Sandwich

We’ve been staying down at the parental pile for a few days, and taking things a bit more relaxed than the somewhat frenetic pace of the past week or so. On Sunday we had a stroll around Sandwich town, which is full of picturesqueness and history. We stopped in at the Medieval Centre, where people are undertaking a number of projects, including building a medieval-style boat, and reviving arts such as blacksmithing to make arrowheads, calligraphy, and weaving, using traditional materials and methods. 

On Monday, our best-laid plan was to visit the Roman fort and amphitheatre at Richborough. “Best just check what time it’s open”, I said, and looked online. It’s closed until 2023, for, um, renovations.

Undeterred, we decided to check out Walmer and Deal castles. These are two of three castles built by Henry VIII as part of a plan to fortify the whole of the south and east coasts of England. They weren’t all built, but a string of three (Walmer, Deal and Sandown) were completed. Sandown has now been reclaimed by the sea as the coastline of East Kent has changed over the centuries, although some of the stone used was recycled to build the gatehouse at Walmer. Walmer Castle is a working residential castle and has been the official residence of the Warden of the Cinque Ports for centuries. These include such historic personages as the Duke of Wellington, Pitt the Younger, and the Queen Mother. There’s a lot of historical artefacts on display, including Wellington’s Wellington Boots. The gardens are also extensive, with the recently-opened Queen Mother’s garden a new addition. 

About a mile or so up the coast is Deal Castle. This is now empty, with the wall still standing but no content similar to Walmer. All three castles were built to the same design, with rounded bastions inside a wall and moat. The rounded bastions are to deflect cannonballs, as they need to hit at exactly 90° to cause any damage – if the hit at even a slight angle they will skid off the walls. There was information about the castle and the various threats, but it didn’t occupy us as long as Walmer Castle did.

Deal Castle is dead inside

Sattie then took us a roundabout way home so we missed seeing the Deal seafront and the centre of town.

In the evening I looked up an old friend who lives just down the road, and we went out for some beers and a curry.

 

 

Dover Castle

We checked out, loaded up the car and took a scenic route into Kent, arriving at Dover Castle around lunchtime. When there we were ambushed by an English Heritage lady, who persuaded us of the benefits of joining EH. Basically, entry to the castle would have cost us £60, whereas annual membership of EH would be a measly £115 for a year’s membership. Even though we’re only here for a couple of months, many of the sites we’ll be visiting are EH places, and entry will be free. Cost savings!

We decided to lunch first, castle afterwards, so found a picnic table. It was a bit cooler and breezy, but not uncomfortably so, as we ate tuna sammies, strawberries, and more mediocre chocolate.

Before exploring the medieval castle, we had a quick look around the Pharos and St Mary’s church, which both stand inside the curtain wall. The Pharos, or lighthouse, is of Roman build and dates back to the second century.

 

To the lighthouse

Next to the lighthouse is the church of St Mary, built in the 12^th century. It contains many of the features of olde English churches, and is curiously mosaiced around the walls.

After that we went to the castle proper, and followed the tour route around that. This included a trip up to the top of the keep to view picturesque views of Dover. Unfortunately, Dover is not a picturesque town, but the views in other directions were fine. There were volunteer guides dotted around the place and we had a long chat with one in one of the bedrooms attached to a feasting hall. She was able to give us details about how life was lived in olden times, incuding taking your bed with you when you travelled, if you were rich and could afford (a) to travel with an entourage, and (b) a bed. They slept sitting up in Olden Times, which is why so many medieval beds look short by modern standards – it’s not that they were all midgets!

 

Mappa Mundi

The second part of the history of Dover Castle relates to World War II, but by this time we were a bit castled out, so we skipped that section, headed to the shop (where we bought a fridge magnet and sampled strawberry and ginger wines) and the café (where we bought tea).

