Low tide yesterday was at 1344 and this shows it just a few minutes afterwards at 1356. At that time it was only at 1.55m above chart datum (data from tidetables.org.uk) and was one of the lowest tides that I have noticed since I arrived. The kayaks really put it into perspective, showing how narrow the channel had become.
For comparison, the following high tide was at 1902, at 4.60m. It was getting dark by 1902 so this photo was taken at 1711, as the tide was coming in, at c.3.80m.
If you are looking for a short walk with some lovely views over the river estuary and the hills beyond, this is a nice one. If you want to go all the way to Picnic Island, a walk of just 30 minutes or so, you will need to be prepared to pick your way along some jagged rocks, but if you only want to go as far as the beach beneath the footbridge over the railway line, it’s a simple walk along well worn paths. You can also turn it into a much longer 6 mile walk by crossing the footbridge and going up the hill and circling back into Aberdovey. I’ve added a PDF at the end of this post. Patches can be a bit muddy after rainfall and on the rock this can be slippery, so suitable footwear is recommended. Before you set out, check the tides. You will need to avoid high tide, because part of the walk is cut off by water. If you do find yourself returning along the path to meet with an unpassable section you will need to cross the bridge over the railway and return along the road, but this is a busy road with no footpath so is much best avoided.
The walk is all about beautiful views over the estuaries and to the hills beyond. It starts in the Memorial Park at Penhelig. Either go under the railway bridge or cut off that rather dangerous corner on the road by taking the private road in front of the houses known as Penhelig Terrace. The Memorial Park is on the other side. It is a lovely little park with great views over Aberdovey’s sea front. It contains a memorial and a plaque in English and Welsh to mark the achievements of the 3 Troop 10, a group of German nationals who worked on behalf of the Allies during the Second World War, and who were stationed in Aberdovey for their training (which I have described on an earlier post). There is also a little shelter, slightly unkempt at the time of writing, to the memory of Mr Richard Roberts “in recognition of his munificent gift for improvements at Aberdovey 1930.”
At the far end of the park let yourself through the gate and onto the Roman road. The so-called Roman road is neither Roman nor, in modern terms, a road. It is a path carved out of the local mudstone, a remarkable feat that even the Romans, accomplished civil engineers, would have found a difficult task without the help of explosives. And why would they have gone to the trouble? The nearest Roman military structure was Cefn Caer at Pennal, 11km to the east along the Dyfi. There is no obvious benefit for a permanent stone-built pathway to Aberdovey, even if there was any sign elsewhere between Aberdovey and Pennal of a long-term Roman presence, which there isn’t. My guess was that it was built in the 1860s, part of the works for the building of the railway, but again that fails to address the question of the purpose of such a track, given that there was a perfectly good coast road at that time. In his description of the 6-mile walk, below, the author David Roberts, an Aberdovey resident, states that the track was built in 1808 for horse and carriage, but he doesn’t say where these were headed and why such a road would be required. Even Hugh M. Lewis, who was born in 1910, and grew up and lived in Aberdovey was unable to shed any more light on the subject.
Whenever it was built and whatever it was used for, it is invaluable today as a ready-made footpath for walkers. The path has two small bridges that cross little natural outlets for fresh water that pours down the hill into the estuary. In these places the fresh water-loving gut weed grows, a livid, bright green that contrasts dramatically with the black stone and the brown seaweeds. The estuary is incredibly peaceful on a sunny day as the tide retreats, the waters flat and sparkling, making a pleasant sound lapping gently at the rocks as they travel at a considerable pace to the west. The hills beyond, in Cerdigion, fresh and green, are the perfect backdrop.
The ubiquitous mudstone, into which the path is carved, slopes gently down into the waters, and is covered with some of the seaweeds that I described on my strandline walk, fascinatingly three types forming three bands as they approach the water, with those most equipped to survive out of the water for longest at the top, and the least drought tolerant at the bottom. Sea oak is at the top, bladder wrack in the middle and egg wrack at the base. some of it remaining submerged even at low tide. Unlike my strandline walk, where all the seaweeds had been detached from their rock bases, it was possible to inspect the seaweeds in situ, so I could see the holdfast with which they attach themselves to rocks, a surprisingly tiny little mass of highly tenacious material.
On the rock face above the level of the path, two plants in particular make the best of the most implausible nooks and crannies to grow: red valerian and sea thrift. Both are drought resistant, saline tolerant, prefer sandy and low-fertility soils and need full sun, so are frequently found in south-facing coastal areas. When the sea thrift goes over, which most of them have by late September, the fallen petals leave attractive skeletal globes. Watch out for sea thrift and red valerian in cracks in vertical planes of the rock to the left as you walk towards Picnic Island. Where the rock splits it reveals trapped minerals that are often beautifully coloured providing a perfect canvas for the flowers.
At all levels above the waterline are a variety of lichens dominated by yellow scales (shown to the right), which is prolific, followed by black shields and map lichen. Lichens are not single organisms but are symbiotic, depending for their survival on “photobionts” (algae and/or cyanobacteria), which provide them with the carbon that they need. The photobionts use the process of photosynthesis to manufacture their own food source, whereas the fungal component of the lichens need an external food source. This ecological strategy has obvious benefits for the fungus, which is essentially parasitic on the photobionts, but it is thought that the photobionts might benefit too, due to the provision by the fungus of a stable environment in which they can develop. There’s a lot more information on the British Lichen Society website.
The Roman road runs out and is replaced by a well maintained footpath that runs parallel to the railway line, taking a route several feet above the estuary, again with wonderful views across the estuary. At low tide the sands in the middle of the estuary are revealed, a shifting chiaroscuro of colours and deep shadows framed by the speeding waters of the retreating tide. There is rich vegetation along the footpath – blackberry and rose brambles, ferns, berberis, purple thistles, red valerian, buddleia, holly, wild oregano and much more. In autumn there are few flowers, mainly the last of the red valerian, but there is a profusion of red and orange berries.
A fork in the path offers a choice. The left fork leads up to Picnic Island and the footbridge over the railway into a lay-by and, 100m down the road, the continuation of the walk for those who want to pursue the 6 mile option. Picnic Island is not an island, just a small promontory cut off from the hillside by the railway, but it has wooden seating and is a pleasant green area with excellent views south over the estuary. It’s original name is Bryn Lestair (obstruction hill).
The right fork leads down steps to a small pebble beach, and the continuation of the Roman road for a short span, before it runs out again. The beach was the site of a shipbuilding business, some of its walls still surviving, but the site was largely destroyed by the railway. From the beach, facing the sea look left and you will see that the Roman road resumes. Follow this for a short distance and then it’s a matter of picking your way down the rocks to the beach, and along the foot of the retaining wall behind which the railway runs. This is invariably wet, with hillside water pouring from under the wall. There were almost no shells on the beach sections, only very fragmented muscles and barnacles. The barnacles were on loose bits of slate, so they were probably detached from rocks elsewhere and brought in on the tide. This is probably because the waters are brackish, combining freshwater pouring out of the river Dovey and salt water coming in on the tide.
On the other side of this small beach is another promontory with views over the estuary and east towards the Georgian Trefri Hall with its own island complete with crenellated folly. Before it was painted mustard yellow it was my favourite house in the area – that wonderful location, those stunning views, a private tidal beach and that super folly! In 2016 it came on the market and was featured in an article on the Wales Online website – for sale for a cool 1.7 million pounds. Rather more than I had in my piggy bank on the day.
The walk back into Aberdovey is simply a matter of retracing your footsteps.
If you are interested in the 6-mile walk that takes you up into the hill behind the estuary, here’s a PDF to download: 6 mile circular walk Picnic Island and hill. It is the BBC Weatherman Walking map and guide by local resident David Roberts (eight pages with photographs). I haven’t done it yet, but it looks splendid and it’s on my to-do list.
Oh the multiple joys of the dry weather! A gloriously sunny day yesterday. A long, lazy walk down the estuary was followed by a trip to Dai’s shed to see what he might have available. The blackboard said bass and mullet. Woo hoo! Jill was in charge, as Dai was bringing in the lobster pots. I asked for one of each, and was staggered at the size of them! Super fresh. Each over a foot long, bright of eye, and beautifully silver-grey, stunning. She only had two mullets left, so I was lucky. I hate de-scaling fish – I always end up covered in scales – but Jill did the job in double-quick time and gutted them both for me as well. As I watched the process with envy at her speed another customer arrived. A nice little exchange:
[Clock showing 3.20pm].
Customer: “What time do you close?”
Jill, smiling and looking at the clock: “2 O’clock!”
Customer, also laughing: “I better not come back a bit later then!”
When I left, he was still waiting patiently in line and I hope that he enjoyed his fish as much as I enjoyed mine. Whilst I was there, the owners of Proper Gander came in to pick up seafood for the restaurant as Dai returned with his lobster pots and the day’s catch. Couldn’t have been fresher!
Mullet at top, bass at bottom. Heaven on a plate.
The ideal way to serve the fish would have been whole, but even if I starved myself for a couple of days that wasn’t going to work :-). I’ve never tried filleting a raw fish, so I cut the fish into chunks when I got home, the first chunk for last night, the others put in the freezer, with heads and tails also frozen for a future fish stock.
I have been indulging in a bit of a North African and Middle Eastern phase, having been reunited with my tagine and my spice collection, but I chose to keep things perfectly simple. I floured my piece of mullet, fried it in a mix of butter and olive oil and served it with something mid way between chermoula and a sauce vierge. It was composed of fine-diced tomato, capers and banana shallot, finely chopped mint, parsley, lovage, and oregano in a virgin olive oil and a big squeeze of lemon juice, with some minced garlic thrown in for fun, livened up with with a punch of Berbere spices (a blend that I found in the Co-op pin Tywyn). I also sautéed some spuds and threw a couple of baby courgettes on the griddle. The herbs all came from my garden except for the oregano that I spotted growing all along the estuary walk – a nice, bijou little forage! I do wish that I could grow coriander, but it goes straight to seed.
