The Severn Bore by night

Severn Bore by Moonlight - copyright Joan Lee (2013)

This is a collage I did shortly after we returned from our trip away in September, inspired by the Severn Bore I watched towards the end of it. I used some artistic licence: on this occasion, it wasn’t a clear, crisp moonlit night. I also drew on memories of tidal races and Severn Bores past.

More of my artwork at Water & Art

http://www.artywater.blogspot.co.uk/

This night time viewing of the bore was at the beginning of a weekend trip, based in the Forest of Dean, organised by the Wessex Branch of the Open University Geological Society (WOUGS). For various reasons, it’s been a while since I’ve studied anything with the OU. The level 2 Geology Course was among the courses I did during the 2000s. Like most of their courses, it was intensive to study, but the content was excellent. It transformed days out and holidays – since doing it I’ve always been on the look for rocks and I still, occasionally going on some of their trips around the UK to sites of Geological interest. On the Saturday and Sunday (21^st / 22^nd September) they had field trips to the Forest of Dean and both sides of the Severn estuary / Bristol Channel. I did the Saturday one, see separate entries for the Upper Soudley Trail and Severn estuary.

Leaving Chepstow, we headed towards the Forest of Dean, taking the route my parents took during my childhood camping holidays in the area. We crossed the River Wye, over the town bridge, taking the B’ road onto the A48, through Lydney, Blakeney and Newnham. There didn’t seem to be quite so many views of the Severn from the main road as I'd seen through the rose tinted spectacles I wore during my childhood. Frequently, it was hidden behind hedges and, at Newnham, a floodbank. Caught glimpses, at Newnham and from some of the higher ground. Oldbury nuclear power station was just as prominent on the far side as it’s always been. Believe this and Berkeley just upstream are now being decommissioned, a process which will take many decades. Don't know off-hand whether there are any plans to replace them. From what I could see at Newnham, the low tide water level was very low, the water there was dead calm, with birds on the sand-mud banks.

We got to the hotel around 5pm, joined the other WOUGS members for dinner at half-seven. We then headed off to the Severn Bore Inn, on the A48, just south of Minsterworth. We arrived just before 9pm, about 35 minutes before the Bore was due – they say be there at least thirty minutes before; tidal bores being even less punctual than buses or trains. The predicted time here was around 21:30 BST, a three star. They can go up to four or five and exceed 2m in height. Very conveniently, there was a green area in front of the pub car park, which we had all to ourselves, along the banks of the Severn. Here it looked more like a river than an estuary, much narrower. Of course, it was dark, so I wasn’t sure how much we’d actually see of the bore.  The Moon was just past full - Full moon 19/09/13, Thursday, 12:15h BST. I’d hoped it would be out and reflected on the water. It was for some of the time, though it was very hazy and it kept drifting behind cloud. Light pollution from the street lights in the car park and passing traffic on the A48 was less of an issue than when trying to stargaze, though our view down the river was easier with when there wasn’t any glare. The car park lighting was less noticeable standing in some places along the river bank than others. All in all, we all twigged that we were looking down the river towards a bend.

Before the bore, the water was remarkably calm almost still; just a few ripples lit by the Moon as it came and went. The trees on the far bank and in the distance along the river were reflected near perfectly. Little or no wind and it felt very mild. I was just dressed in a light coat. On the far bank a ribbon of white torch lights on the move. We made out that they were runners. Probably some charity moonlit run.

Increasingly, as the predicted time approached, we looked down the river for any signs of the wave, or waves - usually one or more behind the leading one - and for signs of any water movement. At one point, we thought we saw a tantalising change in the distant reflections of the trees, only to find not.  As 9.30pm came and went, I heard people around doubting, “It’s stuck”.

“Is this the Avon, or the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal?”

“It’s gone up a tributary”, the Wye perhaps?

Someone phoned on their mobile from Newnham, to say it was ten minutes late there – a bit more reliable than Southern Rail can be, then.

We heard it first: a distant roar of the kind sea waves make when breaking on the shore, only more prolonged. Then the reflections upriver disappeared. “Here she goes…”, someone said, shortly be we made out a white breaking wave angled to the far bank. The mobile phone went again, just as we saw it break on the far side, then race past us. It was hard to tell what speed it was doing – C C.Eng arl’s estimated 10 miles per hour. It was definitely faster than the flood tide current on the Arun. The main wave was quickly followed by a second one, this time breaking on the nearside; though we didn’t see it do so as it was hidden behind the rushes. We made out the rise in water level, no longer any reflections. After the waves had passed, it felt a bit cooler, just as it can do by the sea when the tide is in. No surfers, as there usually are on daytime bore. After the waves had passed, the water quickly calmed down, within minutes.

At dinner the following even one of the WOUGS organisers said we were all “A bit impressed”, though perhaps not overwhelmed or amazed. I regret not seeing it in daylight this year – it’s been a while.  

