On our recent travels in Britain we stopped for an hour in Chepstow, promising ourselves a bit of sight-seeing and ice-creams before crossing the Bristol channel by the Severn Bridge.
Chepstow’s a pretty Welsh town with, disappointingly, no home-made ice-cream shops along its cobbled streets… frustrated, we opted instead to sit on the castle lawns and sketch.
It’s a beautiful ruined Norman castle, perched on a limestone cliff above the river Wye. Building started in 1067 and it’s the oldest surviving stone castle in Britain.
In the second Civil War, the parliamentarians, led by Colonel Ewer, took the castle by storm and breached the walls with their cannon.
This was in a fit of pique after they discovered there were no ice creams to be had in town…..
Caroline Johnson, Rennes and Manchester correspondent