Mullet turns out to be a stunning fish. I had never had it before and was told that if caught in estuary waters it could taste very muddy but this was caught out at sea and was anything but muddy. It had a clean, fresh taste, beautifully white and full of flavour. It is often compared with sea bass, but of the two I prefer the mullet. It has better flavour and a much better texture. The fresh and clean flavours of the fish, the herbs and the spices all worked well together.
Dai’s Shed is open til the end of October, so if you’re hoping for some excellent locally caught fish, you need to get your skates on.
Glan-Dovey Terrace with Pen-y-Bryn behind and the white 19th Century shelter on top.
Overlooking Aberdovey’s sea front is a little white shelter on a small hillock, a popular destination with tourists and dog walkers known in the 19th Century as Pen-y-Bryn, which translates as Head of the Hill. The original name of the hill may have been Bryn Celwydd, Hill of Lies, which is recorded on a chart of the Dyfi Estuary dating to 1748. A number of guides to Aberdovey place Aberdyfi Castle on that spot. For example, in Aberdyfi: The past Recalled by Hugh M. Lewis has a page describing the castle, “possibly a motte and bailey castle or more probably a castle of wattle and daub which was defended by a stockade,” locating it at Pen-y-Bryn. However, although it is recorded that certain historical events clearly took place at a castle of this name, and it receives particular mention in the late 12th-early 13th Century Brut-y-Tywysogion (Chronicle of the Princes) compiled at Strata Florida abbey, the identification of the castle with the bandstand hill, and even with Aberdovey itself, is very doubtful.
To begin with, Pen-y-Bryn always seemed to me a most improbable as the site of a castle, even a small one, even allowing for substantial alteration of the profile of the hill over time. In a motte and bailey arrangement a fortification sits on a natural or artificial mound with an accompanying settlement in a walled/fenced area at its foot, sometimes surrounded by a moat or ditch. Pictures of ruins and artistic reconstructions based on excavations indicate that the motte might support a fortification that was little more than an elaborate shed, as this reconstruction from the Dorling Kindersley Find Out website suggests. That nothing substantial could have been built on the Pen-y-Bryn site does not rule it out of being Aberdyfi castle, but the events that are described below would indicate that a large structure would have been required to defend an important fortified settlement, particularly one selected for the vital political assembly that established the primacy of a Welsh prince as ruler of most of Wales.
Dorling Kindersley reconstruction of a motte and bailey castle showing the main features. Fortifications could be very small. Source: Dorling Kindersley Find Out website.
The Aberdyfi Castle was twice used as a base for important documented meetings of Welsh rulers, first in the 12th and then in the 13th Century, but the name is also connected with a much less secure event that allegedly took place in the 6th Century. A rather more plausible alternative to Pen-y-Bryn for the castle is the site of Dolmen Las on the south bank of the Dyfi at Glyndyfi in Ceredigion, suggested by a number of authors.
What is clear is that wherever the castle was located, it was a Welsh one, rather than an English one captured by the Welsh. The Norman invaders were innovators of the use of castles in Wales, but it was not long before Welsh leaders, observing and suffering the effects of this new powerful strategic device, were able to learn from it and build their own versions. Rhys ap Gruffudd the powerful 12th century ruler of Deheubarth was amongst the first to take to castle building, and in his biography of Rhys, Turvey suggests that this castle was one of his.
Aberdyfi is first connected with Maelgwyn Fawr (Maelgwyn the Great, Maglocunus in Latin), descendant of Cunedda, and ruler of Gwynedd. This is mentioned by Davies who says that “according to tradition it was at Aberdyfi that the suzerainty of Maelgwyn Fawr had been recognized seven hundred years earlier.” This apparently endowed Aberdfyi with a certain status as a place associated with the triumph of a Welsh ruler in achieving a status approaching that of a king.
Effigy of Rhys ap Gruffudd from St David’s Cathedral. Source: Wikipedia
According to Turvey, Aberdyfi Castle itself seems to have been founded by Rhys ap Gruffydd (1132-1197) in 1156, the ruler of Deheubarth, the second most important region in Wales, in order to counter the expansionist policies of Owain Gwynedd (or Owain ap Gruffudd, 1100-1170), ruler of the most important region at the time, Gwynedd. Rhys and his brothers had invaded Ceredigion in 1153, having already consolidated their position in Dyfed and Ystrad Tywi, and by the time Henry II came to power, John Davies says that Owain Gwynedd’s realm “extended almost to the walls of Chester,” taking in much of the earldom of Chester and the kingdom of Powys. The northern frontier of Deheubarth and the southern border of Gwynedd met at the river Dovey, making the river strategically significant. Rhys was continually at war with the Norman Marcher lords to the east, and in 1158 Roger de Clare captured the castle in but was ousted by Rhys in the same year.
Llywelyn the Great with his two sons, by the Benedictine monk Matthew of Paris (1200-1259). Source: Wikipedia
In 1216 an important meeting took place at Aberdyfi Castle, 15 years after the death of Rhys. Its purpose was to formalize the position of Llywelyn ab Iorwerth (c.1173-1240), grandson of Owain Gwynedd who became known as Lywelyn Fawr (Llwelyn the Great), to receive the homage of other Welsh rulers and to divide Deheubarth among the descendants of Rhys ap Gruffudd. Llywelyn ab Iorwerth was born in Gwynedd, which throughout the early Middle Ages had shown the most promise for becoming the leading territory in Wales and a unifying force for the various regions that made up Wales. The assembly was intended to reinforce the position of Llywelyn as pre-eminent ruler in Wales. At the Aberdyfi castle gathering minor rulers of the Deheubarth territory confirmed their homage to Llywelyn, and in return Llywelyn divided Deheubarth amongst the descendants of its deceased ruler Rhys ap Gruffudd. Aberdyfi Castle was probably chosen for the meeting partly because of the Maelgwyn Fawr connection, lending historical gravitas and integrity to the event.
The location of Domen Las
So where was Aberdyfi Castle? Even though it has been claimed that there may have been a Welsh fortification on the bandstand site, it is clearly not a suitable venue for the types of assembly described above. Instead, a far more probable venue is Domen Las, which appears to be the remains of a motte at Ysgubor y Coed near Glandyfi (translating as bank of the river Dyfi) on the south side of the river Dyfi in Ceredigion, map reference SN68729687. This fits in with the identification of Rhys as its builder and its location in his Ceredigion territory in Deheubarth. The name Aberdyfi simply means “mouth of the Dyfi” and although Glandyfi is not at the mouth of the estuary, it is located at the point at which the river begins to open out into the estuary and may have been a crossing place. More significantly, Domen Las faced the mound of Tomen Las near Pennal in Gwynedd (SH697002), which may have been a motte established by one of the Gwynedd rulers, and possibly in use at the time that Aberdyfi Castle was built. In addition, from Owain Gwynedd’s point of view, there would have been an obvious strategic link between Gwynedd and Deheubarth. Dividing up Deheubarth from a point within Deheubarth but just over the border from Gwynedd and in sight of it would have been a powerful message to the descendants of Rhys. Finally, although the 6th Century Maelgwn association with Aberdyfi pre-dates Rhys’s castle by five centuries, it may have had something to do with the castle’s name.
Domen, meaning mound, and las meaning green in old Welsh (blue in modern Welsh) describes the site perfectly. It is an overgrown mound on the edge of the river Dyfi. John Wiles describes it as follows on the excellent Coflein (The online catalogue of archaeology, buildings, industrial and maritime heritage in Wales) website:
The medieval castle of Domen Las is represented by a castle mound or motte. This is notable for the way that it is fitted into the natural topography and for the remarkable configuration of its ditch.
The castle faces north-east across the upper Dyfi estuary towards Pennal, the court of the Princes of Gwynedd in Merioneth (see NPRN 302965), and was built in 1156 to counter those Princes’ ambitions in Ceredigion. It may then have been the sole castle in Geneu’r-glyn commote, as Castell Gwallter at Llandre is not heard of after 1153 (see NPRN 92234). Domen Las is probably the castle of Abereinion mentioned in 1169 and 1206.
Domen Las in the bird sanctuary Ynys Hir. The small wooden building is a bird hide. Source: Castles of Wales website. Photograph by John Northall, copyright John Northall
The castle mound is set near the northern tip of an isolated straggling rocky ridge rising from the marshes. It is a circular flat-topped mound roughly 34m in diameter and 5.0m high. It is ditched around except on the south-east, where the ground falls steeply into the marsh. On the west side a rocky ridge serves is co-opted as a counterscarp. On the north side the ditch has the appearance of a regular basin, closed on the east side by a wall of rock pierced by a narrow gap. This could be a pond or cistern, and is surely an original feature.
There are no traces of any further earthworks. The castle mound was probably crowned by a great timber-framed tower and it is likely that a princely hall and associated offices stood nearby. These could have occupied the irregular platform on the northern tip of the spur above the river, although there is a more a more amenable location on the south side of the motte, where a level area is sheltered by the rocky ridge. A little to the south a small bank cuts across the ridge. This was probably a hedge bank and may be comparatively recent.
