Thats no moat its the Nedern

After having been up at stupid o'clock for sunrise down by the Prince of Wales Bridge and a pit stop at Greggs I saw the sign for Caldicot Castle and County Park. It has been on my list of places to visit for a while with my drone and as the weather was starting to brighten up I thought it would be good to go and see it at last.

The Castle is is an impressive structure and dates back to the Normans from the 12th Century but, historians believe the settlement of the area by people goes back even further in time.

When I arrived I took a stroll around the Castle to get an understanding of the lay of the land. The first thing that I saw was a lot of water bordering the ancient castle and I thought "wow thats a sizeable moat". After looking harder I realised I was looking at flooded fields. I could see submerged benches, hedges paths and marooned trees sticking up from under a couple of feet of water in places. 

"Thats no moat its the Nedern"

What I discovered after reading the very interesting information signs was that the cause of the flood was a small brook called the Nedern - it used to be a river. In our modern era the Nedern is normally a small stream but when there is great deal of rain it can swell up with water and bursts its banks and flood the surrounding catchment area.

Information Sign.

Eels return to the Nedern to breed.

It was remarkable to read that in AD 895 that ships were able to land at the rivers mouth and that there had been a shipyard at Caldicot Pill ( I had only just been there that morning and you can read that blog post here).

I love reading about the history of places.

I found a nice safe spot that was well out of the way of people and decided to put my drone up. I wanted to get some pictures of the Nedern in flood and of course the castle from a respectful distance.

The flooded Nedern and Caldicot Castle

Panoramic view looking across to Caldicot Pill and the Prince of Wales Bridge

Big panoramic of the area.

Caldicot Castle

I really enjoyed my visit to Caldicot, its a little gem of a place steeped in ancient history and well worth a visit.