Been to Chepstow for a look round and lunch

[linda_joyce]

Beth Jill and I abandoned dear old Losyn to a life of misery shut in a warm house with food in his dish and two human beds to sleep on and headed of tho Chepstow where after Googling Yell.com I found an art shop. We can't do much walking with Jill in tow so we never got as far as the castle and the river but there are some nice pieces of street art there.
First the picture everyone takes, the medieval gate into old Chepstow.



This gentleman is new to me since I last went there.

So are these
They praise the treasures of Chepstow, from good river salmon to good steel.


And these mark the site of a ships chandiler used to ply his trade. Chepstow was a bigger port than Newport right up to the 19th Century.





There will be mor Picspam to come but since that is Blackwood street art I'll post another entry.

Comments

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Cool pics! The closest we come to public art in Hellholeah was a sculptured man made of auto mufflers that used to sit outside an auto shop. I never was in charge of the car going by, so I never got a pic of him.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

There is a long history of public art all over Briton, from stone age megaliths through Celtic crosses via Victorian benefactors to modern art, I've now idea why though.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

You once (maybe still have) a significant piece of modern architecture. There is a picture of it here though you may need to scroll through the sequence of buildings.

It had a rainforest built into the structure.

(I think it's in the same town as you)

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

The Best Rainforest was a disaster. It looked good for a very short time. Since it was sealed in with no maintenance, the glass fogged up and mildewed and the smaller plants rotted due to the incredible heat and moisture built up inside (much hotter than a real rainforest, I'm sure). It looked awful in a year. Eventually they removed the glass. Some of the larger trees survived and were still there the last time I'd been to that store, but that was quite a few years ago.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Somehow things like that never make it into the write-ups. I always thought that the corner of the building on rails that slid out, the one in Sacremento, would have jammed quite quickly.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

There was also one in So. Fla whose front was designed to come out and seal back in every day. Very soon they locked in place outside- ridiculous waste of energy- mind you, it would make sense to seal it up before a hurricane, but I bet the mechanism was broken long before it would have been used for that purpose.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Probably a fledgling, Collar dove breed either in early spring or October, though that one is pushing it a bit I'd say it was full grown. Mating behaviour consists of the male following a female around bowing and cooing and some aerial flights.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

I think you're replying to a different post, but I know what you mean. I read one site that says sometimes the male feeds the female during courting behavior (perhaps to show he'd be a good father.)

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Could well do feeding or bringing nesting material are common forms of courting amongst British birds.

[reapermum.livejournal.com]

Poor Losyn, how could you be so cruel. Only one dish of food and a choice of two beds.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

At the very least they should have left the radio on, tuned to his favorite station.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Oh he prefers the TV and we left the remote by his setee.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

He will undoubtibly be telling Beth all about it tonight by sitting in her lap, he is not a lapdog size, and insisting on a tummy rub for hours.

[kalinda001.livejournal.com]

Nice pics. Picturesque streets.

And poor Losyn...hehe lucky dog.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Luckiest dog I've known for a while. He's a rescue dog and Beth and Jill got him from a charity kennel, he had been found hungry and dirty and skinny as a rake roaming the country lanes just out side Newport just after Christmas 6 years back. He now rules the roost in that house, his own settee, the food he likes(luckily one of the cheaper ones(his predecessor, Taffy, would only eat boiled chicken and he was allowed to get away with it), and spoiled to death with walkies and petting.

Chepstow only lost it's curtain wall with the advent of the railways in the early 19th century and although houses that have been destroyed by age, fire or military activity they were few and far between. It still has the medieval street layout with houses that range from Tudor to 20th century but Georgian seems to dominates in the upper town. It is a lovely town to wander round, the spaces for shops are too small to attract the big boys lke Woolworth's or Marks and Spencer's so it has a lot of little boutique type shops, antiques and collectibles and just plain junk and the second hand book stores are a readers dream. we will return to do the lower town next time it's only about 45 mins away by car. We still tend to think of a trip to Chepstow as the major journey we knew when we were young, BM (before Motorway)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

What lovely pieces! The last three remind me of the waves and leaves etc on the new motorway bits in Auckland.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

They have done well in Chepstow, but what really fascinated me was that some one had got hold of a 19th century street directory and out side of each building on the main street was a small stone in the pavement listing all the residents of that hose with their occupations. Some hadn't changed much, at one point where some of the old houses had been destroyed a branch of Boots the chemist had been built. And one of the old houses had been the residence of an apothecary.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

What an excellent idea!

[inyadreems.livejournal.com]

One of places that we always intending visiting when Middle Son was in Cardiff - you see all the signs pointing off the motorway and think: I wonder what it's like there. Ross-on-Wye and Symonds Yat are others.

He was there for five years and we never got anywhere except Cardiff and out to the west coast. It looks pretty.

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean, I was in Portsmouth Poly for 3 years and although one of the student hangouts was a pub down the docks I have never even seen the Victory except on TV.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

I like old towns with lots of bookshops!

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Upper town only had one that was a mix of books and collectibles, lowwer town is riddled with bookshops. We will be going back.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Jůůů (sorry,ohhhhh), Chepstow! The gate to Wales, is it? I have been there twice to see the castle and the bridge. I maade friends with the ladies in local Information Centre, we discussed Welsh language and its use at schools, very intersting for me! Thanks for your pics, never have got a chance to get father from the castle, always being in a hurry...I really didn´t know Chepstow used to be such a significant port!

[linda-joyce.livejournal.com]

Yes it was the only land route into south Wales for many centuries from Norman times until the first Severn Bridge was built back in the 1960s. The railway had come in under the Severn in the 1800s but I'm not sure that can be classed as land route.
Newport didn't bloom as a port until the indutrial revolution and the valleys sprouted coalmines and steel works like whiskers on a cat, Those valleys lead naturally to Newport. Chepstow was the only port on the edge of the Southern Welsh Marches and was used to import everything the Norman overlords wanted and imported metals from Cornwal, exports were mainly river fish and farm crops. That part on Monmouthsire was the breadbasket of that part of the Marches.