Then onwards with a quick stop at Tesco to revictual, and finally arriving at the parental homestead at around 16:00 to met with Brother Jason, and Pa. We’ll be staying here a few nights so will explore the local area from here.

 

 

Priests And Romans

Once more we sallied forth, this time to visit the Priest’s House at West Hoathly, and to have a second bash at Bignor Roman Villa, having established that it is indeed open today. Again, the opening time was 10:30, so we made a leisurely start. We arrived still with 10 minutes to spare, but then had to locate the car park which was 200m (or was it 200yds? I don’t know with all this Brexit) further down the road. The road through the village is narrow enough, but they were also resurfacing at the time; so there was heavy roadmaking machinery to be negotiated, as well as the usual cars-parked-on-both-sides-of-the-road-thus-causing-a-bottleneck which we’ve been contending with for the past week or so. Welcome to rural England!

We arrived at 10:29, but the door magically swung open and we were welcomed in by the Sussex Archaeological Society volunteer, who took our money and explained about the provenance of the Priest’s House, how it came to be and how it was subdivided and then later restored. You’ll never guess who owned it at one point…Anne of Cleves! No, she never visited. It was full of Olde Stuffe, and had a garden surrounding it. The house is supposedly well-defended against witches, with an iron doorstep, witch-warding plants in the gardens, runic inscriptions etc. Didn’t do any good, Nicola was able to get in with no problem 😉 ! 

It's not a large house, so didn’t detain us for very long. We had a quick shufti at the village church, also quite ancient, where bell-ringing practice was in progress. Then headed back to the car, negotiated the road-surfacing equipment again with some deft manoeuvring, and headed back towards Bignor… 

…until we hit some traffic. The queue appeared quite long, with very few turnoffs along the road. It was moving slowly, not in fits and starts, so not traffic lights; and too slow to be cyclists. What was the hold up? At one point an ambulance came racing past, blue lights all going, so we thought there might be an accident, but we continued to crawl along, so probably not that either. Eventually we came to a village where most of the traffic peeled off to the right, but we continued left and were now able to see the culprit: a vintage steam traction engine, puffing out smoke and steam, taking up the roadway, on its way to a show somewhere. We managed to get past it and were back on track.

Due to the delay, we decided to lunch first. As we arrived, we spotted some picnic benches, so headed straight there, feasted on sandwiches and mediocre chocolate (which we’d bought from the monks on Caldey Island the week before – don’t give up your day jobs, chaps, you’re not very good at chocolate-making!), then made our way to the villa.

The villa at Bignor was discovered in 1811, and fortunately the farmer who uncovered some of the mosaics knew what it was and immediately entrusted a seasoned archaeologist to excavate the remains. It is now housed under some buildings which were created at the time to protect the mosaics, and subsequent work has been undertaken at various times to try to recover more. The mosaics are amongst the best examples in Britain – far superior to some of the ones we saw at Fishbourne, where at one point there was an obvious area where the mosaicist had miscalculated and had to squeeze his work in! 

The mosaics are thought to be the works of Terentius, and his signature can be found on some of the mosaics.

The signature can be seen to the right

 OK, that’s enough of Sussex, both West and East. Tomorrow, we head for Kent.

  

East Is East

So far on our peregrinations from Portslade we’ve headed west to explore sites in West Sussex. Today, we headed east with two destinations in mind: Michelham Priory & Gardens, and the Anne of Cleves House museum in Lewes.

There wasn’t any hurry to leave as the priory doesn’t open until 10:30. We set out towards Upper Dicker (fnarr!) and Sattie gave us an arrival time of 10:23, so we (and a few other people) were milling around outside at opening time. 10:30 passed…then 10:31. In fact, it wasn’t until 10:35 (I know!) that the door was opened and we were able to effect an ingress. Clearly they live on country time here.

Thou shall not pass!

