Seven Wonderful Wonders of West Wales.

Seven wonderful wonders of West Wales

I’ve lived in West Wales for nearly 10 years now, and everyday I celebrate the richness of its landscape, culture, history, buildings and people. I love everything equally, but when I really think about it, there’s bound to be

 things that particularly are in my heart. So I’ve compiled this top ten of wonderful wonders, some of which I see every day, some of which I visit with joy on occasion.

Number One; Cardigan Bay 

My local coast line is the hidden secret of West Wales – one of the best coastlines in the UK – but we try not to tell, otherwise everyone would want to see the resident dolphin pod, the breathtaking views (especially as the sun sets or the moon comes up over the black sea), the rugged rocks dotted with seals and rare sea flowers and tempting patches of rabbit-cropped grass ready for that perfect picnic, where you may  spot a kite, or even an osprey. There’s picturesque villages, and tiny ‘secret’ beaches only reached by Wales’ famous coastal path. Stretching from Cardigan to Aberystwyth, the bay has a wealth of things to visit, from Llaneraeron, a National Trust day out, to the narrow gauge railway up to the Devil’s Bridge.  So, please don’t tell anyone about all of this; we like to keep it to ourselves!

Number Two; The Ancient Sacred SitesIf you’ve been reading my blog regularly, you’ll already know about the stone circle where we celebrate the Summer Solstice (and appeared on Channel  Five!!), Gors Fawr. Close by in the Preseli Hills are the amazing bluestone outcrops, which became part of the Stonehenge structure five thousand years ago. But West Wales is also resplendent with cromlechs,; the Welsh word for dolmen, pre-historic tombs consisting of a large flat stone laid on upright ones, possibly to form graves, some of which have been stripped down to their bare skeleton of massive stones. Pentre Ifan is perhaps the largest and best preserved neolithic cromlech, but there are others, some more than 1500 years earlier than the pyramids, all of which are amazing. Carreg Samson is a fine example – legend has it that St Samson placed the capstone in position using only his little finger. I’ve lain inside this dolmen, to meditate on a hot summer’s day. 
Perhaps the cutest is Carreg Coetan in Newport, near Cardigan. Composed of four upright stones, only two of them actually support the enormous capstone, which precariously perches…and has done for thousands of years! Also worth a visit is Castell Howell, a reconstructed Iron Age settlement. But I don’t want to forget the later Christian sacred sites, such as the tiny churches, some from 500 CE which dot the coastal landscape, and the great Abbey ruins of both St Dogmaels, where every week there’s an organic market next to the pretty duck pond, or the Cisterian Abbey of Strata Florida, Latin for ‘Vale of Flowers’, which has stood on lush meadows beside the banks of the river Teifi since 1200. 

Number Three; Newcastle Emlyn.

The tiny town (3000 inhabitants) which is four miles from my house, is one of the loveliest towns I know. The site of the first permanent printing press in the 18th century…and  the last recorded use of the stocks in Britain (1872), it’s a Fair-trade town with it’s own Fair and Fabulous shop, where mostly I buy my pressies, as I honestly can’t afford the Maker’s Mark, because this stocks the finest art and craft items local to the area. NCE is full of shabby-chic shops, antique galleries, organic shops like The Carrot Cruncher, and pretty cafes with a view of the Teifi like Riverside and Harrisons. Every month there’s a thriving cattle market which blocks the roads and adds to the farmyard stink, but I love to stand and watch the auctioneers, who rattle off their sales without taking breath.  

At the bottom of a steep cliff, the river winds round the town, creating both a  natural motte and moat for the ancient castle, where apparently the very last dragon in Wales was shot down, landing in Llewellyn’s Pool, a maelstrom in the river which has recently taken the life a man who fell in late one night. The last dragon is such a loved tale, that the townsfolk brought it back to life a few years ago…read about this here https://www.goddess-pages.co.uk/the-last-dragon-in-wales-was-killed-in-newcastle-emlyn/

Number Four; The Eisteddfod 

Every summer Eisteddfods are seen up and down the land, and the National one is held alternatively in the north and south of the country. Next year, it's in our county, at Tregaron which lies on the river Teifi, and we can't wait to be there, ‘ar y maes’, as they say in Welsh (on the field). We've been going to local eisteddfods since we came here, always totally stunned at the hotbed of hidden talent in our area. Competitors from four to ninety-four clamber up on the stage and announce, confidently, 'I'm going to sing...' or 'play...' or 'dance...or recite...'  Later, they will have to listen to the judges' opinion of them. Even more culturally shocking for someone from England is that teenagers do it to! Spotty youths who elsewhere would be hanging round street corners are there with their beautiful voices, singing violins and recitations.