Severn Bores Past

 

Severn Bore - February 1984

My by best view of the bore during daylight is still Lower Parting, near Gloucester, now nearly 30 years ago, on a February Saturday. My secondary school geography teacher led a field trip, beginning with an early morning start to view the bore, followed by looking at Jurassic fossils on the Cotswold escarpment, then Aust Cliff in the afternoon. I have a grainy photo here.

The full moon in my collage here is more reminiscent of the night at Newnham-on-Severn, when it was clear. This was again part of a WOUGS trip. There, where the river is much wider, it was a fairly shallow wave of only about 30cm / 1 foot high. Some of my fellow WOUGers were disappointed, “Is that it?”. But there then followed a great tidal race, most of the high tide rushing in over a period of about 30 minutes as a turbulent current. Certainly when it came to the power of the water, I was actually more impressed by this than what I’d seen this evening. As were staying somewhere nearby overnight (now apparently closed down) were able to return to the river the next morning and view it in the daylight. My other art work here – mixed media paintings – were done around this time.

 

Tidal Race (2007) - Copyright Joan Lee

Making Waves (2007) - Copyright Joan Lee

Background

There aren’t tidal bores on every tide on the Severn, just the spring tides, when the high tide at Beachley exceeds 8m, 9m for the larger bores. The highest spring tides occur around the spring and autumnal equinoxes. The spring tides on the Severn always occur early in the morning or in the evening, in the dark. Not as convenient, then, as tidal gorping closer to home. Not ideal either for anyone like us with journeys upwards of 100 miles / two hours travelling to do as a day trip. There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of overnight accommodation within easy walking distance of the river.

For some reason, the tides during 2013 have been more modest than other years. There was a four star bore predicted on the night of 22^nd August. Otherwise there’s been nothing above three star.

These predictions are astronomical, taking into account the relative positions of the Moon and the Sun, which would affect the size of the tidal bulge due to their combined gravitational pulls on the Earth. The predictions don’t take any account of the weather and the amount of freshwater coming down the River Severn. When there’s high pressure over the north Atlantic off the western coasts of the British Isles, the bore / tide height will be lower; higher if a low pressure system over the same area. I’d have thought, after the end of a fairly dry spring and summer, the freshwater of the Severn would be fairly low.

It runs faster (10-13 miles per hour / 16 – 21 km/h in the narrower river between Gloucester and Minsterworth than in the wider sandy estuary around Newnham - 8-13 km/h (5 – 8 miles per hour).

References and Links

Open University Geological Society homepage

http://ougs.org/index.php?branchcode=ouc

Wessex branch

http://ougs.org/index.php?branchcode=wsx

1.Alan Holiday, The Severn Bore, Soudley, Beachley Point and Sedbury Cliff, Open University Geological Society Wessex Branch field trip handout (2013).

Severn Bore timetable 2013

http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/2013%20times.html

Wikipedia – Severn Bore

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severn_bore

Severn Bore Facts

http://www.severn-bore.co.uk/facts.html

Macho Bore website for surfing dudes

http://www.thesevernbore.co.uk/home/4579550154

Chepstow Castle and the River Wye

Castle wall shadow on the River Wye

We left Solva on Friday 20th September. A dull journey along the M4 etc eastwards during the morning – the traffic, especially lorries, unrelenting. Then took the M48 to Chepstow, the route of the M4 pre- 2nd Severn Crossing. After a bit of car / parking flappery in Chepstow we headed to the River Wye near the town bridge.

Town bridge

Had our lunches on the high tidal mud bank, raised further during the 2000s for extra flood defence. The Chief Chartered Engineer noticed the kink in the metalwork of the bridge. Built in 1816, it used to carry all the traffic across the Wye at Chepstow. Since the late 1980s, all the traffic on the A48 crosses the much more substantial bypass bridge. The old bridge is still open to traffic, albeit single track, with traffic lights either side, though we saw one impatient, oafish van driver mount the kerb mid-way across the bridge on the north side, as oncoming traffic approached.

Welsh Coast Path / Offa's Dyke map

I then showed the CC. Eng the monument marking the start of the Welsh Coast Path and Offa's Dyke. Strictly, the latter starts at Sedbury Cliff, across the Beachley peninsula on the Severn. A circular mosiac of tiles showed a map of Wales, indicating the routes of the paths. Among the Welsh county bird symbols around the map, I noted particularly the razorbill for Pembrokeshire. Around the map were standing stones, one with a polished circle bringing out graptolite fossils.

Chepstow Castle from the English side of the bridge

We crossed the bridge to view the Castle from the English side, along with the strong currents of the ebbing tide. The Wye as ever here, didn't look the most friendly rivers. As well as the strong current - which when I first looked didn't seem any worse than what I’d seen recently on the lower Arun, but looked at least as strong when I looked again - there was all the mud - Severn Mud as in the main Severn estuary, staining the water brown. Then, there was the high tidal rise and fall, of as much as 14m (46 feet) on the highest spring tides.

