Sauntering in St Davids
11th September 2023
After a very relaxing weekend spent celebrating our 29th Wedding Anniversary in a Tipi near Fishguard we set off for St Davids, a 30 minute journey and we soon arrived. I’ve never been to St Davids, but have heard a lot of people enthusing about it. My first impression – it’s tiny!
A cottage in the city of St Davids, gives you an idea of the sort of city it is!
“St Davids is a city with a cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales. It lies on the River Alun and is the resting place of Saint David, Wales's Patron Saint, and named after him. St Davids is the UK’s smallest city. St Davids was given city status in the 12th century. In England and Wales it was traditionally given to cathedral towns under practices laid down in the early 1540s, when Henry VIII founded dioceses. City status was lost in 1886, but restored in 1994 at the request of Queen Elizabeth II.” From Wikipedia
After capturing Clara and the Priest outside the Cathedral, I set off for the National Park information centre a fifteen minute walk up through the city from the Cathedral car park. It was drizzling enough to be annoying, but not enough to put my rain coat on! This walk turned out to be fruitful in terms of interesting doors and a house name that made me laugh.
Not far from home then!
The Information Centre was built in 2007 by the Pembrokeshire National Park and as an eco-friendly building. Located within in the National Park Information Centre, Oriel Y Parc Gallery has a landscape gallery, exhibiting art and artefacts from the collection of National Museum of Wales. Using objects from the art, natural history and industry collections, visitors are able to view a regularly changing exhibition programme. There’s also a shop and café.
Doors of St Davids
The lady at the information desk was very helpful and handed me a couple of A4 pieces of paper with walking trails on. I selected the one that took me around the city and past the Cathedral.
always look up!
In the first instance I mis read the very sketchy map and headed in the wrong directions, this soon became apparent and opening the OS app helped me orientate myself and took me down through a footpath through the houses and out onto open land.
finally on the right track
It was a bit soggy underfoot and I regretted the choice of walking trainers over walking boots.
(Maybe it’s time to re-waterproof them!)
The route takes me on a lovely walk in the countryside surrounding St Davids through hawthorn tunnels and Autumn is showing signs of taking hold. The misty, hazy sky and light drizzle add to the mists of mellow fruitfulness ambiance! Sloes, Hawthorn berries and Blackberries are in abundance and the ferns are turning a beautiful rust hue. The trees are shedding their leaves slowly, but steadily.
Mists of mellow fruitfulness
tunnels in nature
After this first part of the walk I come to St Davids Close Wall, which originally separated the church from the city, the Canonry door and eventually the ruined Bishops Palace and the resplendent St Davids Cathedral. The Bishops Palace is stunning even in ruins, I’m too tight to pay to go in and just take a few photos from the outside, another time perhaps.
The brooding Gothic ruins of the Bishop’s Palace lie on the opposite bank of the river from the cathedral and provide a suitably dramatic backdrop for open air theatre performances in the summer. Bishop Henry de Gower’s legacy consists of the simpler east range, his private domain, and the grander south range, built for banqueting in the great hall. That rose window would have been a sight to see!
Previously rather an imposing building
Steve’s blog will tell you everything you ever needed to know about the Cathedral, but from my viewpoint it looks vast and grey, but on a sunny day I imagine it would look a lot more inviting!
St David’s Cathedral
On from the Cathedral the route takes me back up through Merry Vale and to Lower Moor, where it goes through an area of access land – Carn Warpool and onto a footpath signing me towards the Pembrokeshire Coast Path…unfortunately going the other way! So no coastal views for me today. The weather has no cleared up and I’m regretting the decision to leave my sunglasses in the van – squinting hurts!
What a beautiful gate!
Hawthorn laden with berries and a blue sky
This footpath takes me through a National Trust area called Bryn-Y-Garn and skirts around the city housing, past stables and horses fields and even a Pigeon Loft. A proud Welsh household has a Y Draigh Goch (Red Dragon) flying high in the breeze.
Passing beautiful overspills of back gardens in the hedgerows the path comes out back near the Parc Y Oriel. I have a bit of a funny turn here and feel like I’m going to faint and luckily I have my poles to lean on and the feeling passes relatively quickly.
Steve is now finished at the Cathedral and we meet up for a spot of lunch and a bit of a wander and grab a delicious ice-cream from Nook on our way back to Clara. More photos of Clara and St Davids and we set off for our next camping spot in Talbenny, Pembrokeshire.
St David’s Cathedral from the city above
