Wales III: Llanelli, Kidwelly and Ferry Side

     Our final full day in Wales, and again we drove west exploring this time the eastern side of Carmarthen Bay.  We made a brief stop at Llanelli to pop into the covered market, which had some really good stalls, and then drove along the coast to Kidwelly.
     Kidwelly is a very small, attractive town at the mouth of the Gwendreath.  It has both a priory church and large, well preserved castle.  Both are very prominent, (spires are not so common, I think, in Wales - towers are either flat topped with battlements or have a saddleback); and they and the town that lies around them are Norman foundations, part of the conquest of southern Wales.

     The Castle is great example of a 'concentric castle'.  It stands high on a cliff above the river. The two inner baileys form a sort of 'D' shape.  The walls bristle with towers.  The great outer bailey or ward is now occupied by houses, though the outer gatehouse partly survives with an arch still across the street.  The inner gatehouse, which is much more intact, is enormous, with a large Great Hall on the first floor.

     The Priory church down in the town is a large, aisle-less cruciform church, founded in early 1100s by Bishop Roger of Salisbury as a daughter house of Sherbourne in Dorset. It has always also served as a parish church and was dissolved along with Sherbourne in 1539.  In the later Middle Ages it seems to have become a pilgrimage centre.  

     Inside the priory church looking west.  Wonderfully cool on a blisteringly hot day, with that welcome musty, old church smell.  I love these wooden barrel roofs.  St Mary's in Tenby has them, and you can find them too in Devon and Cornwall just over the Bristol Channel.

      We drove west from there to Ferryside, a very small, mainly nineteenth century village and discreet seaside resort, on the shore of the Tywi estuary downstream from Carmarthen and opposite Llansteffan.  There is a lovely wide sandy beach, and that same sort of silence we encountered at Laugharne.  The views are wonderful.  I took the opportunity to paddle. The bf refused. The water was deliciously warm, but he couldn't be persuaded. The railway line between Swansea and Carmarthen separates the village and the beach. We ate a very good fish and chip lunch at The Ferry Cabin which stands between the railway and the village square. Not surprisingly it was very busy.  (The description in the 'Rough Guide to Wales' - 'chips-with-everything' - is unfair. The emphasis was very much on fresh local produce. If I remember rightly the owners are also farmers and it's beef from their cattle that's on the menu.) The village church, St Thomas, is High Victorian and a delight; a pretty much untouched Tractarian interior - dark, comfortable and solid.

Wales II: Coed Darcy, Swansea and Llandeilo Fawr

     Another packed day. It doesn't seem a week ago to the day. In the morning we went to the new planned town to the east of Swansea: Coed Darcy.  The masterplan is by Alan Baxter Associates, and sits on the site of a former oil refinery.  A lot of time and money has been spent cleaning it up. Unfortunately we were unable to gain access to the Demonstration Village designed by my friend Ben Pentreath.  (You will have to make do with Ben's blog, here.  Where you will also get to know more about the re-development.)  Safe to say that it is an example of the 'New Urbanism' rather like Poundbury in Dorset, and has the involvement of the Prince Foundation. Instead of the Demonstration Village we had a wander around the part of the development being built by Persimmon.

     From there we drove back into Swansea, past the new University buildings that, unfortunately, put me in the mind of Mussolini's EUR 42 in Rome.  Except that quite possibly the EUR buildings were a better build quality....

     Swansea seems to undergoing huge re-development, most of which looks regrettable.  We paid a flying visit to the slightly underwhelming Dylan Thomas Centre housed in a splendid old building - the former Guildhall - near the docks.  The exhibition was interesting, if a little too noisy when all the audio clips were playing at once.  From there to the Promenade, and reminiscences of the Mumbles Train, and then swiftly on to 5 Cwmdonkin Drive, in the Uplands area of the city and the childhood home of Dylan Thomas.

     Back down the hill to the The Guildhall, 1934, by Sir Percy Thomas.  A huge brooding bulk of white Portland stone.  A fortress of a building.  A classical building where all the entablatures have been omitted giving each façade the look of a cliff  The entrances are like the mouths of caves punched in the massive masonry.  The windows almost seem incidental at times to the elemental feel.  Each entrance is filled with a Bronze grille and door as though they had stepped out of ancient Rome.  The whole thing is powerful confection of Imperial Rome, French Neo-classicism (Ledoux and Boulle) and Art Deco.

     As you can see ornament is used sparingly - the Guildhall uses mass rather than ornament for effect - though there are a number of Art Deco-ish sculptures.  Sir Robert Lorrimer developed a similar language of bare monumental wall contrasting with carefully placed ornament.  Perhaps it would have benefited from the use of another stone, one with more personality than the even-grained Portland.

     Inside there are civilized spaces and long corridors.  The detailing is superb: bronze handrails end in the prows of Viking Long Boats commemorating the founders of the city.  At the centre of this great hulk of a building nestles the Brangwyn Hall.  This enormous concert Hall contains a series of great mural paintings by Sir Frank Brangwyn, each painted to resemble a tapestry.  Known either as the 'Brangywn Panels' or the 'Empire Panels', they were painted by Brangwyn (1867-1956) as a celebration of the riches, both cultural and material, of the British Empire. 

     After lunch we headed north to Llandeilo Fawr and Dinefwr.  Plas Dinefwr, also known as Newton House, is a property that has been rescued by the National Trust from near dereliction.  The estate marks the political centre of the old Welsh Principality of Deheubarth.  The current house was originally erected during the Restoration, and was surrounded by a Baroque garden and landscape. Unhappily these were swept away, and a landscape Park laid out by Capability Brown. The exterior of the house was eventually recast in Victorian High Gothic by Richard Kyrke Penson, whilst retaining the classical proportions of the original design.

     The porte-cochere and the rather French tops to the corner towers are part of Penson's work.  The interior was a bit of a disappointment. Firstly the interior had been wrecked by squatters, and secondly the Trust had decided to re-instate the interior as it would have been in the Edwardian Age.  I think this was a mistake; I would have preferred the Trust had used an interior designer, someone say of the calibre of the late John Fowler, to create new interiors in a traditional taste. 

     At the rear of the house Penson added this remarkable porch and conservatory which certainly help break up the barrack like bulk of the house. (Walking around the outside I did think the whole thing a little institutional, as though it had once been an asylum.)

     In the park I found these remarkable oak trees with their writhing, twisting roots.

  Finally (!) we stopped briefly in Llandeilo Fawr and I took these.  I need to return and explore some more.

Wales I: Laugharne and Tenby

     On the first full day of our trip we went west to Laugharne and Tenby.  (Guess who forgot his camera the previous evening when we went on to the Gower?)

     Laugharne is a lovely, rather urban, village tucked up on a winding estuary.  The main street of stuccoed houses is what you'd expect to find in a market town. Indeed many of the houses are particularly grand (some also undergoing restoration) which suggests that it was once a wealthy place.  Today it is famous for being the last home of Dylan Thomas, and partly the inspiration for his evocative Radio drama 'Under Milk Wood'.  Standing on the quay side, and ascending up to Thomas's Writing Shed I was struck by the incredible, profound silence of it all.  The view down the estuary to the sea contained, also, a deep sense of mystery and I was reminded of the pivotal role Wales had in the Neo-Romantic imagination: Piper travelled all over Wales, while Sutherland and Craxton went west into Pembrokeshire.  And of course, there was Thomas himself.

     The Boat House where Dylan and Caitlin lived from 1949 onwards.  It is now a small museum and tea room.  I found it very moving.

     The writing shed.  It stands high above the estuary.

        The interior - both commonplace and magical.

      The view from Dylan's house across the estuary.

      We drove on into the west, passing through Pendine, Marros, Amroth, Wiseman's Bridge and Saundersfoot.  At Pendine church we found this cast iron gravestone which had been cast in Saundersfoot up the coast.

     Tenby is very beautiful, probably one of most beautiful small towns in Britain.  Though it was that day too hot and too busy for me to be comfortable, both its location and its architecture couldn't be better. I particularly love the joyous colour of the buildings.

      Tucked away in an alley way is this medieval house that once housed a merchant and his family.  It is owned by the National Trust and has been re-furnished in an historically informed manner.

Catching up.....

It has been a long time since I last wrote a post - nearly a month in fact.  Please allow me to apologize.  Things have been somewhat fraught here and then when things thankfully settled down I went on holiday to South Wales with the bf.
On the 9th my father fell and broke his hip.  He was taken into hospital and operated on the following day, but the day after his condition worsened and I was called in to the hospital.  Thankfully his condition improved, and he was returned to his nursing home a week later.  My holiday, mercifully, started the next Monday though not without an unhappily eventful journey that being a sensitive soul I haven't quite yet come to terms with.  That said the holiday was lovely, and busy.  I took plenty of photographs and in the next few days hope will post them here.

Own work - Bourne Abbey Church

     I've only just finished this a mixed media work depicting the south side of Bourne Abbey in Lincolnshire - watercolour, charcoal, ink, wax pastel, pencil, collage.  Personally I think it a bit overworked in places.  The second image is to give you a rough idea of what it will look liked when mounted.