Inside the house there were information leaflets and exhibitions, but even more information was provided by the two guides who helped us and explained everything about the priory, its inception in the 13^th century, its uses and misuses – one prior had slackened the rules to allow bad behaviour, such as chatting during meals and fornication with local villagers. It wasn’t made clear which of these was considered the worse sin. The house was extended from its original size during the Tudor period, then extensively remodelled and updated in the late 19^th century. Some of the renos were a bit unsympathetic – the original huge arched window was cut in half by having a new floor level inserted into the building, and the arch is now completely indoors.

Original window arch

The guide demonstrated the weight-driven spit in the kitchen, which worked through a complicated set of gears. Early kitchen gadgets! Older folk probably thought it was the work of the devil.

We were also shown the inside of a cast iron strong box, used for storing important documents and valuables. It even had a dummy keyhole on the front to fool any would-be peterman, with the actual keyhole cunningly hidden. The intricate internal mechanism is shown:

After the dissolution of the monasteries the priory passed into private hands. In the 20^th century it was used for various purposes, including as a home for evacuees from the East End during the Blitz, and then as billets for Canadian officers, then ATS and Home Guard. Finally it was bought by one Mrs. Hotblack, who then gifted it to the Sussex Archaeological Society to be preserved for posterity.

We were promised a working water mill, but it's not working at the moment, as the river has silted up. It hasn’t been dredged for three years by the Environment Agency, because teh covids*, apparently.

We lunched in the shade of a tree, again on pre-packed sammies, then explored the rest of the gardens and grounds. These include a Physick Garden, a great barn, and a working forge.

We drove on from there to the Anne of Cleves House Museum in Lewes. We put the directions into Sattie, and she took us there. Unfortunately, it's on an ordinary street in Lewes, and there’s no car park! So we then searched for nearby parking, ended up in Lewes CBD, and had to walk 15 minutes to the house. There, we heard about the history of the house, and how it came into Anne Of Cleves’ possession. It doesn’t appear that she actually set foot inside the place, it was simply part of her divorce settlement from Henry VIII. As, indeed, was Michelham Priory, although no mention was made of that during our tour there.

The house, from the garden

We toured the rooms including the grand bedroom, which contained a bed that Anne of Cleves never slept in. 

OK, that’s enough historicalness for one day. A quick trip to Waitrose, conveniently located next to the carpark, and we headed back home.

 

* Accepted spelling of this disease

Arundel

OK, confession time. When we left Fishbourne, I left my camera in the café. Realising this when we got home, I gave them a call and ascertained that they had it, and yes, they did, and were taking good care of it. This morning, therefore, we had to head back in that direction to collect it, so decided that a trip to Arundel Castle and Gardens would be a great thing to do. Also in that direction is Bignor, home to a Roman villa.

Out we set, and reached Fishbourne in good time, collected the camera, and headed to Arundel. We stopped for fuel along the way and sheesh! Have you seen the price of it? Nearly £2! Anyway, needs must, so we bit the bullet.

We decided we’d hit Bignor first, so put the directions into Sattie, who told us “may be closed today”. A quick check online confirmed that this was indeed the case, so it was straight to Arundel.

Arundel Castle

Arundel was already getting busy – the main car park was full but the overflow had plenty of space. The gardens and outside buildings were open, but the castle doesn’t open until midday. No matter, we toured the water garden, which has a pond and the plants have been left to grow wild; and the formal gardens and Fitzalan Chapel, resting-place for a lot of the Dukes and duchesses of Norfolk, who are the people who live at Arundel...some of the time, anyway, as they have vast estates and properties around the country.

