Day Twenty Nine

Wednesday 23 March – Robeston Wathen to Roch

Another long day to come, and another cloudless day with unseasonably high temperatures promised.

At the Western end of the new bit of the A40 which bypasses Robeston Wathen, lanscaping work was still going on. Trucks with flashing lights were scurrying around as the morning traffic thundered along the new tarmac and round the new roundabout. “They” had decided that pedestrians would only want to walk along a minor road heading North, so in order to head South I plodded along springy new verges.

After a short stretch of the A475, which joins the A40 at the new roundabout, I turned on to a minor road leading to Black Pool Mill. Soon I got a footpath bonus. A lovely woodland path has been established between the road and the Eastern Cleddau river. This is one of the prongs of a fork of water which penetrates South Pembrokeshire. I was about to cross this river over a bridge by Black Pool Mill.

The mill is clearly a tourist attraction, with a large car park and a café, but there was no sign of life this early in the morning. Beyond the bridge, I turned to walk parallel with the river again (roughly West), on a footpath which uses one of the Slebech Estate's farm tracks. The walking was good, and the day was getting rapidly warmer after an overnight frost, despite a bit of a breeze. Soon I would be down to shirtsleeves again, amazing for March.

Just short of Slebech Park's big house, the path turned away from the river and headed North. This house is promoted as a wedding venue and luxury retreat, and it's no doubt lovely inside. Outside, it's a bloated monstrosity, perfectly hideous. After a grassy stretch, the footpath picked up another estate road for a while, then took to fields to reach the A40 again.

As yesterday, the quickest way to get to my journey's end would have been to have trudged up the road, but I was having none of that. Not quite true – I was having about 100 yards of it before I turned off again to follow a bridleway which ran parallel with the road but mercifully out of hearing for most of its length.

The bridleway was strung together from farm tracks and roads, with a grassy interval in the middle. The area is shown as South Dairy Mountain on the map. Even by Welsh standards there was nothing mountainous about it; the peak was somewhat less than 200 feet.

The bridleway joined a lane which eventually looped back to the trunk road. This time about 50 yards was enough to get me on to another lane, to the South of the A40. Drawn on the map, my route was looking like a series of waves, as I crossed and recrossed the road in search of quiet ways. I certainly got them; after heading South for a short while, I picked up a lane which I was to follow for nearly three miles into Haverfordwest, and in that time I was passed by one car.

The lane went between fields; the country here is gently rolling, with hedgerows severely trimmed as they wait for the new season's growth (which will probably happen pretty soon if this weather holds up). The lane became a suburban road as it neared Haverfordwest, dipping down towards the Western Cleddau, on which the town is a bridging point.

The castle still dominates the town as you approach from the East, sticking up raggedly across the valley. Once you are in the town, however, the castle disappears; it skulks behind the shopping streets.

A riverside coffee bar had tables outside, crammed with sunseekers. As I had been in the sun for the whole morning, I was happy to lurk inside as I enjoyed a coffee and a sandwich.

Heading West out of town, I climbed gently back out of the river valley on another suburban road. I bought an ice cream, making the most of the weather in case this week turned out to be Summer. Turning off the road, I followed a private lane (but public footpath) past a farm called East Cuckoo, then past another called Cuckoo Grove. I didn't get to Cuckoo Mill, a bridleway carrying me West to join another lane North.

The map here says “Friends' Burial Ground”, a description echoed on a stone plaque also carrying the date 1661. A lovely path between two rows of trees, some now dead but most still flourishing, led to a walled area about the size, say, of a couple of tennis courts, a veritable secret garden. The dominant feature was the profusion of daffodils on a carpet of unkempt scrub, but a few gravestones were visible. It was very atmospheric.

From here, more bridleways took me over a mile Northwards, where I turned West on another traffic-free lane. It was reaching the stage where I had to remind myself what to do when a car did turn up.

The A40 had thundered off to Fishguard from Haverfordwest, so the main road I was dodging this afternoon was the A487, which finishes at St David's. Needless to say, I was having as little to do with it as possible. I crossed it from one sleepy lane to another, heading for a village called Keeston, or Keyston – local signs use both, as do those denizens who have incorporated the village lane in their house names.

As I walked out of Kee/yston, I fell in behind a woman. I continued to follow her, as she was walking just too fast for me comfortably to overtake her. Then she stopped, apparently to admire the view. She didn't acknowledge me as I passed her, but soon I realised that she was gaining on me again. I had no intention of trying to race her, so I maintained my usual measured trudge. As she drew alongside, the woman said something along the lines of being quicker again now that the road had levelled out. I said, “I'm glad you let me go in front for a while; I was beginning to feel that I was stalking you,” which was no more than the truth. She laughed this off, and we walked and talked for half a mile or so.

Where she peeled off to complete her circular walk, I pressed on to Cuffern, a hamlet, where (shock! horror!) the footpath I was looking for was not marked. And although it was easy enough to find the route on the ground, I had to negotiate a fence and a ragged hedgerow to get back on to the road to Roch. Honestly, it was just like being back in Carmarthenshire! It was Pembrokeshire's only lapse of the day.

Roch Castle was founded in the 13th century, and what is normally the most visible bit – the tower – was probably built by Adam de Rupe, whose family played a big part in the English “colonisation” of Pemrokeshire. The castle was part of the defensive chain of similar buildings which lined the border between the English and Welsh bits of Pembrokeshire, guarding “Little England beyond Wales”, aka “Landsker”. The de Rupe (later de Roche) family died out in the 15th Century, and the castle was eventually bought by the Walter family, which had mixed fortunes during and after the Civil War. The castle fell into disuse until the 20th Century, when it was greatly restored and altered, leaving the tower as the dominant feature. No shots are fired from the castles these days, but the English/Welsh divide still exists in the use of the respective languages and in placenames.

I said that the tower was normally the most visible feature advisably; currently the whole edifice is swathed in plastic sheeting, making it look like a giant parcel. A sign informed me that the castle was being converted into a resort. What this means in practical terms, I have no idea.

I walked through the village of Roch and a few yards beyond it to find my b&b. Distressingly, the only pub in the village was closed (until the weekend) and so was the chippy (until Easter). But the couple who run Ty Coed De, the b&B, were very welcoming, and I was offered a choice of a lift to and from Solva for supper, or pot luck from the fridge. I plumped for the second option, which I reckoned was less inconvenient (for them) than two round trips, and the chicken and chips went down a treat.