The identification of Domen Las as Abereinion castle by Wiles and others is interesting and muddies the waters more than somewhat. The River Einion flows into the Dovey very near Domen Las but there is also a River Einion to the south, and in The Welsh Chronicle it is listed as having been built by Malgwn in 1205 and is sometimes identified with the mound at Cil y Graig in Cardigan as Abereinion Castle. It is entirely possible, of course, that both names were applied to the same castle. If that were the case, the Domen Las site is the most plausible location as it is both at the mouth of the river Dovey, where it spreads into the estuary, and at the mouth of the river Einion, where it joins the Dovey.
Location of Tomen Las (click to expand the image). Sources: Main map from Google Maps; Insert from the Coflein website.
Another candidate for Abyerdyfi Castle is Tomen Las near Pennal. This is actually within Gwynedd with clear views over the estuary to Ceredigion and to Domen Las. At the south of Gwynedd, near the borders with Deheubarth, this is yet another plausible site. The Coflein website suggests that it was a former court (llys) of the princes of Pennal and describes the surviving remains as a circular mound 26m in diameter that rises 3.0m from the traces of its ditch with a level summit 15-17m across. There are no traces of further earthworks.
The short answer to the question posed in the title of this post is that there is no definitive location for Aberdyfi Castle. I have searched for but failed to find any records that the Pen-y-Bryn or Domen Las sites have been excavated, but it would certainly be interesting if future research into the question were to extend beyond analysis of the late Medieaval texts and into the field. If I had to put money on it, I would go for the Domen Las site, mainly because of the political significance of the location just over the border of Gwynedd in Ceredigion, a good location from which to make a statement about the dominance of Llewelyn ab Iowerth over both Gwynedd and the Deheubarth territories to its south.
Finally, returning to Pen-y-Bryn, a booklet by the Aberdyfi Chamber of Trade says that the castle on the hill was built by Rhys ap Gruffydd in 1151, when it was called Bryn Celwydd and was destroyed in 1157 by the Norman Earl Robert de Clare. The little shelter at its top was a gift from a local landowner in 1897. It can be approached from a footpath on the left as you head up Copper Hill Street, or from the seafront road just on the town side of the railway bridge, along a track that has recently been restored after several years of closure. It looks as though you are heading into someone’s garden, but the steps that lead up on the far right are part of the footpath. From the shelter there are beautiful views over the Dovey estuary and Cardigan Bay.
References
Aberdyfi Chamber of Commerce 2003. Aberdyfi Aberdovey Walks.
Davies, J. 2007 (revised edition of the 1990 and 1992 editions). A History of Wales. Penguin
Jenkins, G.H. 2007. A Concise History of Wales. Cambridge University Press
Lewis, H. M. 2001. Aberdyfi: The past Recalled. Dinas
Turvey, R. 1997. The Lord Rhys: Prince of Deheubarth. Gomer.
Wiles, J. 2008. Domen Las or perhaps Abereinion Castle. Coflein. http://www.coflein.gov.uk/en/site/303600/details/domen-las-or-perhaps-abereinion-castle
The strandline
When is a potato not a potato? When it’s a sea potato. When I moved here eight weeks ago I bought a book (a lot of the best bits in my life start with the phrase “I bought a book”) about beachcombing and the strandline (also referred to as the wrackline or driftline). The strandline is that trail of debris that marks where the tide last deposited its load. In London I lived a three minute walk from the Thames in a section of the river that had been used from the 17th Century until the mid 19th Century for shipbuilding. A favourite walk at low tide (there is a 7m difference between the Thames at low and high tide) it was a rich source of objects, telling a partial and fragmented story about how the foreshore had been used and what the river carried and dropped on its travels. But at Aberdovey, apart from collecting the occasional shell or decorative pebble, I had never paid much notice of what was at my feet at on the beach. I was too busy enjoying the dune vegetation, the rolling waves and the gorgeous views. At Aberdovey my invariable habit has always been to walk one way along the top of the sand dunes and then back along the water’s edge, fastidiously avoiding those dark, unappealing fly-covered lumps of festering decay. Today, however, they were my goal, and to my amazement they were a wonderful treasure trove.
Common otter shell (Lutraria lutraria), 12cm long, which burrows to depths of up to 30cm.
I had been feeling almost housebound due to the gales and the torrential rain brought by Storm Bronagh. I am glad that the weather front was provided with a name, as it gave me something specific to have a real grumble about. On Sunday, however, I woke up to glorious sunshine and immediately decided to abandon all the outdoor DIY and gardening that I ought to be getting on with and head for the beach. There was a lot of wind and big patches of fluffy white cloud, but mainly big blue skies and a beautiful autumn sun the colour of electrum. I threw my cameras, spare batteries and a lightweight waterproof into my ruck sack, mainly to block the wind, hauled on my fiendishly ugly hiking trainers and checked the tide tables – low tide at 3pm, hallelujah. I took the car in case the weather turned and I needed a rapid escape from rain, parked opposite the fish and chip shop and set out optimistically for my first lump of black gunge.
