For a general description on the series please refer to the text for the 'Two Trails: 1'
From No 16, where you have a choice of route to the next cache. The most direct route is to follow the Offas Dyke sign down the hill to the left. However, my prefered and more interesting route is to continue along the ridge passing the mast enclosure on your right, this route will leave the Offas Dyke path for a while and take you through Beaulieu Wood, which is in the care of the Woodland Trust. Take time to read the information board that describes Beaulieu Grove as a popular location as part of The Wye Tour, which was at the height of it's popularity during the Napoleonic Wars (1803 - 1815), when travel to Continental Europe (especially the fashionable Grand Tour) was not an option.
Continue along the ridge and then follow the signs down the hill to the left; when the gradient levels out a bit look to the left to see a short information post dedicated to Otto Macaig who was a well know local artist and an art master at Monmouth School for 31 years. I was privileged to have been taught art by him at the school.
Born in Hungary in 1918, Otto finished school in Poland in 1938, but it was the outbreak of war in 1939 that would shape his future. During the invasion of Poland he accompanied the evacuation south, but trapped between German and Russian forces, he entered Romania where he was interned for two months before escaping with false papers to Beirut and then Marseilles where he joined the Polish Army. After the fall of France he made his way to Britain joining the anti-aircraft artillery in Scotland. Then in 1942 he joined the newly formed Polish 1st Armoured Division taking part in the Normandy landings in July 1944 and continued to be involved in the conflicts through Belgium and Holland entering Germany in April 1945, before being dispatched back to Scotland.
At the end of the war he was permitted to study at the Liverpool College of Art, persuing his life long passion for art. Then in 1947 he was appointed Head of Art at Monmouth School a position he held until he retired in 1978 to devote more time to his art; many of his paintings were of the rivers Wye and Monnow.