Mining the Diaries 102: Wales
Arosfa, Goat Street, St Davids, Pembrokeshire, 20th June 2023.
Jane went to Narberth to see friends, so I had a day to myself, a chance to explore St Davids. Despite this being my fourth visit, I don’t feel that I have seen much of the City (really just a large village), apart from the area around Goat Street, because we have always given preference to the beaches and the cliff walks.
I strolled up the sunny High Street to the information centre. It offered the usual selection of books, crafts, souvenirs and not very inspiring work by a local artist in the gallery. Back down in Cross Square I stopped at the Caerbwdi Cafe for morning coffee and a slice of bara brith and wrote postcards sitting in the busy courtyard. Controversy surrounds the café: Friends of the Cathedral spent a lot converting it thinking it might be a money spinner, but it failed and had to be taken over by a private operator.
Going along Nun Street, I took Quickwell Hill down into the valley of the River Alun and found the exotic Round House, looking for all the world like a piece of Art Deco architecture. In fact it was built in 1965 by James Gowan of the Stirling and Gowan architectural partnership, for E W Parke, Professor of Engineering at Leicester University. It is listed Grade II.
The road continued deep into the shade of the trees and I took the narrow drive climbing up on the right to the cemetery. Beyond the lodge at the top the graves spread over the open hillside in two halves: older, pale lichen-flecked stones on one side; new, shiny black marble or granite stones on the other. There were no trees or planting (the westerly winds are unkind to trees planted in exposed places here), it all looked rather bare and forlorn.
I returned to Nun Street and carried on through mini suburbs, past the St Davids Rugby Club, to the Travel Lodge (another controversy about an unwanted chain hotel). It has a distinctly modern appearance in black, grey and white with token panels of traditional Welsh stone. Architecturally it’s of a part with the nearby modern houses, which were built as a condition of the planning consent. I strolled into the reception, which was deserted, as was the bar and restaurant, like the Marie Celeste. I used the toilet, took a drink from the iced water on the bar and left – presumably all caught on camera. There was no sign of life apart from a few cars in the car park. Does anyone stay more than two or three nights?
I headed south on exposed Glasfryn Road, which acts as a bypass linking the main roads to Fishguard and Haverfordwest, modern houses on my right and a business park on the left. A blissfully shaded lane on the right led directly to New Street.
After lunch at the Really Wild Emporium – tomato soup with wild garlic that gave it an unusual taste, not unpleasant – I went down The Pebbles, where visitors of all ages rested, snapped the Cathedral and ate ice creams. Dog owners cooled off their pets in the Alun by the Bishops Palace.
An enjoyable ramble, confirming that, aside from the Cathedral and the Bishop’s Palace, St Davids is not distinguished architecturally. The Round House was a highlight though, and the index of British Listed Buildings says it is: ‘One of the very few frankly modern houses in west Wales and important in the later development of the International Modern style in Britain … the flat roof was said to have the additional purpose of facilitating the testing of structural materials against salt air for Professor Parke’s researches.’
This day in St David’s brings to an end Mining the Diaries, which started in Tossa de Mar on 27th July 1968, posted on 14th August 2022. There will be other trips that will bring their own special experiences, but having just passed the century mark, the first phase of this blog based project is complete. The second phase is going to be making a book combining the words and pictures. The easy way would be to simply import what has appeared here, I would like to make it more of a memoir, however. I’m not sure how best to achieve this, but four things occour to me: set the wider context of the holiday/day; mention travelling companions; fill out historical and geographical details; and top and tail each entry to create a narrative.