Our Blog - Road to Pembroke, Wales

Today, we journeyed down the coast of Wales, hitting several castles and things along the way. The first little town, St Dogmaels, is just outside of Cardigan. The Welsh name for the town, Llandudoch, is based on Saint Dethog, whose monastery was nearby. The Normans changed the name to St Dogmaels after Saint Dogfael, a 6th century saint related to Saint David. The first abbey was built here in the 6th century although none of it survived. The town dates back to 1120 when the 2nd abbey was founded. The abbey was dissolved in 1538 when Henry VIII dissolved all abbeys and monasteries, and it fell into ruin. We stopped by what is left of the Abbey.

This first building is a stone Infirmary from the late 13th century. It is actually slightly outside of the main walls and would house the sick and older members of the community. By keeping it away from the other buildings, they were able to isolate the sick just slightly without getting them too far away.

Not the easiest thing to visualize, but you can see the remains of various walls, which would have been the cloister (around the large square grass area) and behind it, the living quarters and chapter house of the monastery.

The gothic-pointed arch here shows part of the nave. The monks would have entered through a door in the large wall that you see on the right, which is just across from the cloister. Visitors would come through a different door, which has the nice 14th century "ballflower" decoration, that you can still see today. You can also get a good view of how the large columns were constructed, that were used originally to hold up the ceiling of the nave.

This is the crypt, which would have been located below the presbytery and accessible through a set of narrow stairs.

Early in the eighteenth century, a new parish church was built next to the old abbey church and then replaced a century later, in 1847, by this church . Unfortunately, it was closed when we visited so we weren't able to go inside. We did walk around the cemetery. We happened to grab a picture of one of the gravestones, since it was very common to see something like this ... lost at sea on a boat. As we walked around, a huge number of the gravestones mentioned that the person died at sea. I guess that shouldn't be too surprising based on how close we were to the water here and how big the shipping industry was around these parts in the 1800's.

The Neolithic period dates from around 4000 to 2000 BC and it was during this time people began to stay and live in one place, grow their own crops, and rear animals to eat. Burial chambers were constructed at this time by these settled groups, and there are several sprinkled around Wales. There were multiple ones that we could have stopped at, but we just picked one to get a view of what exactly one of these things was. They can take on a variety of shapes, including burial mounds, caves, and stone structures. This one, Carreg Coetan Arthur, falls into the last shape. The stones that are visible are all that is left of a chambered tomb that dates to 6000 years ago. They have found bones as well as fragments of pottery here. There is an interesting thing here ... when we started looking really closely, we noticed that the top cap-stone is actually not touching or resting on all of the larger support stones ....

Then on to a 2nd woollen mill, this one the Tregwynt Mill. It is still a working mill and has been in the same family since 1912 although the first mill on this site was established over 200 years ago. This mill has very up-to-date weaving equipment.

Initially, the mill was water-driven, and this is one of the old water wheels that were used to drive leather belts, that in turn powered the other machines.

The town of Saint Davids is the final resting place of Saint David, Wales's patron saint. St Davids was given city status in the 16th century because of the Cathedral that is there. In 1888, it lost the status of a "city" (who knew that a city could become no-longer-a-city?) and then got it back in 1994 at the request of Queen Elizabeth II. This is another city that we visited on our vacation which has hosted the National Eisteddfod ... this time in 2002. We didn't really see the city itself, but only the Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace. Here you can see the Cathedral in the foreground and the ruined remains of the Palace behind and to the left.

First up ... the Cathedral. The monastic community was founded by Saint David in the middle of the 6th century, making it one of the oldest episcopal diocese in Britain. In 1081, William the Conqueror visited St Davids to pray, and thus recognized it as a holy and respected place and in 1089, the shrine of David was vandalized and stripped of its precious metals. In 1115, a new Bishop was appointed who started the construction of a new cathedral, finishing it in 1131. However, this new cathedral was deemed to be too small by the time King Henry II visited in 1171 and this cathedral was started in 1181. It (as with many buildings that old) was modified multiple times, including after an earthquake in 1247 damaged it.

The Baptismal Font is believed to date back to the pre-Norman bishops but the base is from the 13th century.

The nave is the oldest surviving part of the cathedral and is built in a Transitional Norman style. The wooden ceiling is also somewhat unique ... but it was actually necessary due to effects of the earthquake which caused the walls at the west end of the nave to lean outwards. But the ceiling is really amazing! You can see both Romanesque (rounded) and Gothic (pointed) arches, but the unique part of these is that each arch is carved with a different pattern.

Originally, all of the walls would have been highly decorated. Unfortunately, most of that decoration has been lost, but here is a painting of a knight on one of the medieval walls.

Bishop Gower had this screen to make a divide between the Nave the the Choir but also to house his own tomb (rather morbid, I would say).

This is a 17th century icon which depicts 3 scenes from the lift of Prophet Elijah (from the Old Testament). The largest section, in the center, shows Elijah being fed by ravens, while upper-left shows him parting the river Jordan and upper-right shows him being taken to Heaven in a chariot of fire.

The Lady Chapel is dedicated to "Our Lady", the Blessed Virgin Mary. It was originally constructed at the end of the 13th century and the tombs were added in the 14th century. The vaulted roof, which was added in the 16th century, collapsed in the 18th century and was restored in 1901.

This is the Shrine of Saint David. A few things I didn't realize about Saint David is that his symbol was the leek, which is now a national symbol of Wales. In the 12th century, the Pope declared that St Davids should be a place of pilgrimage and a medieval shrine was constructed.

The choir stalls were constructed in the late 15th to early 16th century. The surviving medieval floor tiles bear the coats of arms the nobility and coats of arms are also painted on some of the backs of the stalls and at the end of benches. The ceiling above the high altar, a camber-bean roof, also dates to the 15th and 16th centuries.

Another ceiling, which is also pretty nice!

Now we go from the magnificent chapel to the ruins of a medieval Palace. The original palace would have been built here in the 6th century, along with the original cathedral. What remains today is from the late 13th and 14th centuries. We'll start with an artist's impression of what the palace would have looked like around 1350, with a large and impressive Gothic palace.

Here you can still see the rounded arches all around the top (similar to the view in the drawing). You can also still see the wheel window in the east gable of what was the Great Hall.

General pictures from the interior.

This fireplace is still in great shape.

If you look at the arched parapet, it is interesting how you can still see somewhat of a checkerboard design using different colors/types of stone.

The Great Hall was added by Bishop Henry de Gower, who also made some major updates to the cathedral. Specifically, he was responsible for the arcaded parapet, a majestic porch, and the Great Hall with the wheel window. This is where great ceremonies, feasts, and entertainment would take place.

While I never thought about it much, there are quite a few beaches in Wales. We ended up going by quite a few of them as we were hugging the coastline, so we finally decided to stop for a few minutes at one of them.

Haverfordwest Priory was a house of Augustinian Canons Regular on the banks of the Western Cleddau River. Dedicated to St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr, the priory was first mentioned around 1200 so we know it was founded around that time. After monasteries were dissolved in 1536, it was acquired by a set of brothers who started demolishing it. The government took it over and did excavations starting around 1983 and unearthed the outlines of a medieval garden with raised beds. There isn't really much left of the actual priory, but you can make out a couple parts of the original church including dark stones carved with a cross in the floor.

These are the raised bed gardens, which are being re-used as garden plots again.

Continue to Day 11: Pembroke to Burry Port or go back to the main Wales vacation blog page