Down to the Wye: A Coppet Hill and Wye Valley Walk

Lately, our family walks have mostly stayed close to home, wandering the paths around Ledbury and the Malvern Hills. We try to leave the car behind whenever we can, and I doubt I’ll ever tire of those familiar trails, but Herefordshire offers plenty of other areas with glorious scenery. I often get lost in Google Maps trying to find nice places to go and when we venture to them, they usually end up being decent enough. The next walk we did would turn out to be an absolute banger.

Coppet Hill is one of the places that I kept seeing on my map apps and thinking we should go there at some point. It isn't too far from home and I read that is has great views of the Wye Valley. It's just south of Ross on Wye and less than half an hour from our house in Ledbury. We had a Saturday free to go for a walk so I suggested Coppet Hill. I had a look at the nearby footpaths and we could theoretically do a circular walk of about 5 miles or so from Goodrich, over the hill, down through the woods the other side where we'd reach the River Wye, then along the riverbank back to the car. We'd walk the same section of the Wye that you see from Yat Rock, which is probably regarded as having one of the best scenic views in the the country. Hilltops, woodland and a walk along a famously beautiful stretch of riverbank. A little adventure. Perfect. We drove to Goodrich. 

We parked up near Goodrich Primary School where there was ample parking on a grey Saturday afternoon. Ours was the only car. From the primary school, we walked round the corner and up Doward Place which takes you to a bridge over the main road and up towards Coppet Hill. It's a steady climb along a relatively quiet road. We then climbed the steps up to the hill, which was fairly knackering carrying a child, but bearable. It was beautiful anyway with mossy rock formations amongst the trees and the landscape slowly opening up. 

The steps up to Coppet Hill

Woodland walking, Coppet Hill

Hillside views in Herefordshire

When we came out of the trees, the path gradually took us up to the trig point on Coppet Hill, which would be the highest point of the walk at 189m with an ascent of around 130m from where we parked. Not as painful as I thought when I first saw the hill at the start of the walk. We were less than a mile in and it should all be easy going from here. I'd told my wife Stace the walk would be 4 miles when I knew it would probably be over 5, but if I'd said it was over 5 then she'd almost certainly have told me to find somewhere else. I do that a lot and always get a comment "I thought you said this was only going to be X miles" and I always reply "Yeah sorry. It's nice though isn't it?". We had the same conversation when I pointed out where we were heading next, but we had plenty of time and it would have been daft to just turn around now and walk back to the car. We stopped for a few photos and to get Molly out of the carrier for a bit and then moved on.

Molly and I at the Coppet Hill trig point

Stace, Wilf and Dottie, Coppet Hill

My daughter Molly

From the trig point the path gradually took us down the other side of the hill towards a long stretch of woodland that would take us to the Wye. About 5 minutes along, Stace realised that she'd dropped her sunglasses so we would have to go back to unsuccessfully try to find them. They were a cheap pair of Ray Ban knockoffs she bought from Gran Canaria, so no big loss. We don't like litter though and Stace quite liked the sunglasses, so if you do this walk in the future and stumble upon a sheep wearing a pair of Bon Bons, please let us know. The weather forecast had said we'd get a bit of sun and a bit of rain. We were now happy to have seen neither. 

The walk towards the woods treated us to views of the Wye and the famous valleys around Symonds Yat. We were over a mile into the walk and starting to wonder why we were the only people here. Apart from the passing cars in Goodrich, we hadn't seen anyone at all. We'd either missed news of the impending apocalypse or people just didn't really bother with this hill when the sun wasn't shining. The latter was obviously more likely, but if these paths were to lead us to the most beautiful banks of the Wye, it seemed odd that no one else was here. I wondered if the route I'd found online actually existed. 

The River Wye from Coppet Hill

The hills of the Wye Valley, Herefordshire

We plodded on into the woods and slowly down the other side of the hill. The path definitely existed and was solid enough so we kept on going down. It was a lovely wander, through changing and beautiful woodland. At times I had to do a sort of crouching stealth walk like in an old video game to avoid baby Molly getting hit in the face with twigs. 

