My 2024 in Photographs: The fourth and final part of my selection of images from 2024.
You can double-click on any of the images to see them larger and you can see many more pictures from these and other events in 2024 and earlier years in my albums on Facebook.
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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Blackpool & Minwear Wood: More holiday snaps. We could have walked to Blackpool from where we were staying in Narberth. Not of course the Blackpool in Lancashire but the very much smaller Blackpool in Pembrokeshire.
It would have been a pleasant walk along country roads and through Carnaston Woods, perhaps 5 or 6 kilometres, but we wanted to go a little beyond Blackpool to Minwear Woods for a walk there, and together with the walk back would have been too much for some of us.
Blackpool isn’t a very large place. It has a bridge, Blackpool Bridge, a large house, Blackpool and Blackpool Mill. One road to nowhere very much, woods around and several footpaths including the Knights Way.
The bridge takes the Knights Way over the Eastern River Cleddau, close to the limit of the tide coming up the river from Milford Haven and at the highest navigable point of the river.
It has an inscription stating it was built around 1830 by Baroness de Rutzen; she was the daughter and heiress to Nathaniel Phillips, the owner of the Slebech estate and of Blackpool Mill. I think it may have been rebuilt then rather than entirely new though it may have replaced a ford a short way upstream.
Mary Dorothea Phillips (1797-1860) had met Charles Frederick (1795-1874), Baron de Rutzen in Rome in 1821 and they were married in 1822 in England. Later they became Lords of the Manors of Slebech, Minwear, Newton, Narberth and Robeston Wathen, and of the Manors or Reeveship of Lampeter Velfrey and Llanddewi Velfrey.
Usually described as German, de Rutzen was born in what is now Latvia and the family had extensive estates in Lithuania and you can read a great deal more about him on Geni.com, including his description of his first meeting with the charming daughter of Mrs Phillips, who was a notable pianist. After the marriage the couple lived in Brighton and London for some years, moving to Slebech Hall after Baroness de Rutzen became joint owner of the estates there as well as in Jamaica in 1830. It was a happy marriage and they had seven children.
There is no sign of a pool on either old maps of Blackpool or the current OS maps, but I think the name may come from a creek of the Cleddau immediately upstream of the bridge. The were some dramatic views of this overgrown area from the track leading to the bridge, but a footpath there was closed as too dangerous to enter.
Blackpool mill was built in 1813 on the site of a wharf and a former ironworks and is a remarkable Grade II* listed building, recently beautifully restored as a “Heritage Dining” restaurant, Black Pool Mill, by the nearby holiday park. We didn’t go inside as we had brought sandwiches which we ate at a picnic table in the woods but the restoration has retained the machinery of the mill virtually intact. Originally powered by a large waterwheel using water from a mill race coming from around a mile up-river, the waterwheel was replaced by more efficient turbine in 1903. The mill race is a feature in front of the mill which is set back from the road.
Minwear Woods are a short distance to the west on the slopes above the river and we walked around the clearly marked trail. Trees obscure any view of the river except at a recently constructed viewpoint just off the trail. A short distance to the west the view from an earlier viewpoint is now completely blocked by trees.
There are a few more pictures from this walk in the album Blackpool & Minwear Wood.
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An Afternoon At The Seaside: Last week I was staying with friends in a holiday cottage in Narberth, Pembrokeshire, and on Sunday 1st September after a late lunch we drove the roughly seven miles down to the coast at Saundersfoot.
Saundersfoot is a small seaside resort a few miles from its much larger neighbour Tenby but despite its size seems to have everything needed for a day at the seaside, including something that seems rare these days, sewage-free bathing, with a good sandy beach that gets cleaned by every high tide. But none of us swam there.
There were at least five coal mines in the area in the nineteenth century, producing some of the finest quality anthracite, with tramways bringing it down to the beach for shipping out. In 1829 Parliament gave permission to the Saundersfoot Railway and Harbour Company for the building of a harbour to export coal and other local goods, bringing in iron ore to produce pig iron.
The mines have long closed but the harbour is still there, now with private moorings, and still used by a few fishermen and for pleasure trips around the bay, as well as the sailing club.
Saundersfoot is also almost on the railway, with a station over a mile to the north bearing its name, but with so few trains to be almost useless. And in winter the trains are often replaced by buses.
We were able to park on the seafront, with just a footpath between us an the beach and decided to walk the short distance to the harbour.
We walked along the pier to the mouth of the harbour, then back to the town where we found a shop selling proper ice cream in a number of interesting flavours.
Then we walked along the other side of the harbour to the harbour mouth. There is another smaller beach to the south of the harbour.
Back in town (or rather large village) we followed the map on the detailed leaflet we had on Saundersfoot to look at its three nineteenth century chapels. The Congregational one is now converted to residential use, the Wesley Methodist still in business and the Baptist had a small notice announcing a temporary closure and inviting people to instead worship with the Methodists.
On our way into the village we had passed the parish church around three-quarters of a mile from the beach but didn’t stop to look at this Grade II* building with a medieval tower.
When we returned to the beach and lent on the promenade railings to look at the beach, now almost all covered by the sea. I took a few last pictures, though it’s now probably regarded as a crime to photograph people – particularly children – enjoying themselves at the seaside.
The previous day we had shared a rail replacement taxi from Carmarthen with a woman who was travelling to visit her daughter in Kilgetty, the next village to Saundersfoot and probably the only person apart from our group in Pembrokeshire that we knew. We found her looking out over the sea from same railing as us and had a short conversation.
More pictures from Saundersfoot.
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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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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