Our Blog - Porthcawl, Wales

And now our last day. A fairly odd day, as it ended up. We started off at the Margam Castle Park before playing golf and driving back to near the airport for our early-morning flight the following day.

Margam Country Park has a variety of activities, including gardens, an Orangery, a Citrus House, a Wildlife Park, and a castle. The Orangery dates back to the late-18th century and was needed to protect citrus trees (mainly oranges, but also lemons and limes) from the harsh winters. This is very traditional, long and narrow with tall windows to admit as much light as possible during the winter. It looks great now, but in 1973, it was in ruins and it took 4 years to restore it.

Next to the Orangery are Monastic ruins of a Cistercian Abbey, which dates back to 1147. Early Christian crosses found in the close vicinity and conserved in the Margam Stones Museum suggest the existence of an earlier Celtic monastic community. The abbey remained somewhat active until dissolved by Henry VIII in 1536 and sold, but a good part of the library was saved and indicate that only 12 monks living at the monastery at the end. By 1805, the abbey was in ruins although what remains is in good enough shape to get a good idea of the structure and architecture.

Margam Castle is the 19th century Tudor Gothic Mansion of the Talbot family, completed in 1840. The first picture is from what would have been the front, with a grand staircase up to the front doors (I know, terrible picture) and the 2nd from the back side (better picture, more sun). It was supposed to be Tudor Gothic but the architect went a little crazy with so many towers, turrets, pinnacles, cupolas, and gables that it starts getting a little too much for my taste. The guttering and water pipes all had the Talbot crest on them, and there are a number of shields and coats of arms chiseled into the stonework.

Most of the interior has been restored as the interior was gutted by a fire in 1977. Unfortunately, we were only able to go into a very small section of the house as it was all closed up which we assumed was because it was Sunday. However, what we were able to see what quite nice ... stained glass windows, a carved stone fireplace, and a grand staircase.

A lead into the next place, we saw some old newspaper articles from 1941, when the major part of the Margam Estate was sold due to heavy taxation. The article shows that the 30,000 acres of the estate contained "Margam Castle and Park, Margam Abbey, and the famous Royal Porthcawl Golf Club".

That takes us to Royal Porthcawl Golf Club, where we were welcomed with our names on a sign at the entry of the clubhouse. This was pretty impressive for us, since out of 7 rounds of golf, this was the only one that were were welcomed in this way. All of the clubs were nice, but this one was just extra special. It was founded in 1891 and was given "Royal" status by King Edward VII in 1909. It is one of the best courses in Wales and has hosted many prestigious tournaments including The Amateur Championship 6 times, the Walker Cup in 1995, the Curtis Cup in 1964, the British Masters in 1961, and the Welsh Golf Classic (a European Tour event) in the early 1980s. The 1995 Walker Cup (between Team Great Britain & Ireland and Team US) included many players that went on to have big careers, including Padraig Harrington, David Howell, Stephen Gallacher, Notah Begay, and of course, Tiger Woods. This matchup was won by the GB&I team 14-10 with Tiger going 2-2 in his 4 matches. The club, like pretty much all of them, was dry and a bit brown, but the greens were green and in great shape. But it had great views (again) of the shore and beach, and was a great "links golf" experience.

Now, just a little tiny note on the rest of the trip. I thought I had done a good job of planning the whole route for 2 weeks ... until this final day. We had to find somewhere to eat dinner between the golf course and our B&B down near Bristol Airport. We were looking for something "quick" as it was a bit of a long drive and we didn't want to get to the B&B too late ... the B&Bs tend to be out in the middle of nowhere and not easy to find in the dark. Unfortunately, we didn't really find anything close by and ended up grabbing cold sandwiches at a gas station along with a couple bottles of Welsh Cider to drink when we arrived at our destination. The drive itself was easy and we ended up arriving at the B&B earlier than we had told our host, so I guess we should have actually taken time to sit down and eat something better! The B&B was great and extremely convenient to the airport so if you are flying in/out of Bristol Airport and want to stay close-by, we can recommend Snipelands B&B.