Abbey Dore - 4 Things to Know Before Visiting

Golden Valley is a wild, untamed place, with Hay-on-Wye to the north and Pontrilas to the south. The name is a little misleading as in fact it is carved between two river valleys, the Dore and The Monnow, and the Black Mountains. The valley stretches between the parishes of Dorstone, Peterchurch, Abbey Dore and Ewyas Harold in the southwest of the county of Herefordshire. The area includes the electoral Wards of Golden Valley South and Golden Valley North.

The river Dore is a tributary of the river Monnow, in Herefordshire, England. It rises on Cusop hill, at the foot of the Black mountains. It flows for 12 miles through the villages of Dorstone, Peterchurch, Vowchurch, Abbey Dore and Pontrilas, before reaching the Monnow near Llangua. The Monnow itself is a tributary which flows into the River Wye at Monmouth.

Kilpeck Church is located in Herefordshire near the Welsh border. It was home to the finest collection of Romanesque sculptures in England. It was built in about 1140 and has survived remarkably intact and unaltered to the present day. One of the iconic attraction in this area and attracts a lot of tourists.

Longtown Castle was built in the 1180's by the Norman lord, Walter de Lacy, inside a rectangular earthen enclosure that may date to the Roman occupation of Britain. It was one of a series of fortifications built by the Warlords of the Border Marches to control the troublesome Welsh border and act as a base for Norman operations into Wales. By 1452 the castle seems to have been abandoned perhaps as a result of the Black Death.

Belmont Abbey is a monastery of the Benedictine Order operational for 1500+ years. It stands on a small hill overlooking the city of Hereford to the east, with views across to the Black Mountains, Wales to the west. The 19th century Abbey also serves as a parish church.

The Weir is a riverside garden in the care of the National Trust and is bordered by the River Wye in Herefordshire. The riverside garden is left natural with many wildflowers in summer, snowdrops in winter and daffodils in spring. At the bottom of the garden, there’s a small woodland to explore and for those who love wildlife, seventy species of bird have been spotted here as well as the odd otter sighting.