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 mountain vale opening out upon our left holds the springs of the
eastern Cleddau, a stream that, after forming for some miles the
county-boundary, passes below picturesque Llawhaden, and flows onwards
amidst the rich woodlands of Slebech and Picton Castle, to merge in the
broad, tidal waters of Milford Haven.
For the next few miles we enjoy a breezy tramp athwart the wild,
uncultivated shoulders of Precelly--'Parcilly the Proud,' to use old
Drayton's phrase. In his own quaint fashion, George Owen thus describes
these famous hills: 'The chiefest and principall mountaine of this shire
is Percellye, which is a long ridge or rancke of mountaines runninge
East and West; beginninge above Penkellyvore, where the first mounte of
highe land thereof is called Moel Eryr, and so passinge Eastward to
Comkerwyn (being the highest parte of yt), runneth East to Moel Trygarn
and to Llanvirnach.'
So far George Owen. Meanwhile we trudge onward across the springy turf,
avoiding here a stretch of dusky bogland feathered with white tufts of
cotton-grass, yonder a huge pile of weather-stained boulders, riven and
tossed asunder by the tempests of ten thousand winters. One of these
rugged cairns is known as King Arthur's Grave; another bears a Welsh
name signifying the 'rocks of the horsemen': indeed, every feature of
the landscape has its story or legend for the imaginative Cymro.
Rounding the head of a lonely glen, a rough but sufficiently easy ascent
lands us beside the cairn that marks the summit of Foel Cwm Cerwyn, the
loftiest peak of Precelly, and the highest ground in all broad
Pembrokeshire. 'This mountaine,' says George Owen, 'is so highe and
farre mountid into the ayre that, when the countrey about is faire and
cleere, the toppe thereof wilbe hidden in a cloude, which of the
inhabitantes is taken a sure signe of raigne to follow shortelie,
whereof grewe this proverbe:
'"When Percellye weareth a hatte,
All Penbrokeshire shall weete of that."'
Standing well apart, and removed from the mass of loftier South Welsh
hills, the view from Precelly top is both extensive and interesting.
Near hand, one's gaze wanders across a vast expanse of rather
monotonous, treeless landscape, until the attention is arrested by the
lake-like reaches of Milford Haven, spreading like crooked fingers far
into the heart of the land.
South and west the sea encompasses all, with Gower lying far away upon
the Bristol Channel, and perhaps a faint outline of the cliffs of Devon
verging the remote horizon. The isolated hills overlooking St. Davids
are easily identified, flanked by a broad stretch of St. Bride's Bay,
and its group of guardian islets. Strumble Head thrusts its tempest-torn
crags seawards into Cardigan Bay, whose coast-line trends away league
upon league with infinite gradation to where, softened by the humid,
brine-laden atmosphere,
'The gray, cloud-cradled mountains spread afar.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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