Dark Skies Places in the Wye Valley

Enjoy the View from Fownhope’s Dark Skies Bench

We absolutely love this eye-catching new ‘Dark Skies’ bench, which has been recently installed at Fownhope Recreation Ground as part of our Dark Skies work. To help you identify what stars you can see from the bench each month there is a QR code to scan. December’s highlights include Taurus (the Bull) rising in the east, Pegasus, gliding through the night on his great square wings and Ursa Major (the Plough), a constant through the deepest winter nights.  There’s lots more interesting info to discover on the Fownhope website, so head over to their brilliant new web pages:  You won’t be disappointed!

We are working to keep our skies dark…

We are lucky to have so many places in the Wye Valley National Landscape where we can enjoy the stars at night. Sadly only 5% of people in the UK can enjoy the wonder of a truly dark starry sky because light pollution has increased by 400% in the last 25 years, having a profound and negative impact on people and wildlife. As well as interrupting our sleep patterns light pollution is a major driver of insect decline, especially winged insects and caterpillars.

The Wye Valley National Landscape has been working to encourage people, businesses and corporate buildings to turn lights off overnight, to reduce light pollution and carbon emissions. Dark Sky lighting is low energy and low carbon and retrofitting lights reduces carbon emissions as well overall energy consumption. Night lighting currently accounts for an eye-watering 15% of the global electricity resource! Check out our Dark Skies Position Statement to find out how you can help.

Beacon Hill Dark Skies Viewing Place

Beacon Hill, near Trellech, is an open area of heathland which has an expansive, almost 360 degree view of the night sky. A five minute walk from the car park will take you up a forestry track, over a cattle grid and out into a lovely clearing in the woods where, on a clear night, the stars are easy to spot, with low levels of light pollution. For the best expanse of sky keep walking until reaching the second crossroads of paths, where ‘Joan’s bench’ provides a welcome place to sit back and take in the wonders of the universe.

Beacon Hill is easy to access from Monmouth or Chepstow. Leave the B4293 at the Lion Inn in Trellech, signposted for The Narth. After 1.5km take the first turning on the right and very soon turn left into the NRW car parking area. From the car park take the right hand Forestry track uphill, across a cattle grid into the open heathland area. What3words: https://w3w.co/saturate.rankings.leopard . (Note – this is the car-park offering the easiest access to Beacon Hill in the dark, along an obvious gravel track, and not the main Beacon Hill View carpark described by Natural Resources Wales.)

This area is managed by Natural Resources Wales. Further info  here.     

Make sure to have suitable footwear, warm clothing and take a torch.

Astrophotography Podcast

Top tips for Dark Skies Photography  

Tune in to this podcast to pick up some super tips on how to photograph the beautiful dark skies found in the Wye Valley National Landscape and Forest of Dean. Astrophotographer Lee Pullin chats to Paul Williamson from the Wye Valley and Forest of Dean Tourism Association. Tim took the amazing photo of Tintern Abbey at the top of this page.

Listen / Download here