The strandline is primarily made up of seaweed, which is at the heart of the local marine ecology. What washes up with the tide is what grows in the vicinity and tells you something about what’s going on out there, and it is home to a wide range of creatures. When it washes up on the seashore it also acts as a host to other forms of life, including insects and birds. Seaweed is an algae and an autotroph, meaning that it makes its own food from sunlight, carbon and water. Unlike plants, seaweed does not have roots, absorbing water through its leaves instead. Photosynthesis, the which captures energy from the sun, is achieved via pigments, chemical compounds. Green seaweeds contain mainly or entirely chlorophyll, whilst brown and red seaweeds contain other pigments as well. Although all seaweeds require water, most spend a significant amount of time out of the water during low tides. Seaweeds generally attach themselves to rocks or the seabed and stay attached via a “holdfast,” a clump at the base of the plant and can pulled free either due to storms or when they die. I could only identify around half of the seaweeds from my books because in the general chaos of the standline masses, it was very difficult to pick them out. There were miles of long, black spaghetti-like weeds that could have been either one of two species, but I couldn’t work out which from the photographs.
Crab
Embedded in the seaweed itself or simply sharing the strandline are all sorts of interesting ecofacts, as well as man-made objects. Shells dominate at Aberdovey, with cockle shells littered everywhere, and some clam shells, including a dense patch of razor shell clams, quite a few oyster shells, some mussell shells and bits of crab claw and carapace. Drift wood was conspicuous, as well as fresh wood and branches presumably thrown into the river and estuary by the storm. One of the seaweeds turned out not to be seaweed at all, but is in fact an invertebrate called Hornwrack. Another find that surprised me was the sea potato, of which I had never heard before. There were remarkably few man-made intrusions. There were some bits of nylon rope and a giant piece of “high pressure gas pipeline,” according to the label, but other than that there was none of the plastic that has plagued beaches around the country.
Sea potato (Echinocardium cordatum)
The sea potato (Echinocardium cordatum) was a curious thing. It was clearly an exoskeleton and at first I thought it was a sea urchin, but on closer inspection, it clearly wasn’t quite the same thing. I brought one home with me, and it was incredibly fragile, the shell immensely thin a piece breaking off almost immediately when I tried, very gently, to wash it. One of the several that I photographed appeared to have spines attached, and when I delved into my books it turns out that Echinocardium cordatum does indeed have spines, but unlike those on sea urchins, these lie flat, facing backwards on the surface of the shell (called a test) and look like coarse fur. Like other echinoderms (spiky skinned) the patterning on its surface is divisible by five (called pentameral symmetry). Also known as a heart urchin, it lives buried in the seabed, into which it burrows and use tube feet to pass food to their mouths. Apparently they are quite common.
Hornwrack s not a seaweed, but an invertebrate (an animal without a backbone) colony
Hornwrack (Flustra foliacea) is not a seaweed, although the word “wrack” in its name might imply that it is. It is actually an invertebrate (an animal without a backbone) colony belonging to the bryozoan group, commonly known as moss animals. It looks just like a seaweed. It is a common strandline find, each frond an exoskeleton containing tiny boxes which contain an individual animal called a zooid, making up a colony of inter-dependent creatures. Annual growth lines can sometimes be seen on the fronds, because it stops growing in winter. It lives offshore attached to shells and stones, filters food particles, and has a slight lemony scent when fresh and wet. Utterly fascinating.
Laver
Laver, as anyone who lives in Wales will know, is an edible seaweed that tastes delicious in all sorts of things. There are five related species, the principal one of which is Porphyra umbilicalis, a purple-coloured weed. A traditional Welsh recipe involves using oats to make laverbread (cooked laver) into cakes. Before you head out to collect it, do be aware that it requires cooking for eight hours before it is usable! Easier to buy it in tins from most of the food stores in Aberdovey, including the butcher (who, incidentally, makes the most terrific pork and laverbread sausages).
The second most common type of seaweed on the beach was the wrack (Fucus), of which there are multiple varieties. Channelled wrack is shown near the top of the page, the picture here is bladder wrack.There was also serrated wrack and spiral wrack on the beach. When I was a child, the air bladders used to fascinate me, and they are used by the seaweed for helping it to stand vertically in the water to improve its chances of reaching sunlight for photosynthesis. Bladder wrack has small air bladders arranged in pairs. Egg wrack has single large ones arranged in a row along each frond. Channelled wrack has a curled frond that forms a channel to retain moisture. Serrated wrack has no air bladders at all.
Egg wrack and serrated wrack
Seaweeds are generally classed by colour, and there are several green ones listed in books, but I only found one on the strandline, which was gutweed (Ulva intestinalis). It was spread across a piece of driftwood, absolutely lurid against the wood and against an otherwise muted backdrop of weed and sand. It likes estuaries and brackish water, but was a bit off the beaten track where I found it, which was beyond the estuary and on a part of the beach that overlooks open sea. It consists of thin hollow tubes which, when it is alive, are filled with oxygen. It is edible and said to be delicious. It is lying against a bed of either Mermaid Tresses or Thongweek, which was the most common of the seaweeds that had washed up on the strandline in clumps.
