Train spotting in the Preselis

Posted on May 12, 2015 by bookvolunteer

Fishguard Harbour, the nearest station to Dinas, is the end of the line. Your only options are to take the ferry to Ireland, at 2.30 am or 2.30 pm, or go south towards Carmarthen. As there are only seven trains a day, I can’t recommend it for a conventional train spotter. But the area is nevertheless full of reminders of what used to be or might have been.

  • There are the remnants of lines at abandoned quarries, at Rosebush and Porthgain
  • There’s still a line to the old Royal Navy Armaments depot at Trecwn where copper was used for the  narrow gauge railway in order to avoid the danger of sparks
  • There’s a line that was engineered and almost completed before being abandoned at the out break of the 1st World War. The bridges and embankments can still be seen
Unused railway bridge

This bridge was built to carry an alternative line from Goodwick to Letterston that was never completed although a mile or so of embankment still remains to the west of it. The scheme was interrupted by the outbreak of WW1. © Copyright ceridwen and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

  • The route of the old North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway dating from 1876 and finally closed in 1949 is still visible in places
Old North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard railway

The course of the old North Pembrokeshire and Fishguard Railway at Cil-moor. © Copyright Philip Halling and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

  • There are abandoned halts (request stops) and stations on the Fishguard line.

So there is plenty of interest for railway enthusiasts in the area. You will even find that local farmers have put old freight wagons to good use as a feed-stores for the mountain sheep.

Old railway wagon on the mountain above Dinas

Posted in Farming, History, Transport, Walking | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

One Christmas card that escaped the recycling

Posted on May 8, 2015 by bookvolunteer

This Christmas card was sent to my great aunt Paulina, probably some time in the late 1890s. By 1903 she was employed as a teaching assistant at Dinas school (paid £35* per year) and would shortly marry Thomas Maurice, the Head Teacher. “You know who”, with an ink splodge around the ‘k’ surely can’t be the way the head teacher signed his greeting card to the young colleague he would eventually marry.

This card was made to last. The paper insert sits within a sturdy, shiny cover, pieced by a window that reveals the idyllic country scene. Could this shiny material be gutta percha?

The custom of sending Christmas cards began with the penny post and was barely fifty years old when this card was sent. Its illustration and verses were typical of the time. Helen Marion Burnside (b. 1844) was a favourite of Queen Victoria’s and wrote approximately six thousand Christmas card verses between 1874 and 1900. The illustration is uncredited; to our eyes the violets and the sunny scene with trees in leaf are more typical of a card for Easter or Mother’s Day, but here it was a reassuring reminder that winter would eventually come to an end and warmer days return.

*According to the Bank of England  inflation calculator this equates to £3,800 now.

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Improving literature

Posted on May 5, 2015 by bookvolunteer

When the Welsh non-conformist chapels had congregations that filled the pews and most households  owned a family bible that was large enough to record the family’s births and deaths on blank pages, the other devotional book with which most chapel-goers were familiar was John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.

Captain Joseph Francis and his wife Rebecca had this splendid book on their bookshelves in Eryl. It’s weighty enough to need a lectern for its leather binding,  gilt decoration, marbled end-papers and large beautifully illustrated print.

"J. R. Kilsby Jones Ap Caledfryn" by Artist Ap Caledfryn (1837–1915) - http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/reverend-j-r-kilsby-jones-18131889-120219. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J._R._Kilsby_Jones_Ap_Caledfryn.jpg#/media/File:J._R._Kilsby_Jones_Ap_Caledfryn.jpg

“J. R. Kilsby Jones Ap Caledfryn” by Artist Ap Caledfryn (1837–1915) – http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/reverend-j-r-kilsby-jones-18131889-120219. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons – 

The translator, the Minister J R Kilsby Jones, could be a character in the book, judging from this portrait.

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Sea-change

Posted on May 1, 2015 by bookvolunteer
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Brick on the beach at Aberbach

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The foolishness of tax avoidance

Posted on April 28, 2015 by bookvolunteer
Cwm yr Eglwys sea wall copyright Chris Shaw

The sea wall at Cwm yr Eglwys. Photo copyright Chris Shaw.

The sea wall at Cwm yr Eglwys was built to protect the graveyard after the great storm of 1859 had destroyed the Church and the sea threatened to encroach further and further inland with gruesome and distressing consequences. The Rev. Jones (writing as ‘Gwynrug’ in the local paper) described the scene.

Torn coffins, with human remains protruding from them, were hanging in the bank above the beach. Pieces of coffin and human skeletons were strewn all over the shore. The sight was harrowing and ghastly!

This unacceptable situation was taken in hand by Capt David Harries of Soar Hill in 1881 and within a year he had raised £180. The building contract was awarded to William Davies and Sons from Lower Town Fishguard and they completed the job within seven months, reburying the dispersed human remains behind the sea wall. The sea defences were solidly built, measuring 17 feet high, 12 feet thick at the base and 4 feet wide at the top.

