Sport and Leisure
Chepstow Racecourse is the leading horse racing facility and course in Wales. It is located on the edge of the town, in the grounds of the ruined Piercefield House. The racecourse was opened in 1926, and became the regular venue of the Welsh National in 1949.
Chepstow Town F.C. was founded in 1878 and as of 2012 play in Division One of the Gwent County League. They last won the league title in 1997. The town also has a rugby football club and an athletic Club for archery (St Kingsmark Bowmen), tennis, bowls, cricket and junior football. The 1976 IAAF World Cross Country Championships, won by Carlos Lopes, were held in the town.
The town's leisure centre is located adjoining Chepstow School. The centre is owned by Monmouthshire County Council. Its facilities include an indoor swimming pool and both indoor and outdoor games pitches.
Since its heyday as a centre for the "Wye Tour" in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, Chepstow has remained an important centre for tourism. The town has a range of hotels and guest houses. As well as its own attractions, including the castle, the town is close to other attractions including the Royal Forest of Dean, Tintern Abbey and the Wye Valley, the Marriott St Pierre Hotel and Country Club, and the National Diving and Activity Centre at Tidenham. Several long distance trails - the Offa's Dyke Path, the Wye Valley Walk, the Wales Coast Path, and the Gloucestershire Way - pass through, or very close to, the town.
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Famous quotes containing the words sport and/or leisure:
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)
“A healthy man, with steady employment, as wood-chopping at fifty cents a cord, and a camp in the woods, will not be a good subject for Christianity. The New Testament may be a choice book to him on some, but not on all or most of his days. He will rather go a-fishing in his leisure hours. The Apostles, though they were fishers too, were of the solemn race of sea-fishers, and never trolled for pickerel on inland streams.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)