Doorway at Chepstow Castle

During the afternoon, the murk which had been with us during our journey from Pembrokeshire cleared, letting the sun through. Even if that didn't banish the tidal mud or ease the current, it helped me see the Wye in a more positive light, hopefully exercising the ghosts of last year's soggy solstice.

Chepstow Castle

From here we headed to Chepstow Castle, the Bishop's Palace at St. David's having whetted my appetite for ruined buildings. This one being near a large, ominous looking river interested me all the more.  The Castle is built on one of the cliffs of Carboniferous Limestone in the Wye gorge. Presumably, the building stone was local limestone and sandstone of Devonian and Carboniferous age, sourced from the Wye valley area. Some recycled Roman tiles in the Great Hall. An interesting stone carved arched doorway here. The cellars and kitchen near the entrance to the Castle (admission now £4.50), along with the lats. Using the latrines, meant sitting on a couple of bars placed over a hole, plunging steeply down the cliff to the river. Apart from polluting the still turbid but now relatively clean River Wye, the lat-goers must have got very chilly bottoms during the winter. Prolonged business discussions like those I envisaged happening around communal Roman facilities, such as those at Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall were probably unlikely at these more basic facilities.

Bend in the Wye opposite the Castle

The bridge from Chepstow Castle

At the upper end of the Castle, the sally port gateway. There were a number archways and windows with views over the river, along the eastern wall.   I liked the shadows of on the river, formed by the wall, in the afternoon sun.

We didn't spend that long looking round the town. C C.Eng went in to the Chepstow Bookshop further down the hill, though sorry to see the 2nd hand bookshop, built on the corner of the road, had closed. Had a coffee and cake in the Costa, where the girls there took sympathy with me, when I came in drenched on that soggy June day last year.

Low water in the Wye

During the afternoon, the tide on the River Wye dropped dramatically, revealing rivulets and ripples in the mud banks, particularly on the inner bend of the meander, opposite the Castle. By the time I went back down the bridge after our coffee, from about 4pm, the bases of the bridge pillars were exposed, along with a platform looking like the floor of a ruined building, under the near side of the bridge. Beneath the cliff with the square cave and fading painted Union Jack, the width of the river was less than half what had been earlier in the afternoon, with a bank of bedload boulders on the near side. I hadn't seen the water as low here before. I don't know what time low tide here was today, but the current was still flowing outwards. I wasn't surprised, given that it was an equinoctial spring tide, during which we hoped to see the Severn Bore.

 

Low water on the Wye

Leaving Chepstow around half-four, we headed towards the Forest of Dean, crossing the town bridge, the late afternoon sun, now on the river near the Castle, casting a silvery, sparkling light.

Pembrokeshire - Solva and around

Sketches Water & Art - Sketches from north Pembrokeshire

http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sketches-from-north-pembrokeshire.html

Solva Harbour

We arrived in Solva on Friday afternoon, staying at one of the many holiday cottages in the village. The little River Solva ran at the bottom of the garden. On Saturday morning (14th September), pleased that the rain we'd had on our journey from Hampshire had now cleared -  we headed out on the first of walks along the north Pembrokeshire coast. We began by following the lane parallel to the Solva, to the main road through the lower part of the village, past the shops and a galley to the main car park,  where the Solva flowed into the  sheltered natural harbour. Here, we crossed the footbridge to the east side of the harbour, turning left to join the coast path up onto the hill above the harbour called The Gribin. We took the lower of the two paths which took us onto the top of the limekilns. 

Solva lime kilns

The geology here is Cambrian sandstones (Solva Group), deposited in a marine environment. Presumably, they are calcareous, containing calcium carbonate for limestone. Continuing up the hill, through trees, views down to the harbour, with canoeists heading out of harbour. At Penrhyn headland, the path opened out to follow the cliffs. This was the promontory between the mouth of Solva Harbour and the smaller valley near St. Elvis’s Farm. Three were views up both valleys, and back to Solva village – Lower Solva around the harbour, Upper Solva on hill top.  Saw  our first cave in the cliffs along the coast here, formed by erosion of the steeply dipping beds, here 45 degrees. The hard rocks and small streams, made for very undulating coastal topography. It was good then to have cooler, fresher weather for walking.

 

Near St. Elvis's Farm

Coming down the other side of this headland to the smaller valley, I did my first pencil sketch, looking out of the cove to the islets. Back on the cliff tops to the east, we enjoyed views south across St. Bride’s Bay towards Skomer Island and the St. Bride’s peninsula silhouetted against the sun. Calm water in the bay, sun on water, through broken clouds. It all looked very peaceful, spoilt only by the Fawley like chimneys on skyline to the southeast. These were part of the part of the Milford Haven oil terminals / refinery. To be visible from here, they must be pretty tall, being built well away from the coast of St. Bride’s Bay.

St. Bride's Bay

We then walked along steep, steeply dipping cliffs. Despite this being tough, old (up to about 550 million years), there was quite a bit of coastal erosion. In places, the path ran rather close to edge. Some ominous signs at some of the gates. Hoped the cows had a sense of gravity, we thought as we walked through the nearby field of grazing cattle.

We came to Dinas Fawr , a narrow, steep headland. The narrow, prickly path put me off, but Munros Man went to end of it, leaving me to do another sketch. We then had our packed lunches, overlooking St. Bride’s Bay. Beneath the cliffs were ripples from water refracted by the rocks. Some black, crow-like birds – they looked like crows but sounded different; less shrill.

After lunch, we continued on towards the steeper, inaccessible Dinas Fach headland, the far end being an islet. Here we turned round headed back to Solva, now enjoying the views west along the cliffs, towards St. David’s Head and Ramsey Island.

For the last bit, we took the very steep path up from the cove near St. Elvis's onto The Gribin (this is formed of one a number of igneous intrusions along the Pembrokeshire coast). We then followed the path along headland, passing an artist standing at his easel doing an oil painting, overlooking the view along the valley to the cove and islets. The sky looked good. We took him to be local artist David Harvey. Looking round Solva after our walk, we had a quick look in his gallery. All oils on canvas, various sizes, though I preferred the looser, smaller paintings.  He had a small studio on left of entrance, with work in progress at easel and  a table with large tubes of oil paint. More canvases if various sizes stacked against the wall.

Arriving back in Solva, we crossed back over footbridge and walked along the west side of the harbour to the quay and old lifeboat station. We had a cuppa and cookies on balcony of cafe, overlooking the harbour and the boats in the afternoon sunshine, though but pity they'd run out of scones before peak teatime. 

Leaving the cafe, we followed paths up the cliff to Upper Solva, largely avoiding the main road. Good views over harbour and out to the islets from top. The holiday cottages here must be particularly sought after. To get to any premises which didn’t look like a holiday cottage, second home, or anywhere functional, we had to go well up the hill to the outskirts of Upper Solva. Here we found the village store – Solva Megastore – Tesco be Afraid - Very Afraid.

Tea in late afternoon sunshine on balcony above garden, of one of the many holiday cottages.

Pembrokeshire - St.David's City

Sketches at Water & Art

http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sketches-from-north-pembrokeshire.html

St.David's Cathedral

We made two visits to St. David's during our week in north Pembrokeshire. On Sunday 15th September, we looked round the Oriel y Parc visitor centre cum art gallery, shop and café. There, I bought the local geology map (BGS 1:50000, St. David’s Head) and looked round the exhibition of twentieth century artist Graham Sutherland's Beast lithographs. This is now the centre for Graham Sutherland's Pembrokeshire collection of artwork. There was also work at the centre by artists currently working in Pembrokeshire. In the gallery, too, some stuffed animals including grey wolf, otter, gannet, oyster catcher and various birds.In the city centre, we strolled round outside the Cathedral and the Bishop's Palace. We returned to both on Tuesday, looking round the Cathedral during a wet morning. When the weather cleared in the afternoon, we visited the ruins of the Bishop's Palace. We’d highly recommend the Italian ice cream place, on the main road (towards Oriel y Parc and Solva).

The Cathedral

With the sound of the choir emanating from within during the Sunday service, we had look round the outside, where there were stone carvings around the doorways and windows, along with some unusual building stones. The stone was mainly local purple-grey Cambrian sandstone.  Later in the week, we saw an outcrop of this near St. Justinian.  We looked round cloister area where there was a small garden. The cloister wall looked as if it had been restored fairly recently, with stone wall covered with mortar containing small sea shells. From here, we made the first of our two visits to the café in the refectory upstairs. This was on two levels. We sat on the upper one, overlooking the photography in the gallery below. We got there just ahead of the Sunday lunch rush.

On the wet Tuesday morning, we spent quite a bit of time in the cathedral sheltering from the rain which was heaviest during the middle of the day – vague recollections of sheltering here one afternoon with Mum, during another soggy summer camping holiday in the mid-1970s (see later section). Entry was a £3 donation – very reasonable considering some of the (compulsory) admission charges into many of the English Cathedrals (note 1).

Ceiling of bell tower (CAL)

The Chief Chartered Engineer bought a photography permit (£2). I did some quick sketches, though better earlier in the day, before we took a break for a cuppa in the Refectory, when it was less busy.