We’d packed a lunch before we set out, so found a shady corner of the gardens with a bench to stop and eat. Then we climbed the hill to get into the castle proper. We’d bought tickets for the castle, but did not pay the additional bit to see the seven bedrooms. How interesting can a bedroom be, right? We ascended to the top of the keep, the final section of which was up a very windy and narrow staircase, to get views out across the town. Fortunately (unlike Pembroke Castle) they’ve instigated a one-way system so you go down a different spiral staircase to descend back to the castle and continue the tour. Most of the castle is in fact Victorian restoration by the 15^th duke, and the older bits are only a small part of the complete castle these days. It’s all very castle-y and ostentatious, with an armoury, dining room, halls, drawing room, and library. And that’s only in the parts open to the public! There are guides in all the main rooms, on hand to provide information and answer any questions we might have. We had some, and they seemed well-informed and confident in their answers. We also passed Queen Victoria’s bed, in a room that was not her bedroom. When Victoria visited she gave two years’ notice that she was coming, and they built a bed specially for her.

View of Arundel Cathedral from the keep

A Duke of Norfolk

Norfolks are involved in coronations. This was the last one they did

Queen Victoria's bed

At the end of our perambulation, we took a cup of tea in the café, then headed back home. I swear we’re starting to wear a groove in the A27!

Fishbourne Roman Palace

We’d finished up at Withy Mills, and were ready to drive to our next accommodation in Portslade. Kicking-out time at AirBnBs is usually 10:00, and check-in for our next one was at 17:00, so we needed to find something to entertain us en route. We decided on Fishbourne Roman Palace, near Chichester.

We got the car loaded up and set off. About halfway Sattie decided to throw a wobbly and refused to reconnect when coming out of a dark spot, so we stopped at a pub to see if we could take a break. Unfortunately, the pub wasn’t open, so we simply restarted Sattie and carried on until we reached the Roman Palace. It was around lunch-time by then so we decided to have lunch first, and then go around the museum and ruins.

 It's believed that the palace belonged to the king of the local tribe, Togidubnus, although there’s no actual evidence of this. He was pro-Roman and had been set up by the Romans as a local governor. The first wooden buildings were around 43AD, but these were later demolished in 60AD to build a bigger, stone palace, which was gradually added to over the years. The whole thing burned to the ground about 270AD – it’s not clear whether this was accidental or deliberate. The stones were taken away to be used in other buildings and the land was used as a burial ground for a while, then returned to agricultural use and the palace forgotten about. It was rediscovered in the early 19^th century, as various bits and pieces were unearthed, but the full extent of the palace wasn’t known until a proper excavation was undertaken in 1960, after workmen digging a trench for a water pipe found some mosaic tiles. The work was halted and a full archaeological dig undertaken, and whilst nearly all of the walls were gone, the mosaic floors of various rooms in the East Wing were recovered and form the basis of the exhibition here. This place was large! It’s the biggest Roman palace to have been discovered north of the Alps, and was similar in size to some of the Roman Emperors’ palaces. This supports the theory that it was built for the local chieftain, and subsequently used by the Roman governors, not just a rich tradesman. 

Detail of a mosaic

There was also a museum with artefacts in it, and a short video that illustrated what it would have looked like in its entirety. The central courtyard is divided ito two parts, and one side of this has been restored, as far as possible, to how it might have been in Roman times. The other half of the garden, and the West wing, are underneath houses and the A27.

We finished up with a cup of tea in the café, then headed to Portslade, with a quick detour to Waitrose along the way to revictual. Traffic was bad as we approached – I guess this is the typical South Coast rush hour, as it was approaching 5 o’clock. We found the location and unloaded and settled in, met our host, who gave us a lot of information about local facilities; and started planning for the next day’s adventure!

 

Bath

We rose with the lark…OK, with the sparrow, or one of the lazier birds, in order to be able to get to Bath before the queues for the Baths became too long. We had a bit more trouble with Sattie on the way as we’d attempted to programme a multi-stop trip. We got the first leg done OK, but then Sattie sulked and said “Can’t connect” despite there being an obvious connection. So Nicola got us there on her phone instead, and we parked in Charlotte Street.

