Cardiff

St Mary Street

We are in Cardiff for a party to celebrate the 45th wedding anniversary party of our friends Mark and Maggie. Naturally we want to take advantage of being in Cardiff to have a look around. I found the Cardiff Centenary Walk online, but I can't now locate where it can be downloaded from.

As we were staying in the Royal Hotel we started our walk in St Mary Street: pedestrianised but quite busy. Some of the bars were already doing good business. We turned left heading towards the castle and passed the Royal Arcade - Cardiff's oldest arcade, but not all that attractive. We enjoyed the art nouveau decoration on this building on the right.

Further on was Howells (now House of Fraser), built in 1867 for a draper, James Howell. We thought it quite art deco in style.

We walked down Wharton St to the Old Library (now offices) and turned left to reach St John's church. It is the oldest church, and perhaps teh oldest building, in Cardiff, having been founded at the end of the 12th century and rebuilt in the 15th.

The walk guide promised stained glass by William Morris, Ford Madox Borwn and Edward Burne Jones. Disappointingly, we coudn't work out which was which - and surprisingly, a church custodian knew nothing about it. She recognised that this might be a missed marketing opportunity. We decided we liked this one best.

More or less opposite is Cardiff Market, which opened in 1891. There was a good view from teh first floor.

 We admired the fantastic facade of High Street arcade ...

... and walked down Quay St (there apparently once was a quay on the river Taff) to reach Westgate St and the Millenium Stadium (where I once saw England defeated by a last minute penalty taken from the half-way line by Gavin Henson). I was surprised to see a Cardiff Arms Park sign.

We turned right into Castle St with the incredible Castle on our left. We would later do a tour of the Castle, so I have made the Castle the subject of a separate post. Here is the main gate as a taster.

We admired the splendid Castle Arcade opposite, built around 1887: we thought it the best of the several arcades.

We turned into Duke St and admired the statue of Nye Bevan, father of the NHS.

Further along the street, though not mentioned in the guide, was this wonderful Venetian style building.

We turned left into the Friary (obviously once the site a friary) and crossed into the lovely Friary Gardens. The statue is of the 3rd Marquess of Bute who funded William Burges's work on Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch.

We now headed towards Cathays Park, first stopping to notice the drinking fountain. It dates from teh 1860s and has had two previous locations. It is rather splendid.

We walked through the underpass to see Cathays Park, a 59 acre site sold by Lord Bute to Cardiff Corporation and now a massive civic centre. The first noticeable buildings is City Hall, dating from 1906.

The great clock tower is 60m high and topped (of course!) by a Welsh Dragon.

The other buildings - Law Courts, University of Wales Registry, parts of Cardiff University - in a mainly classical style were all much the same height, which worked well, but were individually not that interesting.

The National War Memorial, built in honour of those men of Wales who died in the First World War, is much more impressive. It features a Nike (the winged goddess of victory) inside a circle of Corinthian columns.

It is at the centre of a beautiful garden which avoids traditional municipal planting, instead favouring dense plantings of flowers in complementary colours. Really impressive!

On the far side is the wonderful Park House. It was designed by William Burges for John McConnochie, the engineer of Cardiff's docks, in a French Gothic style. It is now a bar and restaurant.

That was effectively the end for us. We headed back to the hotel, passing the 19th century St David's Cathedral. It was designed by A W N Pugin as a catholic church (becoming a cathedral in 1916) and later restored after being badly damaged in the Second World War. I am a big fan of Pugin, but this is not his finest work.

Conditions: a lovely sunny afternoon.

Distance: a couple of miles.

Rating: five stars (including the Castle).

Pembroke

Pembroke Castle from the Mill Bridge

We are staying near Pembroke, visiting old friends, and clearly we have to have a look around the town. We start our exploration at the castle, where we also acquire a copy of the Town Trail which I had found online here.

The castle, where Henry VII was born, dates back to the Norman Conquest. The first earth and timber castle was built in 1093, although there is speculation that an iron age hill fort preceded it. It was replaced by a stone castle in the early 13th century and this was progressively enlarged up to the mid 15th century.

This is the initial view that we had as we approached along Westgate Hill.

Once we walked through the Barbican and the Great Gatehouse I was delighted to see my first Red Admiral of the year - an unexpected delight.

Once inside we climbed the Henry VII tower and enjoyed this marvelous view to the north. On the left is the well-named Great Tower. It was commenced in 1204 and is 25m high and 16m in diameter. It is a rare example of a circular keep.

We had a very enjoyable ramble around the castle building, although we resisted going underground to see the Wogan, a vast natural cavern which was a shelter for cave dwellers during the ice age.

Emerging from the castle we turned right to reach Main Street and pass St Mary's church. On the left was Pembroke Town Hall with its splendid clock tower. The building dates back to 1820.

Heading along Main St we came to Orielton Terrace, a lovely group of presumably Georgian or early Victorian houses.

On the right after this was the rather handsome Congregationalist (?) church which we were warmly invited to visit by some very friendly worshippers.

A bit further on was the former Wesley Chapel, now an antiques centre.

We doubled back here and turned left into the New Way, the first street to breach the town walls and turning left at the bottom follow the line of the former walls. We passed the Gun Tower, one of six defensive towers.

Further along was the Gazebo. The base was originally another defensive tower onto which a gazebo was added in the 19th century. It has lately been restored and is now a rather lovely private house.

We headed back up towards Main St and then followed Black Horse Walk which brought us down to the Upper Mill Pond, with the 13th century Barnard's Tower on the right.

The pond had impressive wildlife including a family of Moorhens, herons and Cormorants. A passing local advised us that there was a great view point behind the reed beds and I duly took advantage of this excellent tip off.

We headed along the side of the pond and reached the bridge at the end. This offered a final, splendid view of the great castle.

Conditions: warm and sunny.

Distance: about 3 miles.

Rating: four stars. The castle was really impressive, but the town seemed to be in decline. We spent time discussing how it might be revived, but without coming up with any very convincing ideas. WE thought its remote location was probably the core challenge to renewal.