You didn’t have to be an engineer to notice the Nave was leaning, particularly evident looking along the Nave towards the Quire. Beyond the Quire and around the walls, were tombs of bishops and priests. There were several chapels off the Nave, the Lady Chapel the back. Along the Nave, stone carved arches. There was the Shrine of St.David, built 1275, restored from 2010, dedicated in 2012. On the other side of the Quire, the organ, with big base pipes. I was very taken with the floor tiles and their patterns.  I tried sketching a few, along with the rose window, with stained glass on the west side. Quite a bit of stained glass, including a rose window. Behind the Quire, a ceiling with stone flute carvings and wooden painted ceilings under the bell tower and above the main altar area.

Cathedral tiles (CAL)

In the Treasury, there was a small display of stone carvings, goblets, along with a timeline giving a potted history of St. David’s along the top of the walls. The Cathedral is a Anglican, or strictly speaking, Episcopal. There’s a bishop, hence Bishop’s Palace and the name of the pub up just outside the gateway to the cathedral area from the high street. It all started when St. Davis founded a monastery during the late sixth century AD. The cathedral dates from the late twelfth century. There was also mention of a bishop being killed by Vikings at the turn of the 2nd millennium, 999AD, then key events in English / Welsh history, including William the Conqueror, Edward I conquering Wales in the thirteenth century. Towards the end, Queen Elizabeth II granting St. David’s city status in 1995 news to me, see later section.

Note 1 – cathedral admission charges – tricky one. These old buildings, many still badly in need of costly maintenance don’t pay for themselves.  Some, like St. David’s trust people to make a donation as they go in (but does everyone?). Increasingly, since about the late 1980s, there’s an obligatory admission charge. I heard St. Paul’s in London was £15 (that was about 2 years ago, so probably gone up now). Winchester Cathedral is currently half that, for adults. Nonetheless, multiplied by two and two more child entries, was enough to put off my folk when they were there last month. They argued that their children are miss out on things we had free when we were kids, including something of potential educational value. They were regularly a part of day out, to places like Winchester, Chichester and Salisbury. Dad took us to St. Paul’s, too. Largely because of these admission charges, today was the first time I’d been into a cathedral for more than ten years.

Bishop’s Palace

Rose window, Bishop's Palace

The ruins of the once grand Bishop’s Palace were across the little river Alun (Alin) from the Cathedral.

Cathedral form the Bishop's Palace

Shadows of the Bishop's Palace wall in the late afternoon sun

By the time we got to the Bishop's Palace on the Tuesday afternoon, the sun was out.  We paid to go in (£4.50 each) and had a good look round. Taken by the shapes and textures formed by the building stones, windows and arches, did quite a few sketches. Views from the Bishop's Hall out to the Cathedral.

Building stones

Among the building stones here, some pebbly /gravelly blocks of conglomerate, in the purple-grey of the cathedral and a green.

Around Britain’s Smallest City

City Noticeboard

Downtown St.David's

I say city – it had more the feel of a village with a cathedral attached. The main street had about as many shops as the villages around our way. There were a couple of banks – rural / small-town size branches. City Hall was about the size of a typical village hall. Near the cathedral gate, where we stood sheltering from the rain eating our packed lunches and I sketched the view up the high street, was a small bookshop. Opening times seemingly very laid-back. On the Tuesday it was very busy everywhere, with coach parties (just as there are in London, Winchester, Bath etc), and people like us drawn to as somewhere to go during the wet weather. Nonetheless, we wondered if some of the traffic trundling round was there just to give it the feel of We’re a city, honest.  The lady at the tourist information centre at Oriel y Parc seemed to be overstating it somewhat when she told her caller to “go into the city…”.

What I’ve said here, reflects our personal impressions and is not meant out of criticism.  For its size, it was  certainly well served with galleries. As well as Oriel  Parc, we looked round a glass studio (Steve Robinson) and a smaller gallery near the cathedral gate. Before the last of the rain cleared on Tuesday, we had a cuppa in the Sound Cafe in the main street. Presumably it was named after Ramsey Sound rather than reassurance over structural issues. There was a seemingly unusual childcare policy: a notice just behind me – Unsupervised Children Will be Given a Double Espresso and a Free Kitten.

St. David’s is officially the smallest city in the UK, though this didn’t become official until the mid-1990s. Before then, I thought it vied with Wells, Somerset. Turned out, though, that during my childhood holidays to Pembrokeshire, it was another of those places like Guildford, which many people take to be a city because it has a cathedral but isn’t. Because of St.David being the Patron Saint of Wales and the cathedral being much older than that in Guildford, I’d assumed that, unlike Guildford, it had been given royal charter granting it city status centuries ago. Apparently, until the late nineteenth century, it used to be the case that an Anglican cathedral with bishop was enough, but then they changed the rules. Wells is still the smallest city in England, but when we last looked round there during the mid-2000s it looked a good deal bigger than St. David's. The population is now around 1800. What makes city status official in the UK? Reading the relevant Wikipedia article, it’s more complicated than I thought, though it still involves the monarch granting city status. There are pretenders, among them Guildford (or the football club there, anyway) and Reading. Then there are places which used to have city status but lost it and / or didn’t bother to reapply, most notably Elgin (recall signs to the City Centre while there in May) and Rochester (very recent, 1998). It’s good it needs to be official, rather than simply – We’ve grown encompass the Thames, now sprawl out the M4, with regular traffic jams at J11, or This is nice place to live and shop, with good links to London.

Wikipedia - City status in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_status_in_the_United_Kingdom 
Accessed 30/09/13

Soggy Childhood Camping Memories

The campsite was somewhere near St. David's, near enough to walk there. Not for the first time on these holidays, we were on a cliff top. The warden had a black cat called James. I recall my brother seeing snake – he said it was an adder as it had V’s on it – and being terrified (something passed on down my father’s line, perhaps). We must have had some good weather as there is a photo of my brother and me standing outside the front of the tent, with the sun shining. For much of the rest of the time, though, we were in about the one only part of Britain where it was raining. After about a week, my parents were fed up with hearing on the radio about the Lovely summer we were having – who asked us?

The things I remember (then, age 7) aside from the weather were two cafés in St. David’s (not there now it seemed) – one good – they gave us lollipops, the other (the day we – or rather my parents - packed up the tent early and left) not being much cop – no fish fingers, no ice cream! Then there was the overnight stopover at a B&B on the way back – me sleeping in one end of the single bed, my brother in the other, it didn’t work. My parents (in the double) got no sleep either. The scenery didn’t have much impact – just crossing the Cleddau Toll Bridge (think the sun was shining then, as remember looking down to the Cleddau estuary above Milford Haven; and a couple of castles – Pembroke and Carew - Hurrah for Carew! [my Dad recalling a boyhood chant].

Pembrokeshire - St.David's Head and Whitesands Bay

Sketches at http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sketches-from-north-pembrokeshire.html

Whitesands Bay from Carn Llidi

Sun, showers, dry until very last bit of our walk on the Monday (16th September). Very windy when we got to Whitesands Bay and later, on St. David's Head, this bit of coast facing the open Atlantic. Superb views from the higher ground. Impressive cliffs, with steeply dipping, very contorted strata, in places near vertical. Intricate, complicated sequence of outcrops, influenced by numerous faults.

Parked at Whitesands Bay and walked north from here along coast path towards St. David's Head. White breakers on the sandy beach, white horse waves further out to sea. Views of the northern end of Ramsey Island, along with the Bishops and Clerks islets further out to sea, with lighthouse on South Bishop.

Whitesands Bay and the cliffs

Along this first bit of path, lower Palaeozoic shales, mudstones, mainly Ordovician, small wedge of Cambrian along fault.

Left SDH for later, for now diverting off the coast path, towards the highest (Carn Llidi,181m) of several prominent hills formed of Ordovician intrusive mafic igneous rocks, in this case gabbro, as for SDH itself. Took path round south side, then up onto the steeper part nearer the top. Did a quick drawing of the views west / SW from here over the coast while Munros Man did a speedy scramble to the top. From here could see the whole of Ramsey Island, along Whitesands Bay, inland to St.David's, St. David's Head. In the distance to the south, the coast along St. Brides Bay to Skomer Island. Heather and gorse adding colour to the lower slopes of the hills.

Carn Llidi

Came down off the hill and followed the path round to the youth hostel, then tried for the next hill to the east. Initially, the paths went through cultivated / grazed land - horses in one of these fields  - but from then on, they got rougher and more fiddly. Some of them were very overgrown and clearly not walked very often. We left out the hill but then had trouble on the north side trying to rejoin the coast path. Here it was all open access land, but in practice much of it unwalkable, consisting of rough, scrubby bracken, bramble and gorse. Gave up on one path when it got too thorny to get through. Better luck when we came upon what was marked on the map as a permissive path. This was clear of bracken etc. Shortly after rejoining the coast path, we sat on a flat bit of rock and had her packed lunches. Views north now along the coast to Strumble Head, with the lighthouse flashing. 

St. David's Head

From here, we walked along the coast path to St. David's Head itself, an intrusion of gabbro. Along the way, we looked down on a secluded, inaccessible cove, down sheer cliffs and saw several grey seals with their pups. Most of them on the shore, or two swimming. 

After St. David's Head, we walked back to Whitesands Bay, now a bit busier, with a few surfers. We went down to the beach to see the cliffs there, formed in the middle of the bay of Neoproterozoic (later Precambrian) lavas and tuffs. Quite a bit of this  was buried under the vegetated dunes with the best exposures towards the south end of the beach. As with the younger sediments either side of the bay, they were steeply dipping. The BGS map marked some closely spaced faults here. Another fault separated these older rocks from the lower Palaezoic to the south.

It was then that we were caught in a heavy rain shower coming in from the north, over St. David's Head. We dashed back along the beach, only for the sky to clear once we were inside the cafe. 

North Pembrokeshire coast St. Justinians to St. Non's Nay

St. Justinian's - Ramsey Sound - Porthlsyg Bay - Porth Clais - St. Non's

Wednesday 18th September

Sketches at http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sketches-from-north-pembrokeshire.html

Dry all day, with mix of cloud and sunshine. Cold in the windier bits. Paths busy in places, awkward where narrow and exposed near cliff edges.

Lifeboat station - St. Justinians

Ramsey Sound and Ramsey Island

Cambrian sandstone near St. Justinians

Took the 9:00am Celtic Coast bus (minibus) from Oriel y Parc  - all journeys £1 singles and got off at St. Justinian, near the Chapel ( in private garden) and lifeboat station. Outcrops of the grey-purple Cambrian sandstone. From here, we began walking south along the coast path, with Ramsey Sound and Ramsey Island on our right. There were several remote, sheltered coves, where we saw quite a few grey seals, in and out of the water, one of them being swept along by the pull of the tide, albeit at the shoreward edge. 

Grey seals

The tidal race through the Sound was impressive, the roughest bit being The Bitches – very choppy white water racing between rocks just offshore from the island, birds above the wake. On our side of the water, a gannet. As the Ramsey Sound is another area where water is funnelled through a narrow channel, I wasn't surprised to see strong currents / tidal racing here, the rocks at The Bitches, aggravating the turbulence. There was a definite strong movement of water all along the Sound, the tide ebbing. What was more, the rough water / the strong currents / white breakers / larger scale swells persisting some way out to sea, at least half the length of the island again. There was a full Moon on the Thursday (19^th), making for spring tides (more about that in a later entry about the Severn Bore). I would like to have spent more time here sketching, but it was cold in the wind.

Tidal Race in Ramsey Sound - "The Bitches"

Both the wind and the sea calmed down as we rounded the headland and began heading east along the coast, now facing the more sheltered St. Brides Bay. There were clear views all along the near coast towards Solva and all round St. Brides Bay to Skomer Island, silhouetted against the sun. The rock formations continued to impress, though we didn't see any more seals. Some horses, shortly after we rounded the headland. As we stopped for a snack and enjoyed the view, we were unaware of one quietly coming up the hill behind us.

Pebbles at Porthlysg Bay

Explored and had our packed lunches in Porthlysg Bay. Rock outcrops here guided by several faults in / near the bay trending southeast. In the cliffs another outcrop of the Cambrian purple grey and green sandstones, wedged between to faults. Pebbles on the shore of similar coloured conglomerate. Either side of this outcrop, the Neoproterozoic volcanics. Gold colour to these cliffs. Layers foliated, steeply dipping and contorted. There was granite, also Neoproterozoic, on the east side of the bay, though didn't get round to that on the shore, and it wasn't obvious when we walked over it back on the coastpath after our stop. While on the beach, I sketched looking out to sea, towards the islet just offshore, formed of the granite. Granite bounded on both sides by faults. Back on the Cambrian sequence, continued on to Porth Clais.

Porthlysg Bay

Just before we rounded the cliff above the harbour, view across to the steeply dipping thickly bedded sandstones, pictured in the geology books. The narrow harbour inlet here, is the outflow of the river Alun. The harbour was virtually empty at low tide, the boats high and dry, the river running as just a small trickle nearer the east side. A small stone harbour wall near the seaward end, only accessible on the east side. We followed the path up to the road and crossed the bridge over the stream at the head of the harbour, where we'd come through on the bus this morning. More lime kilns. The path then ran along the cliff on the east side. Strangely, looking back down to the harbour, we saw a guy drive a standard hatchback car down there. Though this wasn't a thickly mudded harbour, it still didn't look suitable for an afternoon drive. Hope he knew what the tie was doing and didn't stuck. As he stopped and appear to moor it to his boat, assumed he probably did, though the classic builders backside was in our full view as he bent over, stood at the forward end of his boat.

Porth Clais

Steeply dipping Cambrian sandstone beds at Porth Clais

Coasteerers near Porth Clais

Coasteerers near St. Non's

Above the next bay, we found somewhere down a bit, off the path overlooking more of the steeply dipping sandstones. I tried sketching them, initially interested in the rocks, but was diverted by a party of coaststeerers. These are people, in this case predominantly in this case big young burly blokes, in hard hats and wet suits who jump off cliffs and ledges into water. We watched them dive and splosh, some of the more expert ones somersaulting. They made their way through the natural arch to jump off somewhere a bit higher. We Saw them in action again on the other side of the promontory, then out of the water, heading from St. Non's Bay car park, following the same path as us into St.David's at the end of our walk.