The walk into town from there isn’t very far, and there are numerous maps on signposts to help the visitors to the city. We found the Roman Baths, but there were a large number of people milling about at the entrance. Was this the queue to get in? No, it turns out that around 50 people had taken it into their tiny minds to mill around just by the entrance. Bloody tourists! We pushed our way through and joined the far shorter line of people who were actually attempting to visit the baths. We collected an audio guide each, then had to return through the milling throng because mine didn’t work. There’s a lot of milling going on! Finally we were able to set out on the tour, listening to descriptions and commentary – some provided by Bill Bryson – as we reached each new area.

Aquae Sulis, apparently

We started on the upper terrace, then moved progressively deeper into the baths, learning how they’d been built by the Romans (what did they ever do for us?) and the temple of Sulis Minerva, how it was a religious site as well as a place to get washed, and understanding the different types of rooms based on temperature, and what happened in each. All along the way there were visual aids as well, some reconstructing how it would have looked from the remains available, and some showing typical scenes from Roman times. At the end there was an opportunity to taste the actual water from the spring. It tastes disgusting. We exited through the gift shop, acquiring a fridge magnet along the way.

Sulis Minerva

Next on the agenda was lunch. Whilst Bath offers the run-of-the-mill chain restaurants, we were after something I would describe as “not-chain”, and found a little café called Rosario’s down a little alleyway which should have been populated with many like establishments, but instead appeared to be full of sweet shops. Anyway, it was what we were looking for, and they were able to serve us with a panino and a bruschetta sandwich.

After lunch we headed into Bath Abbey and had a look around that. It’s impressive, but not as impressive as Wells, and we spent less time in there.

Bath Abbey

 

Finally, we had a bit of shopping to do, so popped into Marks & Spencer, then headed home. 

This is our last night in Bath, tomorrow we head for East Sussex to see what we can see there. Probably the sea.

Wells

We set out with the intention of visiting Cheddar Gorge, but when we got there it all looked a bit uninviting and after dithering for a bit decided to give it a miss, and head for Wells instead. The scenery was all very nice, though.

In Wells, we found the car park easily and walked down the High Street, populated by normal shops, and round the corner to the bishop’s palace and cathedral. We decided to tackle the palace first. There was a garden festival thingy going on at the time, but we weren’t particularly interested in that, and instead wondered around (no tour guide this time) looking into the various rooms where information was displayed, and also around the gardens, walls, and other outbuildings. It was all very historical. 

Some bishops of Bath & Wells

We left briefly for lunch in a nearby café, then went to have a look around the cathedral. It contains many features including the grave of Thomas Linley, father of Thomas Linley.  They also have a medieval clock, which is the second-oldest functioning mechanical clock in the UK, and the oldest with a face. It is in fact a 24-hour clock, and has a little mechanism which operates every quarter hour with knights jousting, and one eventually gets clobbered. It also has the phases of the moon. 

We went up some stairs to the Chapter House, which have shown the wear and tear of hundreds of years of feet going up them. 

Afterwards we briefly toured the cloister, then headed back up the High Street and then home.

Withy Mills

We left Waterwynch for the last time, having cleared up the house and auctioned off all the leftover food items. Jason and Mark kindly volunteered to drive us to Cardiff Airport, where our pre-arranged rental car was ready for us to pick up. I say “pre-arranged car” but in fact it was a completely different car. We’d ordered “Nissan Juke or similar” but what we got was a Vauxhall Combo. That’s right, a fucking van! It was the only vehicle they had with an automatic transmission. I’ll be leaving them a very poor review.

The vehicle doesn’t come with satnav and the Bluetooth was being very temperamental, so eventually we plugged Nicola’s phone in to the USB socket, which is very inconveniently located on the screen. Then we plugged in, firstly, the directions to Caerwent, where there are some ruins of the remains of a walled Roman town, with impressive walls up to 5m high in places. Most of the rest of the town is only seen as foundations these days. We stopped off for some lunch at the Coach & Horses pub. Next, to Sainsbury’s, so we could revictual for the coming days, and then the directions to our new accommodation just outside Bath, on Withy Mills Farm. We settled in and had quiche and salad for dinner.