The completion of the wall was celebrated by a large crowd. Entertainment was provided by the Newport Brass Band, Capt David Harries reminded everyone of the history of the project and the local dignitaries graced the occasion by making a speech and laying the commemorative stone.

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THIS WALL WAS BUILT BY PUBLIC SUBSCRIPTION AND THIS STONE WAS PLACED HEREIN BY KATHARINE LADY LLOYD OF BRONWYDD IN COMMEMORATION OF THE EVENT AUGUST 31ST AD 1882. Photo credit Evan George.

But who was Katharine Lady Lloyd of Bronwydd whose name is recorded on this slate which can still be seen above the slipway on the way down to the beach? Daughter of a Glaswegian shipping magnate and developer, she married Sir Marteine Owen Mowbray Lloyd, 2nd Baronet, in 1878, a year after he had inherited a fairy-tale castle and £100,000 of debt. The castle, near Newcastle Emlyn, had been remodelled by the baronet’s father from an C18th house in the 1850s, and incorporated turrets, stone carvings, a tower, polychrome roof tiles, stained glass and a wealth of interior decoration.

Bronwydd mansion

Bronwydd c 1960

Katharine Lloyd and her husband, who made some progress in paying off the enormous debt, had four children, three daughters and a son. In an attempt to avoid the taxes that would have made the inheritance unmanageable, the house was unwisely passed to their son, Marteine Kemes Arundel Lloyd. He was a captain in the grenadier guards and after being wounded at Ypres he was killed on the Somme in September 1916. Death duties were charged.

The family moved from the house. When Katharine Lloyd died in 1937 Bronwydd was sold. During the second world war it housed a school that had been evacuated from Brighton but then it was  stripped of its decoration and abandoned. Very little of it is left today.

Bronwydd Mansion. Photo copyright Dan Gregory

Bronwydd. Photo copyright Dan Gregory

I’m pleased to see that Katharine Lloyd’s name lives on in the hamlet of Cwm yr Eglwys long after her grand house has mostly collapsed into its cellars.

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Garnwen’s Gourmet Goats

Posted on April 24, 2015 by bookvolunteer
The rocky top of Garnwen

Cilwenin seen from the top of Garnwen. Photo credit Ann Hughes.

The photo above was taken from Garnwen, a rocky outcrop at the Fishguard end of Dinas. This was one of my favourite places, as a child on holiday in Dinas. I loved running over the rocks to the top where I could get a good view of the surrounding countryside

Aber Bach

Aber Bach seen from the top of Garnwen – Dinas Cross. Photo credit Ann Hughes.

and making, what I thought was a perilous climb down the back of the hill to a narrow ledge where I considered myself perfectly hidden from any seekers. I shared this childhood delight with Ann Hughes,  today’s Guest Contributor, who was more observant than I was.

Garnwen is the home of a rare white violet called “viola lactea”. When I was a child, I always wondered why some of the violets were so pale and my explanation was that they had bleached in the sun! It was only in the 80s when a friend who is a botanist took an interest in our pale violet that we were told what it is. At the time we had clumps of milky white flowers but since then the land has been grazed by goats and I couldn’t find any on this visit that are completely white. You can see, however that they are very pale compared with ordinary violets and most of them are hybrids of the two. Another characteristic is that the leaf is longer and narrower. Only one other site has been identified in Dinas and that is near the viewpoint on Dinas mountain.

violets

Searching for Viola Lactea on Garnwen. Photo credit Ann Hughes

Viola

Viola Lactea or a hybrid? Photo credit Ann Hughes.

Violets in Dinas Cross.

Very pale violets. Photo credit Ann Hughes.

I like the linguistic confusion of ‘white violet’. It led me to think of other possibilities – ‘green orange’ ‘yellow pink’ ……

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Carpets of spring flowers at Castell Henllys

Posted on April 21, 2015 by bookvolunteer
Primroses, violets and lesser celandines
Wood anenomes
The first blue bells

Castell Henllys in mid April –  gorgeous weather and wonderful spring flowers.

Many thanks to Ann Hughes for the photos.
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From Carningli to Dinas Island

Posted on April 17, 2015 by bookvolunteer

Dinas Head from the top of Carningli. Photo credit Heather Hill 

This beautiful photo was taken from the top of Carningli,  behind our local town of Newport. Although the rocky summit is only 347m in height I feel that it qualifies as a mountain  because of the way that it rises up steeply from the sea to dominate the town. At the top are the remains of an iron age hill fort and numerous hut circles dating from the bronze age. There are also memories of St Brynach, the 5th century Saint, who retreated here to commune with the angels (or perhaps just for a bit of peace and quiet).

From the top you can see Dinas Island in the distance, like a beached whale. This is not a true island but a  promontory. It is joined to the mainland by a swampy valley formed at the end of the ice age by a meltwater overflow from a glacial lake in the Preseli Hills.

