Course of the RIVER WIE 5 from its Source to its junction

Plinlimmon hill.

with the SEVERN below Chepstow

Picturesque Views

ON THE

RIVER WYE,

FROM

Its Source at Plinlimmon Hill, to its Junction

WITH THE

SEVERN below CHEPSTOW:

WITH

OBSERVATIONS

ON

THE PUBLIC BUILDINGS, AND OTHER WORKS OF
ART, IN ITS VICINITY:

BY SAMUEL IRELAND,

AUTHOR OF

"A Picturefque Tour through Holland, Brabant, and part of France;"

AND,

Of "Picturesque Views on the Rivers Thames, Medway,
"Warwickshire Avon," &c.

London :

PUBLISHED BY R. FAULDER, NEW BOND STREET;
AND T. EGERTON, WHITEHALL.

1797.

PREFACE.

AMONGST the numerous rivers with

which our Island is fo richly ornamented and fertilized, the Wye, our present subject of investigation, though in no very widely extended course, and itself only a tributary stream, is yet in the production of the sublime, of the grand and majestic proudly eminent above its fellows. In a course of about eighty miles, the utmost distance it measures from its fource, to its junction with the Severn, fo various and fuch an interesting picturesque scenery is perhaps no where

a

where to be found, either in this or any

other country.

NATURE and Art have moft happily combined in opening their richest stores to diverfify and spread fertility, grandeur and beauty over the country through which it flows for its environ is not lefs highly dif

:

tinguished and dreffed by the hand of art with caftles, abbies, and villas beautifully feated on its banks, than it is itself favoured by nature, in the ftriking interchange of fhoal and flood, wood and rock, meadow

and precipice.

fo

many various

With fo much, and in

ways to allure and intereft, it was not poffible that all its charms could have escaped either the penetrating eye of Tafte and Genius, or the pencil of the inquifitive, refined, and systematical Amateur,

and