Roman ruins at Caerwent

The following morning we made a plan to visit the stone circles at Stanton Drew, then travel on to Glastonbury. We located the stone circles and found some signs describing them, put £2 in the honesty box, and proceeded through a gate to observe the stones in a cow-infested field. We didn’t get too close to the stones as it appeared some of the cows were calves, so may have had over-protective mothers who would merrily have trampled us. There are no facilities there so our visit was short.

England's 3rd-largest stone circle, in a field, with some cows

We then drove on to Glastonbury, and visited the abbey. As we arrived a tour was about to start, so we tagged along with that and learned all about the history of the abbey from its early establishment, St Dunstan and St Patrick and assorted other saints, all the way through to its eventual destruction during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Our guide was very professional and gave a personal touch to her stories. It lasted around ¾ of an hour, and we then wandered around a bit more, up to the pond and cloisters. We then made a plan to get some lunch, update our parking (we’d only had enough change for 2 hours’ parking initially), and then return for a choral concert at 2pm, and more wandering around, including finding the reredorter. We left in search of tea and observing all the weird shops that make up Glastonbury High Street, whilst seeking out an ordinary shop (Boots The Chemist) amongst them. The weird shops, and High St, was being increasingly populated by persons of a New Age persuasion, easily identified by their dress, scent, and hairstyles. The festival gets underway next week.

Glastonbury Abbey - ruined!

Having found a Boots and got what we needed, we headed home, only briefly impeded on a couple of occasions by farm traffic.

 

Pembroke Castle

Tenby is in the county of Pembrokeshire, which has a town called Pembroke. Nicola went to Pembroke College at Oxford, so you’d think there’d have been more of a connection between the college and the place, but sadly not. It took its name by being founded by the second Earl of Pembroke, but that’s it.

Pembroke Castle was an important fortification on the South Wales coast, and played a major part in the area’s history. We were dropped off by Kathryn and Alison, who were heading further afield to Carew Castle, and arranged to be picked up shortly after 12:00pm. We arrived around 10:15, just in time, once ticketing etc. had been sorted out, to join the first tour of the day at 10:30. Wendy, our guide, took us through the history of the castle in roughly chronological order, concentrating on the major personalities who had been at the castle, its battles and besiegements, and the history of the area. She majored on the women of Pembroke, many of whom were very wealthy, and how ownership of the castle was passed down through marriage and inheritance to different families, influential in the court of medieval England. She brought us up to date by describing the castle's decline and abandonment before being bought by the Philipps family in the early 20^th century, and whose family are still involved in the care of the castle through a charitable trust. 

Kathryn had told us that they were running late at Carew, so we did a quick walk of the walls and battlements (going the wrong way, it increasingly became clear!), before grabbing a cup of tea from the café. As we sat drinking tea we got a text from Kathryn saying they were in the car park, so we packed up and walked out, stopping only to take a picture of William Marshal’s statue, which is intended to show him with the Magna Carta, but actually looks like he’s checking his cell phone. 

In the afternoon we went out onto the beach at low tide, and had a look at some of the caves that are uncovered when the tide falls. We failed to find any smugglers’ caches, so spent the rest of the afternoon idling about.

Puffins

We were disappointed not to have seen the puffins on our trip to Caldey Island, but all was not lost. When buying our tickets, we’d seen kiosks for other boating adventures around Tenby. Some of these were fishing charters, but one was for a trip around Calder Island and neighbouring St Margaret’s Island, which is a bird sanctuary…and their advertising has puffins conspicuously featured! The kiosk was closed, so we booked online once we were back at base, and looked forward to the next morning’s adventure.

