garden cafe restaurant lydbrook holiday gloucestershire

ABOVE - Greenway Cottage exterior and the view from the front!

Set just a matter of yards from the River Wye with superb views of the water, this was the residence of the river ghilly, George Crouch, in charge of this beat for 40 years.  An expert fisherman himself he caught many salmon and assisted those less skilled than himself.  The view from the breakfast room afforded the best view from where he could see jumping salmon and poachers, many of whom felt the rough end of his club!

The cottage is set in the 3 acres of grounds of Lydbrook House, the history of which is still being discovered and written.

garden cafe restaurant lydbrook holiday gloucestershire

Within the grounds are the remains of the Lydbrook Viaduct, built between 1872 and 1874 by the Crumlin Viaduct Works at a cost of £7,396, which dominated Lower Lydbrook for nearly a century.  The stone ramparts have recently been revealed and are a breathtaking piece of industrial architecture, and create the centre piece of the private nature walk which is part of the estate.  Also nearby are the remains of Offa's Dyke.  Offa's Dyke is a linear earthwork which roughly follows the Welsh/English boundary. It consists of a ditch and rampart constructed with the ditch on the Welsh-facing side, and appears to have been carefully aligned to present an open view into Wales from along its length. As originally constructed, it must have been about 27 metres wide and 8 metres from the ditch bottom to the bank top.

On the opposite side of the river is Courtfield Manor, the seat of the Vaughan Family, and Nursery to the young Henry V.