it was worth it for the view.

From 2011 – 18.06.2011 – Offas Dyke Path – Montgomery – Buttington Bridge Walk

As we descended the hill,  we were able to rejoin the dyke that we had left behind. As there was no path along the part of the actual dyke that we were unable to walk I have since found out there is a nice example of a “Castle Mound” to be found!

As we continued on, we eventually ended up walking at the end of peoples gardens. It must be really odd, or nice depending how you look at it, to have an 8th Century Monument at the bottom of your garden! Leaving the gardens behind, we were essentially on the ascent again.

Intriguingly, Offa’s Dyke also follows the course of an old Roman Road. This was part of the Roman Road which ran from Wroxeter (Viroconium) to Forden Gear. This was a very important road connecting Central Wales, leading out to the Estuary and the Coastal Fort’s. The part of the road we were walking today was the “Westbury to Forden Gaer” section, which lies along the ridgeway of the Long Mountain, descending into Forden (the village which we had just passed) the road which was then later taken over by Offa’s Dyke.

We were then entering a strange piece of woodland. Why strange? Well we found these very strange stone walls that didn’t seem to be there for no particular reason. At first glance to me I wondered if they something to do with an old railway? I did try to convince myself that the path was the correct size for a trackbed! I was wrong of course as it has nothing to do with railways! In fact this is actually known as “Offa’s Pool”.

From 2011 – 18.06.2011 – Offas Dyke Path – Montgomery – Buttington Bridge Walk

“Offa’s Pool” was built as part of the Leighton Estate. John Naylor – an eminent Liverpool banker in the Mid-nineteenth century took over the whole estate and as a result along with the architect W.H.Gee was responsible for building the “pool”. This “pool” was quite an water engineering feat – it collected water to form part of a water power system which could irrigate land, power agricultural machinery, produce fertiliser and even power a funicular railway which went to the top of Moel y Mab to Beacon Ring (where we were about to walk)!

Passing by a beautiful pond, which contained some beautiful Koi Carp had now left the woodland behind. We had to were starting to climb again, but I don’t think we really minded on this occasion, since we had not really experienced much bad weather as we had on the previous day. When we reached the top, we came across “Beacon Ring”

“Caer Digoll” is the Welsh name for the Ring is derived from Long Mountain (Cefn Digoll – “unbroken ridge”). Although little is known about this Hillfort, I can imagine just by it’s sheer domination over the skyline how important it must have been during those early centuries, when the English – Welsh border was fiercely fought over.

From 2011 – 18.06.2011 – Offas Dyke Path – Montgomery – Buttington Bridge Walk

The Hillfort was referred to in a 9th/10th saga known as Canu Llywarch Hen (‘The song of Llywarch the Old’), when conflicts took place between the British prince Cadwallon and Edwin, the Anglo-Saxon, king of Northumbria during 7th Century. Beacon Ring is described, if not in poetic terms as –

“…the lluest or camp of Cadwallon where he stayed for seven months, carrying out seven skirmishes daily.”

Before leaving this curious Hillfort behind, we came across two walkers, in fact the first two we had encountered all day! Assuring us the rest of our walk was downhill all the way! I think it was nice to know they were right!

In fact the rest of the way was through fields – mostly occupied by sheep. Although at one point, it was nice to find a bench kindly provided which had the funny little poem –

“There was a crooked man
Who walked a crooked mile
He found a crooked sixpence
Upon a crooked stile”

I must admit I did feel very crooked after all this walking! Interestingly enough this poem is from the English Stuart history of King Charles 1 and being the border between England and Scotland! (and not the border of England and Wales!)

From 2011 – 18.06.2011 – Offas Dyke Path – Montgomery – Buttington Bridge Walk

Still passing this little bench we were able to continue our walk on further on down the fields. We did take a look back at where we had come from – took a little gasp at how high the actual fort was – in fact it was 1,000 feet up (~300 metres).

We had started to reach very flat area and the roadway. As we turned into the Road were the path took us we had finally reached our Journey’s end – Buttington! It was here we were too camp for the night. We pitched tent at behind “The Green Dragon Inn”. Just as an aside we had a nice pub meal in there and if you interested in pop memorabilia they have some excellent signed posters – The Bachelors and The Osmonds – if you are into that sort of thing! Sadly I was unable to get photos of all of them as it was too busy!

All the day’s photographs are on the following link –

2011 – 18.06.2011 – Offas Dyke Path – Montgomery – Buttington Bridge Walk

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