Tidenham

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tidenham is a village and civil parish in the Forest of Dean of Gloucestershire, England, close to the Welsh border.

The parish includes the villages of Tidenham, Boughspring, Sedbury, Tutshill and Woodcroft, and according to the 2001 census had a population of 5,316. It is bound by the River Wye (which forms the Welsh border) to the west and the River Severn to the south. Offa's Dyke runs down the western edge of the parish terminating at Sedbury Cliff above the River Severn.

The stretch of the Wye Valley lying within the parish includes several popular rock climbing cliffs at Wintour's Leap near Woodcroft and the Devil's Pulpit, a famous rock formation and viewpoint overlooking Tintern Abbey. The parish also contains Tidenham Chase - the largest remaining fragment of lowland heathland in Gloucestershire. Also notable is the former Dayhouse Quarry which, after providing traffic for the remaining fragment of the former railway to Monmouth, is now home to the National Diving and Activity Centre. The railway has been the centre of several attempts to re-open it, but the overgrown track tells the result of these efforts to restore Tidenham station quite effectively. It ran through Tintern up the Wye Valley, and joined the mainline near Tidenham.

Located as it is between the Wye and Severn the area has always been important as a site for crossing these rivers. Historically ferries crossed the River Severn from Beachley to Aust and now this route is followed by the Severn Bridge one of whose piers stands on the Beachley Peninsula although the bridge itself begins in Wales. From Roman times the River Wye has been bridged between Tutshill and Chepstow.