The first sailing was at 10:00, so we made a prompt start and walked into town along the coast path, arriving with 15 minutes to spare. The boat was waiting at the same pier we’d used the previous day, so we boarded and set out with around 20 or other passengers. I asked the crew whether we were likely to see puffins and she told us that, whilst nothing is guaranteed, the chances were good. Sounds like a familiar refrain from my time night-guiding at Zealandia when looking for kiwi! On the way we stopped at a navigation buoy platform which had become the favoured resting-place for two North Atlantic grey seals, and yes, they were in residence. The skipper took us up close and explained the difference between males and females, circled around the buoy so we could get some pictures, then moved on.

Round the other, cliff-faced, side of the island we came across more seals. The tide was high but ebbing, and the seals where doing a behaviour calle “bottling”, whereby they fill their lungs with air. This makes their top half lighter than the bottom half, and they bob about vertically in the water. They’re able to sleep whilst doing this. As the tide ebbed they would then get out of the water as the rocks are uncovered, and lay on the shore. One had already found a position by the time we left. About 90% of the population are females, and males will typically have a harem of several females.

We were still at Caldey Island at this point, but then headed towards St Margaret’s Island. This island was recently made rat-free, and is maintained as a reserve. The general public cannot land there, only conservation workers and researchers. The puffins are in fact quite recent arrivals, and the population is small – only four breeding pairs (they mate for life) and a total population of 20. Our skipper was explaining this in an expectation-management kind of way then started talking about the razorbills and guillemots which were there in abundance. Then a puffin flew over, and we stopped talking about them and concentrated on the puffin. Wait, isn’t that another one? And another! Yes! Six in total made up a small flotilla, bobbing about on the waves.

Eventually it was time to move on, and so we continued round the island, keeping an eye out for dolphins and porpoises which are sometimes spotted, but drawing a blank there. But never mind! We saw puffins!

 

 

 

 

Caldey Island

 Our tour guide had mentioned Caldey Island on the tour, so we decided to investigate further. We’d spotted the kiosk to get tickets to the ferry earlier, so after breakfast and yoga (Nicola, not me) we walked down into town along the coast path and strode smartly up to the kiosk, and demanded in clear ringing tones “two tickets to Caldey Island, my good man!” Or something like that. He directed us through the archway and down onto the beach where our transport would be waiting. He wasn’t wrong.

The journey over was short and uneventful, but getting onto the beach was a palaver. At low tide, the jetty doesn’t reach far enough out to sea (the tidal drop here is around 8 metres), and they have this Heath-Robinson contraption of a caged platform and tractor on caterpillar tracks to get onto the beach without getting your feet wet. There was a bit of a queue to load and unload people from waiting boats, so it took us about a further 20 minutes to get ashore.

Once there, we followed the crowd to behold a Tyrolean wonder. There is an order of monks on the island, and they live and work in this dwelling: 

We stopped at the tea shop, because it was lunchtime by this stage, then set off to explore the island. The forested lowlands are home to one of the UK’s few red squirrel populations, but we failed to spot any. We carried on up to the lighthouse, and then around the other coast of the island which is cliff faces populated by seabirds. We were on the lookout for puffins, but again they were conspicuous by their absence. We did see some North Atlantic grey seals, basking on the rocks, and also wrens, choughs, house martins, black swans, and moorhens.

We also looked into the old church, where the monks chant in the Gregorian style. We’d missed the services, however, so we watched the house martins zipping in and out, and bumblebees nesting (hiving?) in gaps in the stonework.

On our way back we went into the village shop to acquire so monk-made chocolate bars, then got onto the ferry back to town. The tide had risen by that point so we had no need of the contraption and could board from the pier. Back in town we didn’t fancy the additional 40 minute walk back to Waterwynch, so looked around for a café for a cup of tea and to arrange a taxi. By this time it was latish afternoon, and all the cafés were shut, but we found a pub instead, called the taxi firm, were told it would be 45 minutes (I think they only have one car) and drank tea and did the crossword until it arrived.