The National Eisteddfod itself is held in the medium of the oldest living language in northern Europe (Welsh, of course! ) and is still one of the largest cultural festivals of its kind in Europe, attracting more than 150,000 visitors over one week in August. This ancient tradition exists thanks largely to the efforts of the 19th Century visionary Iolo Morgannwg, but it all began in my local town of Cardigan, (Aberteifi), where in 1176 a cultural tournament involving bards and musicians was held for the first time in the grounds of the castle by the Lord Rhys ap Gruffydd. We’re all booked up for the Maes next year, but will continue to enjoy the way the Welsh are wedded to music, poetry and dance all around Ceredigion every year.

Number Five; The River Teifi.

You’ll notice how many times I mention the Teifi (pronounced Tayvi in Welsh and Tivey by the English) because in Wales, places are defined by their river, and Ceredigion is no exception. The Teifi (and the Ceri, which is the tributary closest to where I live), used to be my favourite place to walk. It starts high in the Cambrian Mountains at the Teifi Pools, which long ago were bubbling springs but are now the county’s water reservoirs. If you keep striding west, you’ll pass beneath willows and beside wide trout pools, over a variety of stone bridges, through pretty villages and moss woods  filled with birdsong and the tinkle of streams. At Cenarth, you can watch the salmon leap the falls to go and spawn upstream, or hire a coracle, which used to be the only form of river fishing boat in this area, but now is simply a fun thing to try (and fail at) on holiday. 

But I don’t choose the river for my walks any longer, because my new puppy is a menace in the water! 

Number Six; The National Library of Wales 

I’ll never forget the first time I climbed the hill in Aberystwyth to visit The National Library of Wales. I turned round from its huge revolving door to witness what must be the best view from any library in the world. I was looking out over the slate roofs of the university city town to the blue-grey expanse of Cardigan Bay. It took away my breath, which I didn’t get back until I left its hallowed halls. It houses six and a half million books, all relevant to Wales, including every single modern book published in Wales. There’s the oldest book ever printed in Wales. and the oldest manuscript, the Black Book of Carmarthen, almost eight hundred years old. 

I’d gone there to read such a book (in facsimile, of course), because in the library houses some of the original copies of what we now think of as The Mabinogion. This ancient text, some of the earliest prose stories of the literature of Britain, is one of my great loves. There are two main source manuscripts, created c. 1350–1410, as well as a few earlier fragments. In the collection as it’s presented today, there’s a classic hero quest, "Culhwch and Olwen"; a historic legend, "Lludd and Llefelys," early glimpses of King Arthur and the highly sophisticated complexity of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi. The original 12th century books the White Book of Rhydderch and the Red Book of Hergest are in the National Library of Wales. But these stories were brought together from earlier oral traditions, in just the same way as the Iliad and the Odyssey were written about oral tales that had been told since the Bronze Age in Greece. You can read more about these stories in some of my blogposts.

Number Seven; The Welsh Botanical Garden 

Because one of my friends was part of the original team who founded the idea of a Botanic Gardens, I'm particularly attached to this wonder, and in fact, many others are too, as the Great Glasshouse was officially voted number one 'modern wonder' in Wales. When the gardens started being created between low hills in Carmarthenshire, it became the first national botanic garden of the 21st century anywhere in the world, and the first in the UK for nearly 200 years. At its heart is the amazing Glasshouse, largest structure of its kind in the world, with a geometry of such complex and advanced technology that it never existed on paper – only as a computer programme. Housing plants from Chile, Western Australia, South Africa, California, the Canary Islands and the Mediterranean. Outside in the grounds, we really love the double-walled garden, rebuilt from ruins, and the large collection of n Welsh apple varieties. It’s got a great cafe, and is a day out in itself, although on the way back, we sometimes walk around the gardens of Aberglasney, which are very different again.

I could go on; there must be a hundred wonderful wonders in Ceredigion alone. So come and explore yourself1