The Wye Valley has long been renowned as one of the most beautiful areas of Britain. From the eighteenth century it has been painted by artists from Turner and Gilpin to Wilson Steer, while a trip by boat from Ross to the sea was considered an essential part of the Romantic, and later Gothic, tour. Wordsworth travelled its lower reaches writing famously about Tintern Abbey; more recently it was home to the Victorian diaryist Francis Kilvert and the contemporary playwright Dennis Potter. In one hundred beautiful colour images Barry Needle captures the essence of the river from its source high in the mountains of mid-Wales to it's entry into the sea under the towering medieival castle at Chepstow. Along the way he takes in the delights of charming market towns like Rhayader, Ross-on-Wye and 'town of books' Hay-on-Wye, the gorge at Symmonds Yat ,the cathedral at Hereford, the picturesque ruin of Tintern and the more imposing ruined castle at Chepstow. In between there are rolling mountains and woodland, meadows and fields, valleys and plains, ancient rural villages and riverside churches, and , towards the sea, a working river. The River Wye is a sumptuous record of an important and beautiful landscape to be treasured.