Hugo Grotius - Stranded Whale at Dutch sea coast 1598

Hugo Grotius – Stranded Whale at Dutch sea coast 1598

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John Knapp-Fisher

Posted on April 14, 2015 by bookvolunteer

The Lone Cyclist - Porthgain 1984 by John Knapp-Fisher Although I see North Pembrokeshire in bright colours, John Knapp-Fisher’s muted earthy tones  seem to faithfully portray the light and the shapes of this part of the world. He lived and worked at his studio gallery in Croesgoch on the St Davids peninsula from 1967, when he followed the Seymours to this area, until his death in February this year. His houses and village scenes are instantly recognisable as typical of North Pembrokeshire. The lone cyclist (above) was printed in an edition of 850 and prints can be purchased from Gallery on the Usk.

John Knapp-Fisher (Abereiddy Evening. 1974)

‘Abereiddy Evening’ (above) is typical of much of his work. Pwllgwaelod (below) is a water colour of Dinas’ sandy beach, looking towards Fishguard.  Postcard reproductions of his landscapes are widely available locally.

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John Knapp-Fisher’s  autobiography ‘My Life – all the little things’ is available at Ty Custom House in Cardigan for £25 . ‘Pembrokeshire’, his first book, is available on Amazon where  you can pay up to £250 for the first edition.

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When Dinas fed Birmingham

Posted on April 10, 2015 by bookvolunteer
Rabbit in clover on Dinas Island

Rabbit in clover on Dinas Island

If you’d like a project while you’re staying in Dinas, the Mammal Society is looking for help in mapping populations of rabbits and hares in the UK. See here for more details. Apart from the catastrophic myxomatosis outbreak in the 1950s which killed 95% of all rabbits in the UK, rabbits have flourished in the Dinas area and you won’t have to go far before you come across them. Lots! I have never seen any hares, however.

During the second world war a group of young men from the Dinas area did their bit to control the local rabbit population (and supplement their own incomes at the same time) by catching enormous numbers of the animals. Every weekend they would load 2,000 or so onto the train at Goodwick, destined for Birmingham, where rabbit meat was a welcome addition to the frugal war-time diet.

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The heartbreak of losing sons at sea

Posted on April 7, 2015 by bookvolunteer

My great-grandparents, who farmed at Hescwm, Dinas, had ten children – one every two years from 1867 to 1885 – as recorded on the first page of this family bible. Also recorded, at the bottom of the page are the dates of the children who pre-deceased them. David, their first-born, died at sea at the age of 25.

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The story of London’s oldest buns, as originally told here by the Gentle Author of Spitalfields Life, is a poignant commentary on the anguish of many local families who lost their fathers and sons at sea.

Widow's SonA net of Hot Cross Buns hangs above the bar at The Widow’s Son in Bromley by Bow and each year a sailor comes to add another bun to the collection. Yet no Hot Cross Buns are eaten in the ceremony, they are purely for symbolic purposes – left to dry out and gather dust and hang in the net for eternity, London’s oldest buns exist as metaphors to represent the passing years and talismans to bring good luck but, more than this, they tell a story.

On Good Friday, what could be more appropriate to the equivocal nature of the day than an event which involves both celebration of Hot Cross Buns and the remembrance of the departed in a single custom – such is the ceremony of the Widow’s Buns at Bow.

The Widow’s Son was built in 1848 upon the former site of an old widow’s cottage, so the tale goes. When her only son left to be a sailor, she promised to bake him a Hot Cross Bun and keep it for his return. But although he drowned at sea, the widow refused to give up hope, preserving the bun upon his return and making a fresh one each year to add to the collection. This annual tradition has been continued in the pub as a remembrance of the widow and her son, and of the bond between all those on land and sea, with sailors of the Royal Navy coming to place the bun in the net every year.

Behind this custom lies the belief that Hot Cross Buns baked on Good Friday will never decay, reflected in the tradition of nailing a Hot Cross Bun to the wall so that the cross may bring good luck to the household – though what appeals to me about the story of the widow is the notion of baking as an act of faith, incarnating a mother’s hope that her son lives. I interpret the widow’s persistence in making the bun each year as a beautiful gesture, not of self-deception but of longing for wish-fulfilment, manifesting her love for her son. So I especially like the clever image upon the inn sign outside the Widow’s Son, illustrating an apocryphal scene in the story when the son returns from the sea many years later to discover a huge net of buns hanging behind the door, demonstrating that his mother always expected him back.

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Pembrokeshire birds illustrated

Posted on April 3, 2015 by bookvolunteer
Guillemots by Charles Tunnicliffe
Storm Petrels by Charles Tunnicliffe
Gannets by Roger Gillmor
Great black-backed gull by Robert Gillmor
Manx Shearwater by R B Talbot Kelly
Oyster-Catcher piping by R B Talbot Kelly
Arctic Skua by R B Talbot Kelly
The Sociable Puffin by C F Tunnicliffe

 

Posted in Art, Nature, Wildlife | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments