Nooks and Corners of PembrokeshireTimmins, H. Thornhill (Henry Thornhill)
History
Nooks and Corners of Pembrokeshire
Timmins, H. Thornhill (Henry Thornhill)
Pembrokeshire (Wales) -- Description and travel
The village, with its snug waterside inn beloved of anglers, has a very
seductive air about it; but we must not linger here, for these
transpontine lands lie without the bounds of Pembrokeshire, and are
therefore _taboo_ to us. So, striking away in the direction of the
south, we traverse the spacious demesne of Castle Malgwyn, getting a
peep of the mansion set amidst dark, umbrageous woodlands; our approach
causing the startled bunnies to skirmish away helter-skelter into the
bracken coverts as we pass.
The return route to Kilgerran lies through a pleasant vale, with young
oak-coppices upon the one hand, and a marshy reed-grown watercourse upon
the other.
* * * * *
Setting forth by a different route upon the morrow's morn, a row
downstream from Kilgerran introduces us to some charmingly diversified
reaches of the swift-flowing Teivy. After passing below the wooded
slopes of Coedmore, our little craft threads the rocky channel as it
twists, now this way, now that, through the broken undulating country,
affording ever some fresh variation of the lovely changing landscape, to
which the castle ruins form an imposing centre.
Presently we emerge upon broad tidal flats, where groups of cattle are
browsing amidst the lush sedgy herbage. Shooting under Cardigan Bridge,
we open out that final reach of the river where, in the words of George
Owen, 'Teivy saluteth St. Dogmells, as it passeth to the sea.'
About a mile distant from the county-town of Cardigan, but on the
Pembrokeshire side of the river, stands the before-mentioned village of
St. Dogmaels. The little place is perched upon a rather steep declivity,
its comely dwellings clambering up the slope, so that, from the top of
the village, one's eye follows the course of the Teivy to the
foam-fringed shores of Cardigan Bay, and the headland called Pen-Kemaes.
Here the cottage gardens are gay with heliotrope, fuchsias and
hydrangea, which brave the winter out in the more sheltered corners;
while the full-rigged flagstaffs that rise amidst the garden plots
bespeak the nautical proclivities of the residents.
This village derives its name from the ancient Welsh monastery of St.
Dogmaels, which stood about a mile away at a place still bearing the
name of Yr Hên Mynachlog (the Old Monastery). Of this venerable
structure, founded by Robert de Turribus, but scanty traces now remain,
in the shape of a few ivy-mantled walls pierced with Gothic arches,
whose crumbling stones retain the ball-flower ornamentation of the
Decorated period. The neighbouring parish church has, alas! been swept
and garnished by iconoclastic hands, which have ruthlessly bereft the
fabric of every feature of interest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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