St Teilo, Llandeilo Fawr

      Tuesday we visited Moelfryn, a garden high on a Carmarthenshire hill side, open to the public as part of the wonderful National Gardens Scheme, and it was an absolute treat.  Eccentric and delightful. 

     From there we headed into Landeilo for lunch - least said about that the better.  The parish church being open I took the opportunity to take some photos for the blog.  Apart from the austere, Late Medieval w tower the body of the church is wholly 19th century, the work of the ubiquitous Sir George Gilbert Scott.  In a story that one feels could rival Gabriel Chevalier's 'Clochemerle', Scott was called into design the church after a competition to design a church for under £3,000 fell apart.  In the end the church cost nearly double Scott's original estimate of £2,500.

     The site however, as I have written elsewhere on this blog, is much, much older.  The site dates back to the 'Dark Ages' and St Teilo.  I'd like to think that the large churchyard (sliced in two since the early 19th century (?)) replicates the shape of St Teilo's original monastic foundation.  Wishful thinking on my part.  In the huge retaining wall along n side of Church St is what is known as St Teilo's Baptistery; a cave like space - probably not that old in the scheme of things - where water gushes out of a pipe and a gated passage leads mysteriously deep into the hill.  It was looking all spick and span on Tuesday, when on previous visits there were vases of flowers etc.

     The style of Scott's church is Cambridge Camden Society approved Middle Pointed.  Dark, massive like a cast iron safe.  Formidable, even unfriendly in places.  The east end in particular has a metallic quality I think this down to the masonry.  The walls are of rubble masonry - to match the tower, no doubt.  'The Buildings of Wales' just says that the church is of 'hard grey limestone', but looking at the multiple buttress set-offs it's hard not think that these, at least, are of a different, lighter, close-grained stone, and have probably been cut by machine, as is the church's most extraordinary feature: a huge batter of perfectly cut blocks at the e end of the n aisle, that is half roof and half buttress.  Elemental, industrial-age Gothic. It could almost be the work of a 'Rogue Architect' such as Samuel Saunders Teulon.  You know, I'm not sure it will ever weather into mellowness.
     The interior - aisle-less chancel, nave with n aisle and s transept - is big and barn like.  No money for refinements.  In recent years the church has been subdivided.  It hasn't helped.  Some of the detailing is plain awful.  Not much in the way of furnishings except some memorials in the chancel.  The churchyard, being in Wales, has a range of forceful Victorian gravestones.  Obelisks, spires and the like.

Dinefwr

     Over to Llandeilo last Monday to meet up with family who were staying there for a couple of days.

     After a tour of the town we walked over to the landscape park at Dinefwr. Quite interesting for the hand of Capability Brown, who was employed here as an adviser, and who could be terribly dull, but here had good bones to work with.

   It was our second visit and it is only in researching post have I come to realise how rich, complex and ancient is the history of this site. There is an Iron Age hill fort where the castle stands and a large Roman fort under the park. With the collapse of the Empire in the West the ancient Kingdom of the Demetae (its civitas was at Carmarthen) re-emerged as Dyfed. The subsequent history is one of repeated dissolution and consolidation, until the emergence of Deheubarth, which was centred on Llandeilo and Dinefwr where eventually the Lords Rhys erected a castle high on the bluff above the river Towy. A small town grew up to the north of the castle augmented by a second community, Newton (Drenewydd) further north still. Both have disappeared, and the Park has swallowed their remains. The castle survives though succeeded by Newton House, aka Plas Dinefwr, built on the site of that second community. And Newton House was our first destination, though because of Covid closed to the public. I'm not that sure we missed much. I wrote about this in my first Dinefwr post, but I will say it again. The National Trust should have employed a leading interior designer to work on the interior. This was their policy in the 1960s & 70s: David Milnaric at Benningbrough; John Fowler at Clandon Park and Sudbury Hall; and David Hicks at Blickling Hall. These designers combined historical knowledge and refined aesthetics. It was a self-confident approach, but like many institutions today confidence is something the Trust lacks. Enough with the rant. Newton House dates from the 1660s and was given a thorough-going High Victorian Gothic face-lift in the 1850s by J R Penson. The result is, perhaps, not entirely satisfactory.

     Our next stop was the castle. The views from the battlements were wonderful. The 12th century round keep, continued in use into the 17th century, a belvedere being added to the top to take advantage of those views.

     Our final stop was Llandyfeisant church - a tiny structure embowered beautifully in trees below the park, dedicated to St.Tyfi. One of the followers of St Teilo, there are a number of confusing traditions around the saint one of which places his martyrdom here. Heavily restored in c. 1879, but rather beautifully and sensitively done. According to 'The Buildings of Wales' the architect was Rev William Wiggin of Hampnett, Glouscetershire, Lord Dynevor's brother-in-law; according to 'Coflein', J Kyrke Pearson (I think they mean Penson) of Oswestry, the guy who worked on Newton House. Roman remains were found here in the late 18th century and it was then asserted that the church stands on the site of a Roman temple. Contemporary historians have suggested it stands on the site of a Roman bath house attached to the fort. Just to the north of the church we found what we wondered was a holy well. Research on the internet didn't get me very far. There was mention of the Dinefwr Well and the Nant-y-Rheibis, but nothing to firmly locate it by the church. Long the estate church of Dinefwr, the late 20th century has not been kind and for a number of years the church was derelict.  It is now being restored.

Llansteffan Castle

     A busy weekend we've had of it. Saturday was spent at the 'Festival of Senses' in Llandeilo doing a bit of Christmas shopping, while yesterday we drove over to Llansteffan on the beautiful Towy estuary. Good weather on both days was a welcome bonus after all the rain of late.
     Llansteffan is a village clustering between the foot of steep wooded hills and the beach. A small, discreet seaside resort, a bit higgledy-piggledy really, but none the worse for that. Mainly Victorian by the look of it and all colourwashed including the church but not its tower. The church is mainly Perpendicular.
     High on a headland south of the village and at the very mouth of the river stands the castle. All dark grey and hoary rubble. Most of the finer stone, which would have been used for the details such as windows and doors, has been robbed out. Some details remain on the upper floors of the great gatehouse, which in the later Middle Ages was converted into the main lodgings. A donjon. Judging by those remaining details it must have been a pretty fine place to dwell. 

     The site is ancient - the castle defences utilise the earthen ramparts of an Iron Age hill fort - and strategic - controlling the mouth of the Towy and hence access up stream to Carmarthen and the upper Towy valley. The views  in themselves are worth the climb from the village: east over the estuary to Ferryside and south out across the mouths of the Gwendraeth and Loughor estuaries to the western tip of Gower. Quite haunting, that view south, on a cold winter's day.

Own work: Llandeilo church

     Ahead of my next exhibition I have returned to topographical painting. Here's the first in a while; Llandeilo church.  Mixed media on 300 gsm watercolour paper.  I'm not at all sure whether I'm satisfied with what I've created!  Looks a bit overworked to my eyes.

Grongar Hill I

'Grongar Hill invites my song'

John Dyer

'Romantic art is the result of a vision that can see in things something significant beyond ordinary significance; something that for a moment seems to contain the whole world and when the moment is passed carries over some comment on life or experience beside the comment on appearances.'

John Piper

     Last week was spent in south-west Wales staying with the bf in the Infernal City.  Monday was wonderfully spring like, if a little chill at times.  We drove north on a return (3rd) visit to Llandeilo and then down the beautiful valley of the Towy - the ancient heartland of the kingdom of Deheubarth - a sort of literary and artistic pilgrimage for me.  Llandeilo, as I must have said before on this blog, is a wonderful little town, built high above the river at a point where the valley narrows.  A strategic point then.  A place of royal and religious authority, where in the 6th century St Teilo established a clas, a type of monastic settlement, on the site now occupied by the parish church.  It would be nice to think that the large oval graveyard perpetuates the shape of the original monastic enclosure.  Anyway it is always a pleasure to explore Llandeilo with its nest of winding narrow streets and alleyways.  There are fortunately a number of old shop fronts and still proper shops including two butchers. The best streetscape is Kings St where Georgian and Victorian buildings overlook the churchyard.

     Then on, westward, down the Towy valley to the village of Llangathen and Aberglasney, the wonderful old manor house and garden and the goal of my secular pilgrimage. I'm not at all sure how the geology works but the north side of the middle Towy valley is quite complex with a ridge of hills rising up on the edge of the valley side, like a broken palisade.  Aberglasney nestles in a fold between two of those hills, Bryn Castell-Gwrychion to the east and Grongar hill to the west. From the gardens there are delicious glimspses down between trees onto the wide floodplain of the river. The valley sides opposite are thick with woods. The gardens themselves are really delightful with plenty of the sort of formal gardening I like - the Cloister garden is very rare and could be Jacobean - with contrasting areas of informality including a sort of Sacro Bosco limping down the valley side.  All in all pretty much perfect.  A place where sensibility and imagination take wing.  It is not surprising then that the Towy valley and in particular Grongar Hill have inspired a continual stream of artists particularly those associated with the Picturesque and Romantic movements.
     In the 17th century Aberglasney was the home of John Dyer, the poet and artist.  He is particularly remembered for his long lyric poem 'Grongar Hill' (1720).  A minor poem by a minor writer, yes, but not without importance for 'Grongar Hill' marks a turn in English literature towards Romanticism. John Piper, the twentieth century Neo-romantic painter, said it was: 'one of the best purely topographical poems in existence [ ] I have loved the poem ever since I first read it, and I return to it whenever I feel depressed about the countryside getting spoilt.'  In later life Dyer took up Holy Orders and ended up as parish priest in Conningsby, in this my own dear county.  I've wondered what he felt about living amidst the looming flats of the Lincolnshire fens.  William Gilpin visited the Towy valley, and wrote briefly about it in 'Observations on the River Wye and several parts of South Wales. etc. relative to Picturesque Beauty; made in the summer of the year 1770'.  Turner, Pocock, Rooker and others followed.
     It continued to attract artists into the 20th century too. I'm lucky enough to own a small lithograph by John Piper. (I think you can guess where this is leading.)  Nothing grand, just a small, open edition illustration using merely four colours that, I think, was made by the Curwen Press to illustrate John Betjeman's anthology 'English, Scottish and Welsh Landscape Verse' (1944). It is, if you haven't already realized, of Grongar Hill, and I love it dearly. Dark, brooding and fraught with significance. Hence my pilgrimage. Piper in fact made four images of Grongar Hill, including an oil painting dating from the early forties, and the last, a present to Albert Hecht the frame maker, dating from the early eighties.