Day 7: Marloes to Broad Haven

Weather: Brilliant sunshine and still, then light breeze

Distance covered today: 21.3km (13.2mi)

Last night's B&B: The Clock House

% Complete: Cumulative distance: 55.4%:  159.9km

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 7 (click!)

The Clock Tower in Marloes is an unusual feature; unique in my experience. Normally these large clocks are attached to a church or the council offices, but standing there on its own?  The door of the clock was open as I left my B&B this morning (called "The Clock House”!), and I couldn’t resist the temptation to pay it a visit.

This was an auspicious occasion!  I found two men inside the clock, one of whom hales from Shrewsbury and it is his job to service the clock once a year.  This morning was the day of the service!  The other fellow winds the clock, once a week on Friday, because if he left it one day longer, he said,  the clock would stop. Presumably he is also otherwise occupied, but he let me understand that he has never missed the winding of the clock and indeed, it chimed on the hour every hour throughout the night last night, for which I was not entirely grateful….

The clock was the gift of a grateful Liberal Party to the memory of the 4th Baron Kensington, one William Edwardes.  After a career in the army, Edwardes entered politics and sat in the House of Commons, curiously as a consequence of his Irish peerage.  Anyway, he did well, giving “assiduous service” and rose through the ranks to become a party whip under Gladstone, and in opposition under Disraeli, eventually making it into the House of Lords, as one does. Sadly he died in a shooting accident in Scotland in 1896, and the local Pembrokeshire Liberals asked his wife to choose a suitable memorial for her late husband. She decided on a “clock tower” to be erected in Marloes, where her husband had been so respected, as a reminder of his Lordship’s “remarkable punctuality”.  The party faithful raised the money in the area by public subscription.
 
Suitably educated I went on my way, and after walking for an hour or two, I came upon a wall beautifully constructed using dry-stone walling techniques, enclosing a truly enormous field, right on the edge of the cliff. The wall went on and on, and I became increasingly convinced that it could only have belonged to the landed gentry, since no-one else could possibly have invested so much labour and capital without requiring a higher return. Sure enough, I saw a church in the distance, in the middle of nowhere; further confirmation of an estate emerging, and then, on my right, suddenly the ostentatious, Victorian St Bride’s Castle appeared. Sure enough, it was the estate of the 4th Baron. I found a plaque which informed me that he was forced to sell the estate in 1920 to defray death duties, but since he had died 24 years earlier, I assume the problem was that of his heirs.

Anyway, the castle became Kensington Hospital, specialising in TB treatment, until becoming a nursing home after the last war.  It has now been converted into sectional title apartments, complete with a “magnificent” heated indoor swimming pool, library, snooker room, all weather bowling green, tennis courts and a bistro.  My father was born less than twenty years after the baron’s death.  How much the world has changed since then!

While I was standing talking to the clock servicing technician, some people stopped to ask me the way to Martin’s Haven, because they wanted to go and see puffins on Skomer Island. For some reason, people think I know these things. It must be the map draped around my neck, though Veronica could tell them that I’m perfectly capable of getting lost, both with a map and a satnav. (I proved this late in the day today, but that is another story….). 

Anyway, I decided I couldn’t leave the area without at least seeing Martin’s Haven for myself, so set off on a crazy 6km detour to see the point at which people embark on the boat to Skomer.  On the way there, two cars stopped to ask me whether they were on the right road!  Eventually I became quite authoritative and gave them directions to the nearest kilometre which served to confuse them even further.

I got my comeuppance on arrival. There was virtually nothing there: just a parking lot, a fellow taking money and a little, shelving bay with a makeshift jetty.  Time to walk! Fortunately, the coastal path intersected with the road at Martin’s Haven so I was immediately back on the straight and narrow.

Even earlier, at breakfast this morning, I met a fellow who turned out to be a professional photographer, up here to visit Skomer Island amongst other things. He told me that today he was on the lookout for adders and he understood that there might well be some on the coastal path.  I thought nothing more of it, didn’t see any adders and then suddenly saw him sitting on a beach looking out to sea at a place called Mill Haven, a little further up the coast.

He invited me to join him and I did, for a few fascinating minutes as he talked of the local birdlife. Then he showed me a pre-historic flint spear-head or blade that he had just found on the ground near one of the ancient forts along the coastline. There was no doubt about it. I took an appalling photo of it (below), which hardly does it justice, but the cuts where the flake had been sharpened by carefully aimed blows to give it the right shape were clearly visible. It was like looking at one of the objects in my favourite radio series, “The History of the World in 100 Objects”.  Will told me that he had been an archaeologist before taking up serious photography, and that he had previously also found one of these elsewhere, also next to a prehistoric fort. All you have to do is look. It seems I miss a lot!

Maybe refineries are boring after all!

The unusual clock tower in Marloes

The fellow on the left services it and the fellow on the right winds it!

Martin's Haven: not a lot to see after all!

That very distant point at the top left is St David's Head. Three day's march away!!

Finally, a cloud. Unremarkable except that it's the first in four days!

Yet another beautiful, turquoise bay!

Another picture of the suspected scurvygrass! See below!

Here are the leaves! I promise I have not taken on Phyllis' suggestion in her comment yesterday!

A crow yelling at me, and wonderfully reflecting the background!

Yet another beautiful vista

Brilliantly clear water showing details of the rocky sub-surface

The endless drystone wall (with a mortared crown)

Finally leading to the ostentatious St Bride's Castle

A detail of the magnificent wall, with its lichens and plantlife. Just gorgeous!

A diver prepares to submerge in the lovely St Bride's Haven, with cottages to-die-for above him. Memories of Edenly.....

Further on up the coast. St Bride's Castle recedes in splendour

This pre-historic flake of flint that was an arrow-head or spear-head. Fantastic!

That's Broad Haven at the top, my destination for today! Still a way to go!

But a lovely cool forest helped with the heat

And soon I descended into the gloriously picturesque little village of Little Haven, just a final climb away from Broad Haven. Wonderful day!