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Llawhaden Bridge, Church & Castle: My final post on my holiday at the start of September 2024 in Wales.

The last day of our holiday in Wales was a gloomy one so far as the weather was concerned, overcast and with occasional light rain interrupting the drizzle. It didn’t stop me from taking a rather long route into Narberth from our holiday cottage at Narberth Bridge in the morning with Linda, though it was a walk I’d made on my own a few days earlier, stopping then to take photographs in rather better weather and I made no more this time.

Back at the cottage after lunch we decided the weather would not put us off another walk and made plans to visit Llawhaden to view the church and castle and then to walk along a footpath to Robeston Wathen, where we would phone for a car to pick us up and take us back to Narberth.

It seemed a long drive mainly along narrow country lanes to take us to Llawhaden Bridge, a Grade II* scheduled monument. This medieval stone arch bridge is said to be “of national importance for its potential to enhance our knowledge of xmedieval or post-medieval construction techniques and transportation systems.” Wikipedia says it was built in the mid-18th century.

For us it was a convenient place to be dropped off and to take us across the Eastern Cleddau river, which here formed the boundary from Norman times between English and Welsh-speaking Wales.

Over the bridge we turned right, taking the road below the steep hill up to the village of Llawhaden to its church beside the river. It was unusual in being one of six parishes that straddled the linguistic border and was bilingual. The bridge is now on the Landsker Borderlands Trail that marks this divide.

St Aidan’s church was an impressive building from the outside, but relatively bare inside with only a few monuments on its wall, and just a little stained glass. This medieval church has an unusual double tower and is II* listed with a very complete description of the structure

Opposite the church is a steep path leading up around 80 metres to the village of Llawhaden, emerging close to the castle, though by the time I’d got to the top I was too out of breath to notice it and walked to the centre of the village before realising it was behind me.

Llawhaden was a far more important place back in the 12th and 13th century as it became the administrative centre of Dewisland, the land owned by the Bishops of St Davids which King Henry I had issued a charter as a Marcher Lordship – effectively an independent state.

The castle was first built as a smaller military castle to protect the area from the Welsh on the other side of the Cleddau river, but this was destroyed by the Welsh in 1193 was later replaced by the fortified palace for the Bishops whose remains we spent some time walking around and climbing up and down various parts. Much of it was “embellished” by Bishop Houghton in the 14th century, but later after it fell into disuse, much of the stones were used for other buildings in the area.

The site is well presented and free to visit, but rather off the beaten track despite being only a couple of miles from the A40. There were only two other visitors in the 25 minutes or so we spent there.

We might have spent longer, but the only one of us with a mobile phone realised she had left the piece of paper on which she had written the phone number for our ride home back in Narberth. We tried to contact others who might know it without success and our emails to the driver were only read the following day. We decided we had to walk back the whole way and continued on the route, going back down the hill and back over Llawhaden Bridge to the bridle way and footpath leading to Robeston Wathen.

This started well, but after around 500 metres we found the path flooded and decided not to try to wade through, turning around and going back to the bridge again. We were tired by the time we had walked back the 4 miles along the route we had been driven on our way to Llawhaden.

Just a few more pictures at Llawhaden Bridge, Church & Castle.

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Ninety from Narbeth: Narberth (Arbeth to Welsh speakers) was until recently a place I had never hear of, a small town in Pembrokeshire with ancient origins. I spent a week staying there with a small group of friends at the start of September 2024, returning last Saturday.

Narbeth apparently grew up around the palace of a Welsh king and in the great collection of ancient Welsh stories preserved by oral tradition until first written down around 1350, the Mabinogion, is the chief palace of Pwyll, Prince of Dyfed. There were ancient camps nearby and the Romans came – and went.

But it was the Normans who, having invaded England in 1066, a few years later turned their attention to Wales and left a great mark on the area, building more than 50 massive castles to invade and occupy the area. Thee wars here were a complex and changing situation and other castles were built by the Welsh to defend their land.

A castle was first built at Narbeth by the Normans around 1116, but rebuilt in stone in the following century. It formed a part of what is now called the Landsker Line, defending the territory they controlled against the Welsh. The castle is now in ruins but open to the public, though the buildings are fenced off for safety reasons.

The Landsker Line divided the largely English-speaking area of south Pembrokeshire, dominated by the Normans from Welsh-speaking Wales, and the area to the south of it was often called ‘Little England’.

Now only around a fifth of the roughly four thousand residents of Narberth are Welsh-speaking. For a town of its size it has a remarkable number of independent shops and particularly at weekends the place is crowded. Ten years ago The Guardian called it “a gastronomic hub for West Wales” and named it as “one of the liveliest, most likeable little towns in the UK.“

I can’t comment on the gastronomy, though I did help to cook some interesting meals for our small group staying there, but it does have a very fine shop making artisanal ice cream with some unusual flavours. And I only visited one of its many pubs, which was a very friendly place, though I just missed the live music there.

As well as more traditional shops, the town also has more than its share of arty shops and some with a hippy or ‘New Age’ vibe. And its certainly a very friendly place compared to suburban London and one of a number of locals we met in a pub shook my hand when I revealed one of my Grandmothers had come from Wales. I’m not surprised that Narberth was “named one of the best places to live in Wales in 2017“

It has an excellent local museum and of course a number of churches and chapels, though some now in other uses. These are among its 70 listed buildings, most of which I think are in the pictures I took, though many of the more interesting are unlisted.

It isn’t far to drive to many other attractions of the area – more castles, mills, the rugged coastal path and more sedate seaside resorts with some fine beaches. Friends took me to some of these but there were many more.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about Narberth is the railway station, around three-quarters of a mile from the centre of town. On the map the railway seems useful, but in reality there are too few trains to be of much use. The station building is now a joinery though Platform 1 (and only) still stands, with an announcement telling us that this was a request stop, and we should indicate clearly to the driver as the train approached that we wanted to board. Fortunately it did stop when we began our journey home.

All the pictures here are from Narberth town centre, and there are more on Facebook in the album ‘Ninety From Narbeth‘. I’ll make some later posts about some of the places in the area we were able to visit during our holiday.

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Tag: Narberth

Llawhaden Bridge, Church & Castle

Ninety from Narbeth, Pembrokeshire: