The Physic Garden, Cowbridge - September 2014

Back in September, I spent a day shopping in the pretty little market town of Cowbridge with my mother. We particularly enjoyed spending time in the newly restored Physic Garden.

Originally part of the Old Hall Gardens, dating back to the 18th century, the garden is an oasis of calm and tranquillity in the heart of the town, full of bees and butterflies. The volunteers who restored the garden in recent years have done a wonderful job, turning a neglected wasteland into a glorious array of medicinal plants and herbs, typical of physic gardens from centuries past - a fascinating variety of species that would traditionally have been used for healing, cooking and dying fabrics - all neatly organised and laid out as formal gardens.

And there was also this:

An Ode to Laudanum!

a walk through the past - Oystermouth Castle, Mumbles, November 2014

Earlier in the winter, before the weather turned, I spent a day down at the Mumbles with my other half and, after wandering around the seafront for a while, we decided to take a stroll up the hill to Oystermouth Castle, which we'd seen in the distance many times but never actually visited.

Built in the 12th century in the wake of the Norman Conquest, Oystermouth is a really pretty castle, built on the side of a small hill and commanding a glorious view across Swansea Bay - a strong defensive position for the invaders to consolidate their gains!

Until fairly recently the castle was little more than a crumbling and overgrown ruin, but in 2010 it underwent a £1m refurbishment regime, removing the weeds and making the structure safe, before re-opening to the public again. I'd never been here before and was impressed to find just how intact the castle actually is, with far more of the internal layout remaining than in most other castles I've visited, rooms and passages and vaults still standing and accessible for the visitor to explore.

 

 

There are some gorgeous medieval fireplaces going on in there

 

Such a beautiful castle - why have I never been there before? I mean seriously, look at this:

 

 

Plus, it has the glorious views across Mumbles and Swansea Bay

And also there's this ducky little fake owl tucked away in an old chimney to startle the unwary - what's not to love?

Well worth a visit if you get the chance!

St Fagan's, January 2015

I really love trees in winter. I love the look of them, their bare branches against a wintry sky, stark and majestic. Earlier this month, I went for a walk around St Fagan's - not the National History Museum located in the village, which I've visited many times, but the fields around it. It was a beautiful day, crisp and cold and clear.

 And those winter's trees were simply gorgeous in their bare-branched glory.

 

 

 

 

 

A winter's walk, January 2015, part 3 - countryside views

So we reach the third and final installment about last weekend's walk, which took me in a circuit around the villages of Dyffryn, St Nicholas and St Lythan's in the Vale of Glamorgan, through fields and woods. It had rained heavily during the week, so it was muddy underfoot, but the day itself was glorious and the countryside absolutely beautiful - here are some of the photos I took along the way, starting with this lovely view across the fields near Tinkinswood.

This is the river Waycock, I believe.

I really love seeing trees in winter - bare branches against a pale sky, so stark and dramatic

The walk took me through Coed Nant Bran, a lovely little woodland near St Lythan's - although it is probably easier to navigate when the stream running through it isn't flooded!

A winter's walk, January 2015, part 2 - St Lythan's

Continuing the story of last Saturday's hike around the Vale of Glamorgan, the second ancient burial site encountered en route was this stunning Neolithic chambered tomb, standing in glorious isolation in the middle of a field just outside the hamlet of St Lythan’s in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Like Tinkinswood, just a mile or so up the road, the cromlech is something like 6,000 years old and would originally have been at least partially covered with an earthen mound.

The site has never been fully excavated, so not much is known about it, but the dolmen would once have formed part of a much larger chambered long barrow, the shape of which is still partially visible in the field around.

The dolmen stands in the middle of a field called Maesyfelin, which it often shares with a herd of cows - I’m rather glad they weren’t there the day I visited, it was muddy enough underfoot as it was!

 

A winter's walk, January 2015, part 1 - Tinkinswood

 The first walk proper of a brand new year, and the perfect way to christen a new blog. I went walking last weekend around the villages of Dyffryn, St Nicholas and St Lythan's in the Vale of Glamorgan, combining exercise and culture as the route takes in not one but two Neolithic cromlechs, starting with Tinkinswood.

A Neolithic chambered cairn that lies in the fields just outside St Nicholas, Tinkinswood is one of the oldest and largest prehistoric monuments in Wales.

It was built almost 6,000 years ago, which makes it something like a millennium older than Stonehenge, and the dolmen capstone weighs around 40 tons – that’s the weight of about five double decker buses.

The barrow is badly eroded now, but it still gives a good idea of how these tombs were laid out - you can pick out the rectangular outline of the mound with its external revetment wall (partially reconstructed when the site was excavated in 1914) along with the wide forecourt, leading to a single cell chamber.

Over 900 human bones were found at the site when it was excavated, suggesting that the burial chamber was used by the entire settlement rather than a favoured few. Legend has it that anyone who spends a night here on the evenings preceding May Day, St John’s Day, or Midwinter Day will die, go raving mad, or become a poet.

Well, much as I’d love to improve my poetic skills, I avoided all three of those dates and didn’t stop long enough to be affected anyway, but I would advise fellow visitors to pick a slightly drier day to visit - access to the site is through a field which gets quite muddy!