Sea oak (Halidrys siliquosa), also known as pod weed for obvious reasons, is another common seaside seaweed, which has mutiple branches and rather flattened swollen bladders at the tips of its fronds. The bladders have internal divisions that are clearly visible.
Sea oak
Razor clams were dotted around the beach, but at one point on the beach it was a positive graveyard with dozens of them concentrated in a small area. As far as I could tell they were all of the same type, the straight edged bivalve (double shell) pod razor clam, Enis siliqua, with an outer coating called a periostracum. They live buried, aligned vertically, in the sand of the seabed and feed by extending a tube (siphon) above the sand into the sea to extract nutrients. When the tide is out they burrow into the saturated sand, and retreat further in response to vibration. As they borrow they eject water, which leaves a keyhole shape on the surface. I ate rather a lot of them when on holiday in the Algarve, Portugal, and they are delicious.
The common or native oyster (Ostrea edulis) is scattered across the beach in the form of single shells. The photo here shows the typical concentric scaly ridges on the outside of the shell, which is thick. Oysters were a mainstay of the diet in the 18th and early 19th Centuries, cheap nutrition, but were over-harvested during the late 19th Century, when prices went through the roof, and are still seriously depleted and now considered to be a delicacy. The most common strandline finds have grey shells with blue bands, but grey and brown ones are also found, and at Aberdovey the majority I found on Sunday were brown.
There were a couple of seagulls, but the only other feathered friend I shared the beach with was a beautiful pied wagtail (Motacilla alba yarrellii), his tail flicking up and down in the characteristic way that gave it its name. Like me, he was beachcombing, but for rather different ends, foraging for small molluscs, insects (particularly the flies that settle on the decaying seaweeds) and seeds. They don’t look like natural seashore foragers, but are sometimes called the water wagtail because of their affinity to streams and open water, and they are always on the beach in Aberdovey in the autumn and winter, hopping from one promising site to the next. He kept a wary eye on me and as I moved nearer he flew a little further on, always at the absolute limit of the range of my camera lens, meaning that the photo is very fuzzy.
References:
Plass, M. 2013. RSPB Handbook of the Seashore. Bloomsbury
Reader’s Digest 1981. Field Guide to the Birds of Britain. Reader’s Digest Association.
Sherry, P. and Cleave, A. 2012. Collins Complete guide to British Coastal Wildlife. Collins
Trewhella, S. and Hatcher, J. 2015. The Essential Guide to Beachcombing and the Strandline. Wild Nature Press
On my walk along the beach yesterday it was gloriously sunny, with cerulean blue skies and a sapphire sea, but it was very windy. As I turned to walk back into Aberdovey having visited the pillbox, the wind lifted dry sand off the surface of the beach, carrying it in airborne rivulets that combined and recombined, forming wonderful shifting patterns at immense speed down the beach, north to south. The mutating patterns of millions of pale granules caught in the autumn sun were simply stunning, less sand drift than mass migration. So far my attempts at video have been confined to birds on the garden feeders, and neither my video skills nor the video function on my little camera were really up to the job of capturing something so magnificent, but in these three very short videos I have given it my best shot. The roaring sound is the wind:
Walking towards Tywyn from Aberdovey you will come across a Second World War pillbox, an ugly concrete box with a small square hole in each side. It has subsided unevenly into a dip in the beach at the foot of the dunes, an incongruous contributor to the area’s heritage. It can be reached easily along the beach from Aberdovey. It’s a fairly short walk from the car park, a little way beyond the Trefeddian Hotel, which is visible through a dip in the sand dunes. If you prefer a short-cut there is a public footpath from a big lay-by on the A493 that takes you across the sand dunes and drops you very close to it. Not that it’s a tourist destination, but it is certainly a local landmark, and sitting in an unspoiled stretch of eternal pale yellow sands with the rich blue sea beyond, it has an emphatic presence all of its own. It is at grid reference SN59549635, at the end of the footpath known as The Crossing.
The pillbox is marked as a red box by The Crossing. Source: OS Explorer, Cadair Idris and Llyn Tegid. OL23. Ordnance Survey 2015
There are two war memorials in Aberdovey. There’s a lovely 1999 memorial to 3 Troop 10(1A) who were stationed at Aberdovey during the war for their training (see my earlier post about this) and there’s a little shrine and plaque listing the dead from form both wards inserted into the wall of St Peter’s Church.
In some ways, the pillbox is an even more substantial monument to the bitter truth of war, mute but evocative. The fact that it sits there, so out of place, so thoroughly ugly, is an appropriate shock to the system. As detritus of war, it is something that demands a response and forces an acknowledgement of the realities of the past in a way that a conventional memorial, however heartfelt, does not. Although it was a lovely day for a walk, the sands endlessly beautiful and full of light, when I arrived at the pillbox it was just as dismal as I remembered. Ugly, lop-sided, surreal, a scar on the landscape, a slap around the face. A savage, palpable war memorial.
