Wye, a river of Wales and England, of great picturesque beauty, an affluent of the Severn, has its origin in two copious springs which issue from the south-east side of Plinlimmon, not 2 miles from the head-water of the Severn (q.v.). It thence flows 150 miles in a generally south-east direction through or along the borders of the counties of Montgomery, Radnor, Brecknock, Hereford, Monmouth, and Gloucester, till it enters the Severn's estuary below Chepstow. At Chepstow the tide has been known to rise 47 feet above low-water mark. The chief affluents are the Lug and Ithon on the left, and the Monnow, the Caerwen, and Irffron on the right. Fly-fishing for salmon has suffered much from netting at the mouth; and the Wye is not much of a boating river, though a pair-oar has been rowed down it from Boughrood, above Hereford. The part of the river separating Monmouth from Gloucester is that chiefly visited for its singular beauty.
See CHEPSTOW, TINTERN, ROSS, &c., and works by W. Gilpin (1782), C. Heath (1800), L. Ritchie (1841), W. and M. Howitt (1863), and G. P. Bevan (1887).