Around the Golden Valley

01.06.2026

I was in Herefordshire and just out the other side of an inspiring weekend at the Hay Festival. I thought it was time to visit two nearby sites I had missed on my last two annual visits here, one being a Cotswold Severn type burial chamber and the other an obscure standing stone hidden away at the end of the Golden Valley.

I followed the River Wye east from Hay on Wye and crossed it at Bredwardine. The lanes from here then narrowed along Pentre Lane and then left up Arthur’s Stone Lane. At the top of the hill was a pull in next to a wooden ring fence containing a mound and the remains of the Arthur’s Stone. The tail of the chamber had been obliterated by the lane but the main passage structure and giant capstone was still present. I entered through a gate in the Split rail fence and climbed up onto the mound. It was immediately clear the tomb faced the west with the grandeur of the Black Mountains and Wales beyond. The false entrance stone that was a feature of the Cotswold Severn barrows was still upright.