A Catalogue of Castles, a Flurry of Fortifications

The time will come when I report on Harvest at Swanvale Halt, but for now let us deal with Wales, from which I have just returned with another week to go of my long Autumn leave. I was in The Gower, a place I've never visited before, and there is much to share but for now I will begin with castles. I had a long list of these to see but Kidwelly, which I visited on Tuesday, was so good I concluded too many would simply leave me castled-out, so in fact many I merely viewed from the outside, and left Dinefwr out completely. Remaining outside was all I could do with the one at Oystermouth, which was undergoing some work, in common with a range of tourist attractions in the area all of which seemed to be using the pandemic as a chance to embark on refurbishment projects. Things being closed was a leitmotif of my holiday. Swansea City Museum was closed on Mondays; the Carmarthenshire County Museum closed for reconstruction. St Govan's Well on the coast was closed because the firing ranges around were operating, while Caldey Island was closed because of the weather. Every church but one was closed because the Church in Wales apparently still thinks that if allowed in the population will go down en masse with rampant covid contracted from door handles. The Aberdulais Tin Mine & Falls were closed for no readily apparent reason. Anyway: Oystermouth.

Several towns have castles which are shadows of their former selves, wound round by streets, squares and alleys. This is true of Swansea, Carmarthen, and Tenby ...

At others, as I say, I felt I lost little by simply viewing the ruins from a distance. This was the case with Felindre and Laugharne, where I resolutely ignored anything to do with Dylan Thomas, whether his grave, or his shed.

Sort of halfway between these castles-in-passing and full-scale visits came Pennard and Penrice. Pennard lay right across a footpath and you can simply stroll through it (as many dog-walkers were doing), so it was no hardship visiting that one after admiring its romantic situation high above the valley of the Pennard Rill; while Penrice - a private ruin - was on the estate where I was staying and one of the privileges of guests is being able to wander around at will. 

This brings us to Kidwelly Castle, a grand and complex ruin outside what is now a very, very small town, a bit like Corfe in Dorset. Up and down and in and out and back along the walls the visitor goes: although it is indeed a ruin, it's very well-preserved. There are some towers you expect to go in, but can't, making you wonder what's in them. The gatehouse, the guide says, is designed to impress as much as for defence, and, I think, succeeds.

Finally, not as good a castle but a more impressive experience even than Kidwelly comes at Carreg Cennen. The ruins of this castle ring the top of a hill which dominates its mid-Carmarthenshire landscape and drops away in a dizzying cliff to the south. The closer you get to the gate, the grimmer and more terrifying its aspect grows. It helps to remember the story that its owner, Lord Cawdor, accidentally sold it in the 1960s when his lawyers drafted the deed of sale for the farm to the west so poorly that they mistakenly included the castle too. 

But the unique treat of Carreg Cennen is underneath it: a natural cave that was incorporated into the defences, and is accessed via a staircase on the cliff side of the castle, then a windowed passageway, and finally a tunnel. The staircase is terrifying enough for anyone inclined to feel vertiginous, but I was soon reflecting that at no stage, either on the castle website or at the entrance, did anyone warn me that I would need my own light to get there, and I was grateful for the torch on my phone which showed me where my feet were going and when my head was in danger of being clouted on the roof. At the end of the tunnel is a tiny grotto containing a water-filled basin in the stone. It's usually said this is a spring (I would describe it as a drip-well) used as an alternative source of water for the castle (when it would take an hour to fill a jug). But, whatever the truth of that, being there at all is a weird and dramatic sensation.