Nooks And Corners Of Pembrokeshire Part 18

CHAPTER XII.

ON AND OFF THE NARBERTH ROAD. LANGWM AND DAUGLEDDAU.

It is market day in Haverfordwest. The big travel-stained waggons of the wholesale traders, drawn by st.u.r.dy large-limbed horses, trundle slowly through the crowded streets of the old town; while the distinctive tones of the 'broad Harfat talk' greet the ear upon every side.

Wending our way down the steep High Street, we bear away to the right at the bottom of the hill, and traverse one of the oldest quarters of the town. Presently we descry a low-browed entrance opening upon the footpath, the ma.s.sive nail-studded door, with its quaint lion-head knocker, being enframed by liberally-moulded jambs. Pa.s.sing beneath this ancient portal, we are admitted to an interior beautified by the rare old oaken stairway shown in our sketch; this stairway gives access to nicely panelled chambers, whose fireplaces retain their original blue Dutch tiles, painted with scenes from Biblical history.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD STAIRCASE AT HAVERFORDWEST.]

To the rear of the dwelling-house stands a flour-mill of antiquated type; yet driving, withal, a brisk trade in its green old age. A well-trained old horse, the mainstay of the establishment, jogs round in the mill and supplies the motive power.

Stepping out to the rear, we find ourselves upon the riverside quay, along which we now take our way. Groups of bulky stone warehouses flank the gra.s.s-grown wharf, which presently opening out, reveals the Bristol Trader, a little semi-nautical inn, with its trim bit of garden-ground abloom with hollyhocks and nasturtiums; an old-time spot frequented by waterside gossips, and fraught with vague echoes from that wide outer world where men 'go down to the sea in ships.'

Hence we push on past the ruined priory to the diminutive village of Haroldstone, where some traces still exist of the ancient mansion that, for three successive centuries, was the ancestral home of the Perrots, one of the most notable old families of Pembrokeshire.

[Ill.u.s.tration: UZMASTON.]

_Vis-a-vis_ across the river Cleddau rises the parish church of Uzmaston; a picturesque a.s.semblage of roofs and gables, cl.u.s.tering around a quaint old saddle-backed tower. Uzmaston Church has, within the last few years, been rescued from decay, and conscientiously restored by Mr. Lingen Barker, architect, of Hereford.

Skirting a bend of the river, we trudge through the woods to Freystrop, and enter upon a district pitted here and there with old mine-shafts.

Over the water lies Boulston, where hard by the brink of the stream (perhaps a bowshot east from the desecrated church) rises a jumble of ivy-clad ruins, backed by a tangled thicket of old forest trees. Here lived the Wogans, a well-known family in days of yore, who adopted a wyvern as their crest from the following tradition.

Amidst the broad-woodlands that formerly extended around the ancestral mansion, wild beasts of various kinds were supposed to roam at large.

In the remotest depths of the forest lurked the dreaded basilisk, a formidable monster whose glance caused instant death to the ill-starred wight upon whom its gaze might rest, but which perished itself if first perceived by a man.

At last a certain bold fellow determined to rid the countryside of this objectionable beast. Causing himself to be shut up in a cask and rolled into the forest, he peeped through the bung-hole, and presently spied the basilisk without himself being seen. Thereupon the dreaded monster, giving vent to an unearthly yell that could be heard for miles around, fell down and perished upon the spot, so that the country-folk were no longer troubled by the molestations of the basilisk. A dragon legend, very similar to the above, is connected with the village of Mordiford in Herefordshire.

By-and-by, as we descend from the uplands, a broad reach of the tideway opens out right before us, where the twin streams of Cleddau merge into the widening Haven. Thus we enter the village of Langwm at its upper end, escorted by a rabble of noisy, unkempt urchins who c.u.mber the narrow roadway.

Here, in the very heart of southern Pembrokeshire, stranded like a human jetsam upon one of the inmost recesses of Milford Haven, we find an isolated community, whose speech and physiognomy alike proclaim their Teutonic origin. Imagination conjures up those far-away times, when the st.u.r.dy immigrants from over seas--ancestors of these hardy fisher-folk--pushed their advance up the winding waterway, despite the desperate onslaughts of the Britons, who, fighting for hearth and home, 'rolled on like the billows of a retiring tide with noise, fury, and devastation, but on each retreat yielded ground to the invaders.'

In their own thoroughgoing fashion, the newcomers set to work to construct a chain of castles to guard their hard-won territory; and thus, protected from the restless foe, grew up those peaceful villages and smiling homesteads, surrounded by orchards, fields, and pasture lands, that have earned for this portion of the county its t.i.tle of the Little England beyond Wales.

But _revenons a nos moutons_, for it is time to look about us.

A curious place is Langwm, and a singular race are the people that dwell therein. Small 'b.u.t.t-and-ben' cottages, some thatched, some slated, others roofed with hideous corrugated iron, compose the major portion of the village; which straggles down a narrow combe, whose lower reaches open upon an oozy elbow of the river.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LANGWM FISHWIVES.]

The women, as a rule, are conspicuous by their absence; for they are for the most part abroad, hawking fish and oysters up and down the country.

Clad in stout pea-jackets and warm blue homespun skirts, worn short for travelling the rough country roads, these hard-working women seem to belong to some alien race, as they elbow their way through the crowded streets of Tenby or Haverfordwest.

The Langwm people have, indeed, always kept very much to themselves, discouraging alliances with outsiders; nor until recent years would they even permit their girls to go out as domestic servants. In the old unregenerate days, courtship and marriage were attended with certain curious, primitive customs--customs which, to say the least, were 'more honoured in the breach than the observance.' One way and another, this singular people forms an interesting little community, which appears to have preserved intact to the present day much of the manners and customs of the early Flemish colonists.

Langwm Church is dedicated to St. Hierom. The little edifice stands, as its name implies, in a hollow combe near Milford Haven. To reach it we cross a bit of rough unenclosed greensward, littered over with oyster-sh.e.l.ls, upon which, according to the local story, the village itself is built.

The interior of this church is enriched with some interesting Decorated features; notably a canopied niche and piscina of unusual type, upon the eastern wall of the north chapel, or transept.

Under an ogee canopy, in the gable wall of the same chapel, lies the effigy of a De la Roche (or Dolly Rotch in the vernacular), to whose family this chapel formerly belonged. The figure is that of a Crusader, clad in full armour and sword in hand; the face is both handsome and expressive, and the head reposes upon a plumed helmet. The thong of the boot, twisted around the leg, bears some resemblance to a serpent; and hence this monument is pointed out as that of the founder of Roch Castle, who, as an old story avers, met his death through the bite of a 'loathlie worme.'

Near Langwm the twin Cleddaus merge into the broad bosom of the tideway; becoming, as old George Owen says, 'both a salt sea of a myle broade and xvi myles longue before they forsake their native Countrie, ... and then by Curse of nature yeald themselves to the sea, the endinge of all Rivers.'

We now cross the ferry, and, after pa.s.sing through Marteltewi, bear away in a southerly direction _en route_ for Lawrenny. The latter is a pleasant-looking village, with comely cottages concentrated around the parish church of St. Caradoc, whose tall, ivy-mantled tower rises close at hand, overshadowed by a grove of stately elms where the rooks are making merry.

To the rear of the church the ground slopes up to a boss of open land, fringed with a thick growth of copsewood, and almost cut off from the circ.u.mjacent country by two converging 'pills,' or tidal creeks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAWRENNY CASTLE.]

Pursuing a field-path that skirts the stream at the base of the monticle, we stroll through the park-like demesne of Lawrenny Castle, a handsome modern edifice, whose soaring turrets and battlements make a brave show amidst the silvan scenery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BENTON CASTLE.]

Making our way to a handful of cottages beside a neglected quay, we now select a likely-looking craft, and pull across the Western Cleddau to the ruins of Benton Castle; whose ivy-clad battlements scarcely overtop the redundant oak woods, that come feathering down to the very brink of the stream.

Little remains of the fabric save the princ.i.p.al tower, the base of which is circular in form, the upper works being corbelled out and fashioned into an octagon. With the arched gateway, flanked by a portion of a second drum-tower, these crumbling ruins form a picturesque group, whose features are almost lost amidst the luxuriant foliage that runs riot over all.

Benton Castle appears never to have been more than a mere outpost, planted to guard the pa.s.sage of the Western Cleddau, and forming a link in the chain of strongholds to guard this remote English settlement.

History has little to tell about its past, but the castle is reputed to have been originally built by Bishop Beck. It was at one time surrounded by an extensive deer park, a portion of the ancient estate of Williamstown, which, as George Owen tells us, was sequestrated to the Crown upon the attainder of Sir John Perrot.

After groping about for some time, in vain endeavour to obtain a satisfactory view, we at last secure a sketch of Benton Castle; and then, recrossing the water, make the best of our way back again to Lawrenny.

Inns, good, bad or indifferent, appear to be an 'unknown quant.i.ty' in this highly-respectable village; but an enterprising grocer rises to the occasion, and plays the _role_ of Boniface as one to the manner born.

Upon resuming our peregrinations, we set our course for Landshipping Ferry; while the gathering clouds, brooding over the darkening landscape, warn us to make ready against the 'useful trouble of the rain.' With a sudden swirl the gale descends upon us, sweeping through the straining tree-tops, and lashing up the waters of the creek into the semblance of a miniature _Maelstrom_.

Scudding for shelter to a rustic alehouse, we soon make ourselves at home in the deep, oaken settle beside the chimney-corner; discussing the day's adventures over a mug of home-brewed ale, while the fumes of the 'noxious weed' float upwards to the ripening flitches, that hang from the smoke-begrimed rafters overhead.

Half an hour later finds us once more underway, with the sunshine blinking out again through the tail of the retreating storm, and the raindrops glistening like diamonds on every bush and hedgerow:

'Sweet is sunshine through the rain, All the moist leaves laugh amain; Birds sing in the wood and lane To see the storm go by, O!

'Overhead the lift grows blue, Hill and valley smile anew; Rainbows fill each drop of dew, And a rainbow spans the sky, O!'

Running us ash.o.r.e near some cottages, at a picturesque nook of the Haven, the ferryman now puts us in the way for Picton; which is reached after a brisk twenty minutes' tramp through the leafy glades of a deep, sequestered dingle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PICTON CASTLE.]

It would be difficult to image anything more attractive than the situation of Picton Castle. Crowning the brow of a gentle declivity, the stately pile is sheltered from the north and east by groves of forest trees, and mighty banks of rhododendrons; while upon its southern side a beautiful expanse of the home-park rolls away, 'in emerald slopes of sunny sward,' to a broad, land-locked reach of Milford Haven.

In conjunction with the neighbouring estate of Slebech, Picton Park comprises a vast extent of open, park-like land, the haunt of game and wild-fowl; while the river front affords miles of woodland strolls, with a charming variety of ever-changing prospects. What with boating and fishing galore, not to mention an occasional meet of fox and otter hounds, he must indeed be a fastidious sportsman who cannot find recreation in this favoured locality.

Picton Castle can boast a record unmatched in the annals of any other Southwallian fortalice; for the place has never once been deserted, but has always been occupied by those who can claim direct descent from the original founder.

It was in the days of William Rufus (when Arnulph the Norman handed over the whole of the surrounding district to his trusty follower) that Sir William de Picton erected the first castle, and gave his own name to his newly-acquired possession. To his descendant, the good Sir John Philipps, the town of Haverfordwest is indebted for its fine old sandstone bridge, which he caused to be built at his own expense, and presented as a free gift to the borough. John Wesley and Sir Isaac Newton were numbered amongst his friends; and a monument, erected to his memory by the grateful townsfolk, is to be seen in St. Mary's Church, Haverfordwest.

General Picton, of Peninsular War renown, was a famous scion of the same good stock. It is said that, owing to his influence abroad, large quant.i.ties of the best wine of Oporto found their way into many a Pembrokeshire cellar, where such a vintage had hitherto been a luxury unknown.