North West Wales Again

 

 North-west Wales in August 2023

Set off on Friday morning, 18^th of August. in low cloud, drizzle and strong wind, heavy traffic and the hope that things could only get better. We noticed that the big willow sculpture of a man on the left of the M4 just north of Bridgwater is now dwarfed by the huge Morrison’s depot and he is anyway getting very wispy and denuded.

The traffic was heavy but kept flowing and the rain wasn’t a bother, although the pavements in Abergavenny were full of holiday-makers with shorts and umbrellas, looking rather doleful.

All went smoothly till we got to the recommended ‘short cut’ north of Llanidloes when the road went wide of Machynlleth and Dolgellau, very bendy, following rather sober cars and nose-to-tail traffic going the other way so any overtaking was impossible. It made progress seem very tedious and long-winded and such low cloud and poor visibility we couldn’t even enjoy the mountain scenery when we were in it! The camp-sites we passed all the way up though central Wales were all full.

However, we arrived to a warm welcome as ever, and an evening meal joined by grandson Robs and his girl-friend Mari and we were soon well settled in, snug, out of the increasingly strong wind and rain.

The next morning we heard the Met Office weather station just above the garden had registered 66 MPH wind in the night and it had brought down a branch off one of the sycamores in the drive, a lot of apples and Kim’s whole crop of pears.

As the week went on the wind abated gradually but it remained unsettled and showery for the most part.

 The first visit was to the pond. We sat by it for some time, enjoying the peace. The Swallows nesting in the workshop flew round and made repeated swoops and dips for water just in front of us.

Next inspection visit was to the polytunnel which we hadn’t seen as they put it up with a party of friends earlier this spring.

The polytunnel withstood its first test, the gale a few nights ago.

Then on up to Bychestyn, the cliffs above their field. We battled into the teeth of a strong southerly wind, making the sea very dirty on the flood tide.

The Western Gorse and Heathers were at their colourful best. The National Trust have cut a network of wide paths through the low-growing mosaic of gorse and heather to give access for grazing bullocks who are turned out there at times by the neighbouring farmer.

Kim’s sheep hastened away from us strangers, and stood watching us from under their gorsy shelter. They were out grazing again as we returned, but as we had neither dog to alarm nor offered treats to entice, we were ignored!

It was the 70^th Anniversary of the Bird Observatory on Bardsey but the planned celebratory visit by past visitors and officers was cancelled because of the bad weather and one morning we were visited instead by one of the past Wardens . We sat in the warm sun in a sheltered corner of the garden and reminisced.

We had been identifying a striking Ichneumon we’d seen earlier, resting on brambles in the drive. It was the unusual, and probably under-recorded Heteropelma amictum.

Harebells were still making a good show on the banks and cliffs.

Another day was to Rhiw and beyond the great stretch of Porth Neigwl or Hell’s Mouth, a lee shore much-feared in the past by weather-bound coasters and sailing vessels.

The road along this stretch of coast has been closed to traffic because the clay cliffs slump repeatedly in wet winters. The only access is along a track which is somewhat precariously supported by gabions. 

 At the far end of Porth Neigwl is the little village of Llangian with a very fine mediaeval church.

The Fifteenth century beautiful and elaborately carved rood screen had been brought from Cymer Abbey in the Mawddach estuary. Church fittings and furnishings seem to have been moved and maybe rescued, quite often.

Font, St Engan's Church

 The 15th Century choir stalls, with lions carved at the bench ends..

We went back to the cliffs on another day while Kim was away in a mossy ‘Atlantic rainforest’ in the mountains further east, doing a Radio Wales interview to be broadcast as a back -up to the Exhibition of her and Noelle’s trip to the temperate rainforests near Tierra del Fuego back in January.

The sea was still quite rough but it was fine and sunny. A big party of Choughs were towering up high into the blue sky and the cliff-top was patrolled by a family party of Ravens.

One of the two splendid sunny and quiet days of the visit was to the Foryd, the stretch of low shore facing Newborough Warren on Anglesey. Great expanses of mud are exposed at low water.

We watched Grey-lag Geese, Oystercatchers, Turnstones, Green-and Redshank and then  we watched a leisure boat which came out from Caernarvon for a short trip and were lucky, (or expecting?) to see 3 or 4 Bottle-nosed dolphins cruising close to them.

Left....a Greenshank.

After the birdwatching over the Foryd, we spent some time looking around the little church  of St Baglan in an isolated field a little way out of Caernarvon. No longer in use, it is cared for by the charity 'Friends of Friendless Churches'.This is looking from the north.

Eglwys Llanfaglan. This 13th Century church stands on or close to an iron-age site with traces of banks and ditches. and a Holy Well was in a nearby field. This once was roofed and surrounded by stone seats, but was filled in during the nineteenth century and nothing can be seen now. The water in the well was claimed to have healing powers. If you cleansed the affected area and pricked it with a bent pin, the affected place healed. When the site was excavated, two bowls full with bent pins were found!(Mum used to prick my blisters like this!)

The south porch, nearest the camera, was added in the 15th Century.

Looking towards the east window. The church is listed grade1 because it is a rare example of a church which escaped the Victorian urge to restore. The box pews date from the late 1700s and some bear the dates and initials of the families who occupied them.

In the late 1700s the altar, a simple table, stood in the centre of the nave with a fence round it to keep off dogs!

The floor looked as if they had a cart-load of slate off-cuts from a gravestone mason. Odd sized pieces were precisely cut to fit the varied spaces.

Massive timbers of the north porch. They had been part of the chancel roof before it was extended in the 15th Century.

The Lintel over the inside porch entrance is a great stone, once a gravestone, incised with the name of a 6th Century burial, 'Fili Loverni Antemori'.

The house party was increased later in our visit by Angus and his two sons which then added to the family activities with coastal snorkelling and rock-pooling.

We struggled back to Cornwall in yet more rain and bank-holiday traffic after another Ssuccessful trip.