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dore abbey arthur’s stone walking Golden Valley
river dore inspirational temple bar
At the foot of the Black Mountains in the south east of Herefordshire, the picturesque valley of the River Dore is thought to have become known as the Golden Valley due to Norman confusion with the word Dore (or the Welsh word for water, dwr) and French for gold, d’or.
Here, we like to feel that its name depicts its continuous vibrant golden colour through the seasons; the yellow of the hoards of wild daffodils in spring, the vast waving fields of wheat in the summer and the burnished leaves of autumn. This truly is an area with the midas touch for visi- tors, especially walkers and many of the pubs have rooms that welcome the odd muddy boot like Temple Bar Inn at Ewyas Harold. The main villages are Ewyas Harold, Dorstone, Peterchurch and Abbeydore and the area has inspired writers and been a setting for films like Shadow Lands, Lewis Caroll’s Alice in
Wonderland who’s brother was Vicar at hamlet Vowchurch. S Lewis used Authurs Stone, part of a Neolithic tomb at Dorstone and Herefordshire’s oldest manmande structure, as inspiration for the stone table where Aslan was sacrificed in The Chronicles of Narnia. From fiction to fact the iconic Dore Abbey was founded by Cistercian
Monks from Morimond in France in 1147. Now it is a serene venue for music and an attractive destination for visitors wishing to connect with the history of the area. Golden Valley really is a precious part of Herefordshire.
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