Walk Five - Around Walford
The image at the top of the page shows the track at Walford Halt between the Church of St Michael and Goodrich Castle.
The thoroughfares around Goodrich Castle
Walford Halt, at the start of our engaging route, was situated directly behind the Church of St. Michael and All Angels; between the Forest of Dean and the River Wye gracefully bending past Goodrich Castle, it was opened by the Great Western on 23rd February, 1931, the first stopping place 3 miles and 12 chains after Ross-on-Wye. it was a simple unstaffed halt with no sidings or other connections, boasting modest facilities of a 120 feet platform on the down (church) side of the line. The halt was sited on a 1 in 100 gradient, falling towards Kerne Bridge, whose station master controlled the Walford administration, while traffic receipts were included with those from Ross. Tickets were collected and issued by guards on the trains, while the platform lights were lit, cleaned and trimmed by staff from Kerne Bridge. Goods and parcels were collected and delivered in the immediate locality by Great Western delivery lorries from Ross – though the halt itself was unable to deal with this form of traffic. (Stanley C. Jenkins, The Ross, Monmouth and Pontypool Road Line.)
A little further on, Goodrich Ferry was once a main thoroughfare between England and the Welsh Marches. The ancient road between Ross and Monmouth, dating at least from Roman times, crossed the Wye immediately below Goodrich Castle. Also known as Goodrich Boat, it connected Goodrich to Walford, which derives its name from “Wales Ford”. The castle, sitting on a lofty precipice, was built in the 13th century to guard the river and its crossing, 700m upstream from where Kerne Bridge now stands. It was while using the ferry in 1386 that Henry IV, then Earl of Derby, learned from the boatman of the birth of Prince Hal, later Henry V, at Monmouth. He granted all the rights of the ferry to the lucky boatman and his successors, and for many years, there was a small derelict cottage below the castle which may have belonged to the ferry people.
At a time when the Royalist cause in the Civil War was waning, Colonel John Birch based himself at Walford Court to deal with one of its few remaining strongholds in Herefordshire. The subsequent main siege of Goodrich Castle, held by Henry Lingen for the King, lasted for six weeks. Birch shot 19 of the 22 shells from an enormous mortar with his own hand. “Roaring Meg’s” 190lb missiles were so well directed that every room in the castle was damaged, and much of the interior unroofed and beaten to the ground.
There was, however, a “forgotten” river crossing just upstream from the shadow of the castle and the old ferry. The boys of Felsted School were evacuated to two Herefordshire outposts during the Second World War. The Junior House went to Canon Frome Court which, curiously, also received a battering in the Civil War, and those aged 13-18 came to Goodrich Court. The temporary school also had outposts at Hill Court, adjoining our route, and Pencraig Court. Since it was necessary to use Kerne Bridge, which in wartime also charged a toll, the boys decided to do something about the 4 mile journey with which they were presented. Selecting a point about 500m up from the castle, the boys hung a rope bridge to some trees on the Goodrich side. Stretching 167 feet across the river, which is perversely rather wide at that point, they attached it to some kind of support structure on the Walford bank. The bridge was originally a single plank's width, later widened to two and built above the known flood level. On the Walford side the boys then crossed a meadow to join the road on our walking route. By this means they reduced their walking or cycling distance to just over a mile in a manner which might, however, attract the Health and Safety adherents of today!