The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer; Vol. 4, July-Dec 1884Various
History
The Antiquarian Magazine & Bibliographer; Vol. 4, July-Dec 1884
Various
Archaeology -- Periodicals; Great Britain -- Antiquities -- Periodicals
On Friday the archæologists had a long and pleasant day. Reaching
Pembroke by special train soon after ten o’clock, they found their
carriages ready to convey them to the Stack Rocks and to Stackpole
Court, Lord Cawdor’s noble seat, near the southern coast of
Pembrokeshire. They reached the cliffs in good time, and saw them in
their entire stretch from Linney Head to St. Govan’s Head, and were
shown in turn the Caldrons, Bullslaughter Bay, the Hunter’s Leap, and
the other points which are so familiar to tourists in these parts. The
sea was quite calm, and the sky was bright, so that the party were
specially favoured in point of weather. They were most pleased, however,
with St. Govan’s Chapel, which is situated about half-way down the
cliffs in a narrow gorge, which it almost entirely blocked up. Here it
is said that St. Govan was miraculously brought, and still more
miraculously preserved from his enemies, and here he spent many years in
fasting and prayer. The rooms which served as his dwelling and his
oratory are partly hewn out of the solid rock, and partly built into it
and on it. The window is primitive in its simplicity, and the roof with
its little bell turret above is all that shows us now that it was a
chapel once. Close by it and almost forming part of it is a rock, in
which there is a hollow cavity just large enough for a person to stand
in it; and there is a firm and fixed belief in the neighbourhood that
whoever, whilst inside of it, makes a wish, turning himself or herself,
as the case may be, round three times, will see that wish gratified
within the next twelvemonth. From St. Govan’s Head the party passed
along the cliff, inspecting very briefly a Danish encampment which
occupies one of the bold headlands close by. In their way from St.
Govan’s to Stackpole the archæologists paid a visit to Bosherston
Church, where the tall tapering tower and the interior monuments,
including two recumbent figures, a knight and a lady in stone, under
noble canopies, were much admired. The church in other respects
scarcely differs from the ordinary type so common all over the southern
portion of Pembrokeshire. From Bosherston they drove on to Stackpole
Court, the seat of Lord Cawdor, where they were not sorry to find
luncheon awaiting them. Some of the party were content to inspect the
state rooms of this lordly mansion, and to admire the family portraits
by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Romney, and Sir Thomas Lawrence, and the stands
of arms which were used by the late Lord Cawdor’s regiment of militia in
repelling the descent of the French troops at Fishguard, or taken from
their prisoners. Meantime the more adventurous portion of the party
walked across the park, under the guidance of Colonel and Lady Victoria
Lambton, to inspect the site of a supposed pre-historic British village
on the high ground about half-way between the Court and the sea cliffs.
The remains are very irregular in plan, and from what is seen above
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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