Good times

Woodland walking down to the Wye

Through the trees on a footpath from Coppet Hill

Eventually, we reached the foot of the hill and out through a stile where it all opened up to views of the Wye and the cliffs to Yat Rock. We walked to the riverbank where there was a pebble beach we could doss on for a while. It was incredible. We looked at the Yat Rock viewpoint where we could see silhouettes of people in the distance looking down on us, possibly thinking "How the f**k did they get down there?". Apart from the glaring eyes from above we felt like we were in a beautiful wilderness with it all to ourselves. Why were we the only people here? Was this a proper hidden gem? After about 15 minutes of enjoying the peace and 3 miles into the walk, we finally saw the first faces since the passing cars in Goodrich. This time it was passing canoes, which as expected made our dog Dottie go a bit mental and want to defend this beach that was now our stronghold. 

The Wye below Yat Rock

Yat Rock from the banks of the Wye

Dottie barking at a canoe

After the dog had calmed down it was time for Molly to have a feed before we moved on. We'd brought along some boiling water in a thermos so we could warm the milk, but it ended up a bit too warm which meant we had to cool the bottle down a bit. The obvious solution was to let it cool in the river. Yes, in these modern times that river was probably full of shit, but the bit that Molly would drink from would be well protected from all of that. 

Cooling baby milk in the Wye

As much as we'd have liked to have stayed for the rest of the day, we had to move on and head back to the car. We still had a couple of miles to go and Molly's sleep patterns had been quite good in recent weeks so we didn't want to mess up the routine too much. We'd just follow the footpath along the riverbank where we'd eventually reach the outskirts of Goodrich. I realised that the planned route would mean we'd have to walk a stretch along a busy ish road without a pavement, so we had to extend the walk a bit more to avoid that and follow some other footpaths that would lead us a different way back to Goodrich Primary School. We still had a bit of a walk before we got to that, but as we were were going along the river it was all flat and an absolute joy. 

We got to a field full of cows, with some of them appearing to be a bit fired up and running about. I remember reading that a fair few people get killed by cows in the UK every year and in the United States, cows kill more people than bears and sharks combined. This made me irrationality nervous about cows, particularly with my baby daughter on my back. I started thinking about an exit strategy which basically involved walking into the river and shouting "please leave us alone!" to the cows. I wouldn't need it as they didn't seem arsed about us, but even still I tried not to make eye contact with any of them. This wasn't Jurassic Park though and it was fine. We reached the other side of the field where 4 miles into the walk we saw out first other person on foot. A dog walker that spotted the cows and just turned back to go the other way. She had probably read the same shocking statistics as me. 

Cattle in the Wye Valley, Herefordshire

Mooove along please

We now had a leisurely walk back towards the car. We passed a bloke on a paddle board with his dog, which was class, then walked over the main road near Goodrich, through some fields near an absolutely rancid smelling sewage works. This then took us out to a quieter road which unexpectedly opened out to a reveal the Cross Keys pub. We hadn't planned to stop for a drink in a beer garden, but it seemed like it would be rude not to. The sign outside was perfect for us anyway.

A family walk along the Wye in Goodrich

Paddleboarding with a dog on the Wye

A footpath through the fields in Goodrich

The Cross Keys Inn, Goodrich

Part of the reason we don't like driving to these walks is that if we come across a pub, only one of us can have a pint. Stace was happy enough with a shandy though which made me happy to enjoy a beer. It seemed like a properly decent place that would be good to have lunch in if we hadn't already filled up on the sausage rolls we bought from Greggs just outside Ross on the way. 

We finished our drinks then had a short walk through the churchyard and out the back to where our car was parked. 5.4 miles done and all of it had been wonderful. I was still confused about why we'd only seen one other walker the whole time. We've wandered a lot of footpaths in Herefordshire including most of the council managed circular walks, but none of them had come close to the walk we'd just done. I'd hoped for some from decent hilltop views, beautiful woodland and a scenic walk along the Wye and it had delivered the lot. The mystery remained about why it had been so quiet, but I wasn't complaining. We'd definitely come back to it on a sunnier day. If it was still quiet, then this walk would be confirmed as a true hidden gem. If you find yourself in South Herefordshire looking for something to do, I can't recommend this enough. 

Molly in the beer garden

St Giles Church in Goodrich with Coppet Hill behind