St David's October 2015: Houses and Castles

In recent years we've taken to tagging a couple of nights elsewhere on to our customary week at St David's. Instead of hammering down the M4 to the M5 and points west, we've taken our time and visited a few places en route. This time we headed for a couple of nights in an excellent B & B up in the hills just outside of Llandeilo. As we've never explored this area before, we were very pleasantly surprised by what was on offer. Well worth a repeat visit, methinks.

Our first step was Carew Castle which has a history spanning 2,000 years and shows its development from a Norman fortification to what must have been a very impressive Elizabethan country house.

It overlooks a 23-acre tidal millpond, which provides power for ...................

.....a tidal mill. But not any old tidal mill, a tidal mill par excellence. Set on four floors, it had six grinding stones when it was in full operation. It last worked in the 1930s as a serious business concern. It was owned for centuries by the eponymous Carew family who, as they had the power, made it mandatory for their tenant farmers to have their grain processed at the mill and then charged them around 10% for the privilege. Yah boo sucks to the Carews (some 400 years after the event, I know, but it's never too late to get angry at the injustice of it).

 

Our next stop (after an overnight's stay) was Carreg Cennen Castle. The first masonry castle on this site was probably built in the 1100s and has a close association with various Welsh Princes - and Princesses, of course. Hooray for Gwenllian, the Warrior Princess. The castle's ownership over the years has been chequered and bloody and has involved the Welsh, Normans and the English battling it out. Its location, on top of a limestone plug, is spectacular and the views from the top take in a full panorama of the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountain (not to be confused with the Black Mountains which are further to the east, near Abergavenny). Apparently it has been in its ruinous state since 1462 which surprises me as I'd have thought the local stone-robbers would have made a better job at demolishing it than they have. And that's where its position has probably helped preserve it. 

 In a hidden corner of the inner ward steps lead to a vaulted passage and a natural cave which leads deep into the hillside beneath the castle. A fresh water spring rises in the cave, which would have been a useful supplement during dry weather when the castle would have had difficulty harvesting rainwater to fill the rainwater cisterns. Some say that this is one of the reasons for the castle being where it is. Whatever the reason, negotiating the passage and the steps down into the cave is a bit of an adventure and well worth hiring a torch to do so.

The white building in the front of this picture is an old long-house and is thought to be older than the castle itself. Best estimates date it to 1000 something. Thebuildings to the right are a lot older and, together, you are looking at a continued presence on this site of at least a thousand years.

A change of pace (?!) took us to Dinefwr Park on the outskirts of Llandeilo. An historic house, an ancient castle and a mediaeval deer park, all at one stop. First port-of-call was Newtown House, a rather severe Gothic style of the building that owes its appearance to a Victorian restoration of an earlier Georgian house. Inside it has been restored to what it might have looked like in the late Victorian or early Edwardian period. 

We were lucky to be able to take in a 'behind the scenes' tour that enabled us to get up on the roof.

Dinafwr Castle is of a similar vintage to Carreg Cennen and many of the players on the Carreg Cennen stage feature here. Reading through the list of characters is like reading through a chronology of Welsh Royalty. Perched on a rocky outcrop, it gives glorious views over the Towy Valley. With its ramparts and towers, it's a great place to explore (unless you don't like heights!).

Dinafwr has an impressive circular keep which would have provided formidable resistance to attackers. But, by the 15th century the age of castles had pretty much passed and Dinafwr declined thereafter until, around 1660, an ornamental summer house was built on top of the keep. How the mighty had fallen.