Another trip on a train with a difference. This was to be the first request stop on the
challenge of visiting stations starting with all the letters of the
alphabet. I'm always somehow fascinated
by the trains on this route. They start
off in the large city of Manchester, come down through the Wales/England border
region visiting small stations, enter South Wales for the much larger
population centres of Newport, Cardiff and Swansea and then soon get to
stations so small they are request stops.
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| Ferryside Request Stop - what a lovely station |
Up early and walked the dog then down to Cardiff Central and
all aboard. Well, not all, I was picking
up my friend at Swansea who also fancied a day's walk. The plan was not just to visit Ferryside,
nice though it is but to go from there down to Kidwelly and catch a train back
from there.
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| Looking over to Llansteffan |
First thing to remember, ask the conductor to stop the train
at Ferryside. Paul Merton visited
Ferryside when making his TV programme about request stops. I can see why. It's a lovely little place, right on the side
of the estuary. So close in fact that
you would worry about storm surges and alike but today was tranquil. What a quaint station Ferryside is with its
signal box and old fashioned signal.
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| St Ishmael church |
We walked down the coast to St Ishmael, some of it walking
on the beach, some of it along the lanes.
Just the occasional train going past on the nearby line. We pottered around the church in St Ishmael
that has been a place of worship for over 100 years.
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| The bell on Pengay Farm - wonder if it is an old ship's bell |
Another kilometre past St Ishmael and it was time to start
heading inland, initially up the valley and them a steep walk through woods and
ending up at Pengay Farm. One reason for
choosing this route was to visit some trig points - yes, strange hobbies some
of us have, but they always seem to have a good view, well not always.
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| Time for a bit of trig point bagging |
By the time we reached the village of Llansaint I was
looking forward maybe to a beer but a local told us we were out of luck and the
pub not open on a Monday. He told us a
lot more actually, about local shipwrecks and all sorts of things and where to
go to get a good view south over Gwendraeth estuary and look over towards the
Gower peninsular. He wasn't wrong.
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| Gwendraeth Estuary and Gower |
The afternoon walk took us not straight down into Kidwelly,
that would have been far too straightforward, but NE for a couple of miles over
to another trig point and then south after that into Kidwelly.
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| Kidwelly Castle - some of Monty Python and the Holy Grail was filmed here. |
We had a look at Kidwelly Castle. It's a wonder that anything remains of the
place after so many people tried to attack it over the years - must have been
well built. We read a bit about Gwenllian and he death at the Battle of
Kidwelly. It all went on around here.
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| Rumsey House - sceen of some very strange going ons just over 100 years ago |
Talking things happening, another place I was keen to see
was Rumsey House, the former home of Mable Greenwood. You probably won't have heard of her unless you
have been to one of my talks. Poor Mable
was poisoned with arsenic. Her husband, the local solicitor, amazingly was
found not-guilty of killing her despite the evidence against him appearing
strong, including the fact that he married his lover just a few months after
his wife's death.
Kidwelly station is a fair step away from the town and as
every teashop in town appeared to be shut, I guess because it was a Monday or
after 3.30 or both, we wandered down and had a look at the estuary and the
remains of the first canal built in Wales.
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| Evening sun setting over Kidwelly |
Kidwelly, also being a request stop, meant we got in more practice
of stopping a train with the mere bend of the elbow. Made you feel quite powerful.
