(S/E) From the front door of the Anchor Inn, turn left and then left again along a drive between pub and river. Follow the riverside path beyond, past a couple of cottages to a road, which you follow out to the Main Road (A 466).
(1) Turn right past the Abbey Mill and then right again to cross the Wireworks Bridge over the Wye. Follow the track round to the right, and pass just to the left of a gate with a letter box for Ferry Farm. Follow the former tramway above the river for a mile and a quarter, passing a large boulder after a quarter of a mile or so.
(2) Just beyond a track off to the right with a barrier marked “Private Farm Ahead”, follow the main track up to the left, leaving the tramway. When the track bends sharp left, take a footpath on the right that descends slightly through the trees then swings left to meet a quarry track below a bank of spoil.
Turn left and follow the track uphill. When this track hairpins sharp right, leave it to follow an indistinct path straight ahead through the trees.
This path then swings right to cross a bouldery stream bed, and emerges into another track. Take a few steps to the right then take a footpath opposite up some steps.
(3) This path continues uphill and curves left to meet the Offa’s Dyke Path at the top of the wood.
Turn left and follow the forest road opposite past a barrier, which shortly crosses the line of Offa’s Dyke itself. Just before the track starts to descend steeply, turn right at an Offa’s Dyke finger post.
The path heads through the trees to meet the earthwork, where it swings left.
After a while, the path jinks right and left to switch to the other side of the Dyke. The path skirts close to the top of the wood, where there are distant views to the right to the Severn crossing from some pathside boulders.
Beyond a gap in an old wall the Offa’s Dyke Path returns to the woods. Keep left at a waymark, where you get your first view of the Abbey.
(4) There are further glimpses before you pass the Devil’s Pulpit outcrop on your left (with a yew tree growing from a limestone boulder down steps to your right).
Continuing along Offa’s Dyke, now lined with stones, bear left at a metal kissing gate, beyond which the path descends through the trees. At a path junction turn left off the Offa’s Dyke Path (signposted simply “Public Footpath”).
Pass another footpath sign, again following “Public Footpath”, to meet a wide track. Turn right here briefly towards a mast among the trees, but turn off left before you reach it (signposted “Tintern” on a wooden sign). This path descends steeply and unevenly, keeping right at a waymark to reach a three-way junction where you bear left, continuing downhill.
When you reach another junction in front of a low wall, turn left, again downhill.
(5) On meeting the old tramway, turn right then bear left to the Wireworks Bridge. Cross the bridge and turn left past the Abbey Mill at the main road. Opposite Forge Road, turn left into a no-through road. Keep right past the former chapel and retrace your steps alongside the river to the Anchor Inn. (S/E)
