Cenarth

      On our return home from our stay in Cardigan we stopped at Cenarth to visit the falls and the bridge. A Romantic, harmonic coupling of the nature and man. Of Romanticism and Enlightenment. And a lovely thing is this bridge, the work of David Evans, built between 1785-7. David was the son of William Edwards, Methodist minister and architect, builder of the famous bridge at Pontypridd. Edwards senior also built the Wychtree Bridge at Morriston which, alas, was shamefully demolished by the local council in the late Fifties. These elegant structures are some of the architectural and engineering marvels of not only Wales but the whole Kingdom. It has to be said that the falls, which have attracted any number of artists during the Romantic period and since, were a little quiet the day we were there; it being the end of summer and all that. In full spate, however, they are apparently quite the thing. 

Arthur's Stone

     Our first proper outing since the start of Lockdown was to the crown of the great sandstone ridge of Cefn Bryn on peninsular Gower, taking the Red Road over the common from Llanrhidian. It was our first visit and we were properly rewarded with panoramic views in all directions. It certainly feels like the very centre of the peninsular - whether that's entirely accurate is a different matter.

     On the north flank of the hill, and with panoramic views over the Loughor estuary to the Brecon Beacons is Arthur's Stone. (I mention that because it could have significance as to the placing of this monument.) Its Welsh name is Maen Ceti. The stone is a glacial erratic, now split into two, that forms the capstone of a two chambered burial cairn - time and the hand of man removing its covering of stones. I'm not sure if anybody knows for certain whether the stone was moved to this location, or that the burial chamber was excavated from underneath the pre-existing stone. Either way it's a hell of a thing to achieve. As its English name suggests it has connections to the legend of King Arthur, but to St David also. Both men are credited with cleaving the stone in twain. Arthur used Excalibur and David his pastoral staff. A little further off to the west is a second cairn.

Own work: 'Rocks and Cave, Pennard'

     Latest painting, after a short-ish hiatus: 'Rocks and Cave, Pennard'. Mixed media on 300gsm watercolour 30x26cms. What more can I say?

Own work: 'Rocks and Scree; Pennard'

     I had started this last month before me exhibition completing it during the first full day there.  It is based on a drawing I made of the cliffs at Pennard, Gower.  Mixed media on 300gsm watercolour paper, again making use of butter for the stopping out. I hope you like it.

Own work: Cliffs at Pobbles Bay

      A new work to share with you: Cliffs at Pobbles Bay.  Mixed media on 300gsm watercolour paper.  Pobbles bay, which at low tide is connected by smooth pale sand to Three Cliffs Bay, is one of those hauntingly beautiful places that peninsular Gower is so rich in. The sky and the rocks were created by applying a wash over butter!  It, the butter, was then removed with a hot iron.

Own work: Grongar Hill

     With my next exhibition slowly creeping up on me - it's September - I've been changed subject matter and gone for the local and my first landscape painting in a long, long time. The subject is Grongar Hill, painted from the churchyard at Llangathen - a visit well worth making if only for the fabulous view over the Towy valley. I'm relatively happy with it. There are however a number of things I would hope not to repeat.

     I've blogged about Grongar Hill, the inspiration for the poet John Dyer, before.  John Piper painted it, I think, three or four times, and it has a fascination for me, which is partly associational and partly for the immense beauty of it and the landscape that surrounds it.  Mixed media.

Grongar Hill II

   After lunch we ascended to the parish church, dedicated to St Cathen, to find where Piper had sat and sketched Grongar Hill and Paxton's Tower. The area wasn't that had to find at all - at the bottom of the churchyard or perhaps in the pasture below.  Though looking at my photo now, I think, I was a little too far the north to be entirely accurate.

     The church itself is rather typically Late Medieval Welsh.  A tall unbuttressed tower with small bell openings, built of rubble and perhaps once plastered and limewashed.  The rest of the church in contrast is rather low slung.  The detailing is very simple.  The south chancel chapel is post medieval, built in the early 1600s.  John Dyer's memorial is on the exterior. The graveyard is its usual quota of Victorian polished red- granite memorials. Quite atmospheric in places.

     Inside it is more spacious than expected - much broader rather than it is tall.  Each nave and the south aisle, which must be as wide, are covered with wooden barrel vaults. To the north of the nave is a tall transept separated from the nave by a round arch. In all I was reminded of the architecture of an another two peripheral areas of the Late Gothic World: Cornwall and Scotland.  And then quite unexpectedly in the south chancel chapel a large, extravagant Jacobean memorial to Bishop Rudd of St David's who preferred to be buried here in his home parish (his family then owned Aberglasney) rather than in the cathedral. (The chapel was constructed to take the tomb - though the east window is now Victorian.) Plain now but surely it must have once of been bright with paint? Relatively free of clutter, the church is unhappily much darkened by a Victorian restoration, and by the lack of windows in the s chancel chapel, though judging by the hood mould on the exterior there must once have been a 'gothic survival' window of some description.  Gothic survival too, apparently, is the well detailed arcade between the chapel and the chancel.  A real contrast to the crudely designed nave arcade.

   Really there was nothing now to do but visit Paxton's Tower and its great views up the Towy Valley to the Black Mountain and Brecon Beacons.  The tower, a monument to Lord Nelson, was constructed by Sir William Paxton in 1811.  It was originally lavishly furnished but the windows are now open to the elements.  It is currently owned by the National Trust.