26 February 6, 2022The Sunday TimesTravel UK
CARDIFFThe ChaletBRISTOLNEWPORTENGLANDWALWALESES Wye Valley
AONB10 milesT
he first time Netflix’s Sex
Education made my heart
pound was when I casually
recommended it to my mum
over breakfast early one
Sunday morning, and then remembered
in a flashback of white-knuckle horror
that the opening scene involves vigorously
shaking light fittings. The second time
it was all because of the view.
You’ll be well acquainted with the view
I’m referring to if you’ve watched the
series; Gillian Anderson in a floral kimono
aside, it’s the undisputed star of the show.
First your eyes are drawn down over
steep, forested hills, the rising sun
washing honeyed light over the tips
of the conifers. Then you spot the houses
arranged like scattered blossom amid the
foliage and the twinkling River Wye, moss-
green and as slick as the salmon that swim
in its waters. And above it all perches the
Chalet, a red-and-white Norwegian pine
house, built in 1912, pretty as if in a Grimm
brothers fairytale with gingerbread trim
— and my home for the weekend.
It’s in Symonds Yat East, in the Wye
Valley, in Herefordshire, less than an
hour’s drive northeast of Cardiff, and
you can take in the whole glorious scene
from its wooden-railed balcony.
In the series the house belongs to Jean
Milburn, Gillian Anderson’s sex therapist
character, and her son, Otis (played by Asa
Butterfield), and it’s now available to rent
as a self-catering holiday home. It’s partly
thanks to its cinematic good looks that it’s
fully booked until August, although fans of
the show will be disappointed to learn it’s
not possible to get between the sheets in
Otis’s loft room or take an ad hoc tour of
Jean’s NSFW artworks — interior scenes
were largely shot in a studio.
No matter — the house is gorgeous in
its own right, with five bedrooms in
soothing shades and a showstopper of
a conservatory painted floor to ceiling
in smoky green, and filled with vases of
autumnal foliage and a jungle of palms
and ferns. I found there was nothing more
pleasant than cradling a mug of tea here,
flicking through interior design books
with my partner, Martin, our dog at our
feet while we listened to woodpeckers.
The only downside to this space are the
peeping fans, who pop their heads, and
occasionally their cameras, over the
fence. The conservatory is not the best
place to wander around in the buff.
The Chalet wasn’t always this popular.
I caught up with the owner, Stuart
Morgan, when he popped by for a chat
over tea in the kitchen. He said that
when he and his partner, Cathy, bought
the house in 2002 it was a wreck. “We
were skint,” he said. “Cathy was seven
months pregnant and we had to move,
and I remember saying to her, ‘The only
place left to view is that bloody place
that’s falling down in Symonds Yat.’”
They ended up living here for ten years,
replacing the roof, wiring, windows,
woodwork and floors — you name it — as
they went, and giving it its trademark hue.
“It was so weird then seeing our house
on TV,” Morgan said, gesturing to the
dining table in the corner of the room.“I’m always full of nostalgia. I can still see
my sons, now 17 and 19, colouring over
there, and then suddenly Gillian
Anderson is taking a selfie in my kitchen.
Cathy came across a tall, handsome man
wandering around with a tool belt and
assumed he was fixing something, and
later he ended up in the show.” It was
Jakob, Jean’s love interest.
Later we joined Midge Ferguson, Sex
Education’s charismatic location manager,
on a whistle-stop tour of the show’s
locations: the old Tintern railway bridgeThe Wye Valley turned out
to be the scene-stealing
support actSEXIEST
RETREAT
BRITAIN’S
The Chalet, above and top; the Sex Education star
Gillian Anderson, above; along the River Wye, belowGeorgia Stephens
enjoys an exclusive
first stay in the Sex
Education house —
and is seduced by its
Wye Valley setting
over the Wye, across which Otis and his
best friend, Eric, often wheel their bikes
to school; Brown’s General Store in
Llandogo, with its pretty cottages
arranged up the hillside; a lofty viewpoint
in St Briavels, where the head boy Jackson
and his mum have a heart-to-heart after
their car breaks down. Even the most
mundane locations were beautiful. It’s
clear that while the Chalet was top of the
bill in the series, the Wye Valley turned
out to be the scene-stealing support act.
“I had no idea the show would be so
popular,” Ferguson told us animatedly
as we took in the views over the forested
valley. “When I sent the director photos of
the area, he said, ‘This will win us awards.’
I thought he was joking. I’m from around
here and thought everyone had a Wye
Valley. Turns out all those people never
even knew the Wye existed.”
And I was among them. Before Sex
Education my response to being told
about the Wye was “Where?” But it
would be unfair to say the series put the
Wye Valley on the map — it has always
been there, the label’s just a little faded.
In 1782 the artist William Gilpin sailed
along the river and published what is
thought to be the first British travel
guidebook, Observations on the River
Wye. “If you have never navigated the
Wye,” he wrote, “you have seen nothing.”
One of the most popular sights in the
guide was Symonds Yat Rock, a towering
limestone outcrop directly above the
Chalet, which rises 500ft and is circled
by a nesting pair of peregrine falcons.
After a lunch of venison pappardelle at
the Saracen’s Head on the riverbank, we
made the calf-burning ascent to the top
and emerged, cheeks flushed, to a
sweeping view of the Wye far below. We
watched the peregrines circling languidly,
before one tucked its wings in and shot
towards the horizon.
The whole thing was idyllic. I’m
already planning a return visit. I could
take Mum — it might help her get over
the shock of those opening scenes.Georgia Stephens was a guest of
the Chalet, where four nights’
self-catering for ten costs from
£2,995 (thechaletsymondsyat.co.uk)FARROW & BALL; JON ARNOLD IMAGES/ALAMY; JAMES VEYSEY/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK