Discover the countryside: Herefordshire

PLACE TO EXPLORE: Ascend the Cat’s Back

Tom Oliver, Chair of CPRE Herefordshire, recommends scrambling up the sharply arched ridge of the Black Mountains for a view that feels as close to flying as you can get while still standing safely on ancient ground. The rock beneath your feet is sandstone, formed from sand dunes 350 million years ago.

From the public car park above Llanveynoe, home to the last church in England before the Welsh border, a dramatic path climbs through close-nibbled turf, wind-blown hawthorn and scatters of gorse and bracken. Two contrasting views open up as you go: the intimate, ancient Olchon valley on one side, and on the other, a sweep stretching from the mountains of mid-Wales to the high brow of the Cotswolds and, on a clear day, the silver line of the Bristol Channel.

At the top, you’ll be in the company of tumbling ravens, flittering meadow pipits and the rugged, characterful Welsh sheep that call this ridge home.

PLACE TO EXPLORE: Discover Snodhill Castle

Seek out the long-slumbering ruins of what was once a fiercely guarded fortress on the contested Welsh border.

Snodhill Castle, in the Golden Valley between Peterchurch and Dorstone, was built by Norman lords on a steep, isolated hill that offered both security and an early warning of raids from across the border. Over hundreds of years it was expanded and fortified using the most advanced military architecture of its time, important enough to have its own royal chapel and a series of massive towers and defensive gates, until it was partly destroyed after the Civil War to prevent it being used again.

The castle then spent centuries as a romantic ruin, known to few, home to gnarled ancient trees, abundant wildlife and the secret folds of traditional Herefordshire farmland.

Today the ruins have been restored and made safe to visit. Wander through this tranquil landscape of long-past conflict and power politics, accompanied by the drumming of woodpeckers and the bright passage of woodland butterflies, including speckled woods and holly blues, along its paths and glades.