In the evening we had a catered feast where two chefs brought all their ingredients to our kitchen and prepared a Spanish fiesta, involving canapes, gazpacho, seafood paella, and peach cheesecake.

Tenby

Whilst we’d explored Tenby on foot on Saturday, we decided we wanted to know more about it; so we booked ourselves onto the Historic Tenby walking tour for Monday morning. Us, two more from our house, and six other people met our guide, Marion, at 1030 by the church, and the tour began.

It wasn’t a huge amount of walking (cf. our tour of Seville) but was so arranged that the historical timeline was followed, and dated from the first mention of Tenby in the Dark Ages, medieval times, visitations from the great and the good and not-so-good; we started in the church and found the memorial to Robert Recorde, inventor of the = sign and writer of The Urinal Of Physick. 

We talked about the building of the fort and city wall, its strategic position and natural harbour, and how the wall was modified and defended. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries, the town, decimated by plague, went into decline. It wasn’t until the rise of sea-bathing as a fashionable pastime at the beginning of the 19th century that the town’s fortunes were revived, and the seafront quickly became built-up with large houses which remain to this day. At some point it became fashionable to paint in pastel shades and this remains the style of the seafront: 

The introduction of a railway line further enhanced the town’s tourist trade, and nowadays Tenby is completely reliant on tourism.

One of the many features of the housing our guide pointed out is the Hanging Toilets of Tenby. In the days before indoor plumbing was the norm, a type of garderobe was attached to the side or back of some buildings, similar to those found on castle walls. Unlike the ones on castles, which simply had a hole directly over a cesspit, these hanging toilets had a pipe to take waste down. Later, they were fully plumbed in. Nowadays of course all the buildings have indoor toilets, but because of their historical importance, if there is one on the side of your building you must maintain it and cannot remove it – it has listed protection. Here’s a hanging toilet: 

So far as I can find, no-one else came up with this solution, so the Hanging Toilets of Tenby are the eighth wonder of the world.

We finished the tour conveniently close to lunchtime, so decided to try one of the many local restaurants and cafés for lunch, and settled on Plantagenet, where I had some Pembroke oysters followed by scallops.

We met up with Jonathan and Kathryn, our hosts, back at the car and then returned to Waterwynch for an evening of unbridled debauchery.

 

 

Getting Here

We’re in Tenby, at the start of our two-month-plus European adventure. How did we get here? Easy peasy. Taxi to Wellington Airport. Flight to Auckland. Flight to Singapore. Flight to London Heathrow. Collected by Nicola’s sister. Overnight in Marlow. Lift to Maidenhead station. Train to Reading. Train to Swansea. Train to Tenby. Oh, wait, not that last one.

When we arrived in Swansea we were informed there would be a rail replacement service from Carmarthen to all points further. This is an occupational hazard when travelling by train. The only trouble was when we arrived at Carmarthen, one mini-coach had been laid on for the nearer stations, and there was supposed to be another for the further stations, including Tenby. We waited. We waited some more. After a while, we consulted with station staff, and after much toing and froing it transpired that the second coach had been cancelled by the coach company, without actually informing anyone. They told us it would take another hour before they could arrange another coach, and we were better off waiting for the next Tenby train, which would actually be running. It appears trains run once about every three hours to Tenby – it’s not what you’d call a frequent service. So we waited some more, and eventually, after almost three hours, we were able to continue our journey, and arrive at Tenby. A taxi took us the final yards to our destination, Waterwynch.

This is why I hate travelling by train.

Anyway, we’re here now, and settled in, and have met all the other guests (most of whom I’ve met already, and Nicola has known for decades). The place is a former hotel, so all the rooms are ensuite and there is ample kitchen space and equipment, a bar, a full-size snooker table, and many other wonders and accoutrements including a private beach. Here’s the view: 

Not bad at all. Next, we will explore the town of Tenby…until next time.