River 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.

A majestic parish church which was one of the great Cistercian monasteries of England. The abbey was founded in 1147 by monks from Morimond in France - the only daughter house ever founded by Morimond. The church was begun in 1175 and consecrated one century later.

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.

Arthur's Stone is an atmospheric Neolithic burial chamber made of great stone slabs, set in the hills above Herefordshire's Golden Valley. It is over 5,000 years old. Today only the large stones of the inner chamber remain, though these were once covered by a long earthen mound.

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.

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.