Walk Three - Backney Bridge and Foy
The image at the top of the page shows a view of Backney Bridge, familiar to Sir Frederick Burrows, the last Governor of Bengal.
Bridges, shunting and hooting
You don't need to be a "spin doctor" to extol the virtues of the middle Wye Valley. Backney Common, Strangford and the hamlet of Foy are perched on a strip of land which reaches out into one of the more sinuous stretches of the twisting river. Our sedate walking loop wanders around to a grassy promenade on the right bank in an area particularly noted for its barbel.
Though Foy has usually been a quiet outpost scattered on either side of the river, the advent of the train once ushered in a slightly more bustling era. From 1855 the familiar pursuits of hunting and shooting were carried out to the accompaniment of shunting and hooting. On 1st June, the Hereford, Ross and Gloucester Railway opened to a fanfare of trumpeting and firing of cannon. Five thousand excited onlookers turned out in Ross to welcome the inaugural special train conveying representatives of the Great Western Railway from Gloucester to Hereford. Sadly the great engineer Brunel was unable to join in the festivities and tendered his apologies from the celebratory dinner held in Hereford's Green Dragon hotel. Already ailing, he was destined to die of fatigue four years later at the age of 53.
Beyond the point where the Wye embarks on an extravagant S-shaped journey from Ballingham to Backney, it was necessary to install three bridges in the space of three miles. Each of them, at Ballingham, Strangford and Backney had consisted of five tall masonry piers and six spans, originally of timber. The middle pier of the middle bridge at Strangford collapsed in the flood of 1947 about ten minutes after a goods train passed over it. When steam travel was at its height, seven trains a day were clattering "with-a-with-a-wild fling" through the valley.
The fourteen remaining piers still stand at the three crossings of the river, though shorn of their trusses after Doctor Beeching gave a "short back and sides" to the line in 1965. Backney Halt, the southernmost sentinel of the three, was perched above the picnic area and ample park from where our mostly level walk commences. It was at the sidings here, closed in February 1962, that Fred Burrows earned just under £5 a week as a checker after the Great War. Fred from Ross would become the last Governor of Bengal.
Our country lane route from the old Backney Halt rises very gently to an airy open stroll beyond Strangford Farm and we cross the line of the old railway.
Meanwhile, the pedestrian bridge below Foy which leads to Hole-in-The-Wall was built from public subscription in 1876 before being replaced after collapsing in the floods of 1919.
It seems that before the footbridge there once existed a tunnel under the Wye just a little upstream which linked a cellar at the former Ingestone House to Court Farm on the opposite side. The strong tradition holds that the subway was created for the convenience of two religious houses which were close to the two banks of the river. Large stones found in the garden at the Hole-in-The-Wall farm may have formed part of a building which housed the Brampton Abbots.
Anyway, a young man from the locality set out to explore the tunnel with his dog. Somewhere near the middle of it either his courage failed him or his progress to the other end was blocked by some obstruction. So the man and his dog were forced to retrace their steps.
Back up at Brick End, directly above the bridge, Peter, now Baron, Mandelson of Foy spent many of his weekends in the 1980s entertaining guests such as Mo Mowlam and Tony Blair. Where he was conceiving a turn for the country to the left, our walk spins down to the right. Unlike the young man before him, he may not have known about the tunnel under the river. Or about any prints in the darkness.