Leaving the coast path at St.Non's, we passed the remains of a chapel, built on the site where St. Non is said to have given birth to St.David, in a storm, in the sixth century. A newer chapel further up the hill here. Where we left the coast path, a well and shrine.

 

Pembrokeshire Geology Notes

With reference to BGS Geological maps – Bedrock Geology 1:625000 south sheet, St. David’s Head 1:5000:

South Pembrokeshire  - mid Palaeozoic sedimentary - Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous . Shaped by the Variscan Orogeny during the late Carboniferous. Rocks highly folded and steeply dipping. SE Pembrokeshire is similar to The Gower, Carboniferous Limestone series, still part of the south Wales syncline. Mid Pembrokeshire, inland of St. Bride's Bay, mainly Silurian, Ordivician. Carboniferous Coal Measures at Newgale, at the north end of the bay, on the south side of the fault. North Pembrokeshire - remnants of the Caledonian Orogeny, during the mid-Palaeozoic. Numerous faults, mainly striking E-W, including Solva where the harbour has been eroded along a fault zone in Cambrian and Ordovician rocks. North of St. Bride's Bay, early (lower) Palaeozoic -  Cambrian and Ordivician sedimentary shales, mudstones and sandstone. Ordivician volcanics (rhyolite lavas, tuffs) north of St. David's Head, Ordivician intrusives - dolerite, gabbro at St. David's Head, forming the hills. Also Ordivician, intermediate diorite intrusions, including The Gribin at Solva - outcrops of a sill?  Neoproterozoic granites and volcanics - lavas, tuffs, agglomerates. Exposed at Whitesand Bay. In the Cambrian, the Solva Group - mudstones, sandstone, greywackes. Cambrian sequence along the coast between Solva and Porth Clais to the south of St.David's. These include the purple-grey sandstone used to build St. David's Cathedral. Interestingly, as on the Gower, some springs inland, the river Solva's headwaters issuing from them. As these rocks are very old, therefore well cemented, they will be impermeable. Perhaps water percolates along joints.

Pembrokeshire - Strumble Head and Carn Fawr

Sketches at http://artywater.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/sketches-from-north-pembrokeshire.html

Thursday 19th September

View south towards St.David's Head

After a later start because of the rain in the morning, we headed north of St. David’s to Strumble Head. On the way, we stopped at Croes-goch, where John Knapp Fisher, now 82, had his gallery in an earth red painted stone bungalow near the main road. We saw many of the paintings, or at least large reproductions of them, in the book about his artwork in Pembrokeshire Munros Man had bought at Oriel y Parc. The artist was there. He looked a bit frail, but is still painting strong and asked if we knew when the weather was clearing. Presumably he hoped to get out later and do some art work, if not walk the dog. The gallery was in two small rooms of the downstairs of the bungalow. He had a big plan chest of drawers with numerous notes and sketchbooks. Near the entrance, scrapbooks of press cuttings. I thought of my painter and printmaker father.

Leaving the gallery, we turned off the main road and followed the smaller, more fiddly lanes north towards Strumble Head. Parked in the car park on the east side of Garn Fawr, which was still shrouded in fog when we got there. Then, the weather quickly improved, the coast revealing itself. Followed the paths round the south side of Garn Fawr and down to the coast path near the youth hostel. This walk harder going than the ones around St. David’s Head and Solva earlier in the week, so didn't walk as far. The first bit was a narrow path, with wet long grass. Don't know whether it was the geology - Ordovician volcanics, but it made for more steeper, more undulating terrain. Some of the slopes were slippery after the rain. We didn't see many other people on the coast path here as around St. David’s. Most of them were at Strumble Head itself where there was another car park.

Garn Fower

The views were good, though, and we saw some more grey seals in the remote coves beneath the steep cliffs. Could see St.David's Head in the distance to the south, Carn Llidli and the other gabbro outcrops here prominent on the skyline. Behind us was Carn Fawr. Tried to sketch the Strumble Head lighthouse over lunch, but cold in the wind. Better views of lighthouse further along the coast path, on a rock islet, linked by a bridge.  Sketched near the gate up to the lighthouse. We couldn't go through it, but we saw some seals in the cove beneath it.

Grey seal beneath Strumble Head

Strumble Head lighthouse

For simplicity, we walked back along the road, rather than reversing the walk along the coast. Though much quicker, it was no fun. The road was very narrow, with a tiresome number of cars, even off the route to Strumble Head, going steeply up the hill up to the fort at Garn Fawr. It was also sheltered from the wind and hot going up the hill in the sun. Glad to finally be off the road, we climbed the last steep bit up to Garn Fawr (213m). From the top, a view across the fields and farms to the lighthouse. Here, we reflected on a good week away and ideas for future holidays, Pembrokeshire well worth another visit. This one had been long overdue.

Strumble Head from Garn Fawr