Much of what makes Ross-on-Wye was the work of John Kyrle, “the Man of Ross”, who in the 1690s laid out the Prospect — a cliff-top public garden above the horseshoe bend of the Wye — and paid to repair St Mary’s spire, still the town’s landmark. Ross has a fair claim to be where British tourism began: pleasure trips down the river from here, from the 1740s on, grew into the fashionable Wye Tour. The old town stands high on its sandstone bluff above the water.