Pillboxes were part of a network of small defences that were put in place along the coastline, at road junctions and on canals to counter threats of Nazi attack on Britain. The network consisted of a number of measures including offshore minefields; beach and manned seafront obstacles like barbed wire and landing craft obstructions, pillboxes and minefields; and cliff-top and dune defences including pillboxes and anti-glider obstructions. The pillboxes, 28,000 of them, were sometimes round or hexagonal to avoid blind spots, but there were were seven different types in total (Types 22-28), with variants. The Aberdovey one is a Type 26 prefabricated square with an embrasure in each wall and a door, now slightly subsided into a slight dip in the sand, 3ft or so deep. Some pillboxes were brick- or stone-built but many, like this one, were made of concrete that was sufficiently thick to be bullet proof. My thanks to the Pillbox Study Group for this excerpt, which explains the thinking behind pillboxes and other defence structures that were put in place in WWII:
On 25th June 1940, General Paget, Chief of Staff to the Commander-in-Chief Home Forces submitted General Ironside`s anti-invasion plan to the War Cabinet in the form of Home Forces Operation Instruction No.3.
SECTION 13 of the Instruction stated: “The general plan of defence is a combination of mobile columns and static defences by means of strong-points and stops. As static defence only provides limited protection of the most vulnerable points, it must be supplemented by the action of mobile columns. However mobile such columns may be they cannot be expected to operate immediately over the whole area in which it is possible for the enemy to attempt invasion by sea or air. It is therefore necessary to adopt measures for confining his actions until such time as mobile columns can arrive to deal with him. This will be done by means of stops and strong-points prepared for all round defence at aerodromes which are necessary to prevent the enemy obtaining air superiority, at the main centres of communications and distributed in depth over a wide area covering London and the centres of production and supply. This system of stops and strong-points will prevent the enemy from running riot and tearing the guts out of the country as had happened in France and Belgium.”
In total there were 6 pillboxes every 500m from south of the river Dyffryn Gwyn, which flows into the sea just south of Tywyn, to the entrance of the river Dovey. Prefabricated pillboxes were built of concrete panels and were then bolted into place on site. The pillboxes to the north of this one are badly damaged, perhaps in an attempt to destroy and remove them. Aberdovey had an Observer Corps, a Home Guard and a Coastguard Station during the Second World War.
References:
For years pheasants and doves have been regular visitors. The pheasants, a cock and either one or two hens, have an ungainly waddle and are desperately foolish, apparently unaware of any dangers that might threaten, announcing their presence with loud cries. They presumably nest somewhere locally. A bright, if somewhat intellectually limited addition to the garden. Remarkable how something so stupid can look so pompous. I haven’t seen them for a couple of months, but the male was here today, unaccompanied.
The pair of collared turtle doves are the antithesis of the pheasants. Elegant, shy and quick to alarm, they visit daily at about 5.30. Their tail plumage spreads into a perfect fan when they take to the skies. Any movement startles them to flight so I haven’t managed to capture them on video so far, which is a shame as they are incredibly pretty as they land and review the situation before picking their way towards the bird bath. Before the 1930s they were unknown in Britain. Their distribution was confined to the Balkans expanding into most of Europe in the following years and nesting in Britain only after 1955. They can raise up to five broods in a year.
The garden was avian-central today – a blue tit, a great tit, coal tits, a robin, three female house sparrows and a male blackbird, as well as the pheasant and doves. The robin was ever-present, occasionally chasing off the sparrows, and he is increasingly vocal. Not a pretty song, but unmistakeable. The coal tits always announce their arrival by a highly distinctive peeping sound.
I assume that the bird feeders were a welcome source of fuel after three days and nights of gales and torrential rain. It must be difficult to acquire a good lunch under those conditions. Although there have been occasional showers, it has been mostly dry and the wind has dropped to a breeze, and it has been a joy to see the birds out in force.
Today it has been raining. Not just a little bit. A lot. I remember when much younger over-using the word “awesome” a great deal, but today seems to call for its resurrection. This torrential rain, this noisy, unending, full-on, day-long vertical waterfall has been truly, seriously awesome, transformed into something extraordinarily intimidating by vast gusts of wind that shake everything, knock over plants in their pots, and make me worry that I was a little rash to put out my bins for collection tomorrow. Storm Bronagh in full swing. I commented on an email to a friend that the advantage of sitting in the midst of it all is that I’m not sitting in Surrey Quays worrying about it. However, it should be added that the disadvantage of sitting in the midst of it all is that I’m sitting in the midst of it all! The first video is a very short one because I got absolutely drenched standing in the doorway for even the short period that I was there.
This second video, taken from the dry side of the window, has the added excitement of the down-pipe overflowing and travelling across the decking in substantial drifts. The sheer amount of water has backed up the drain pipe and it is going everywhere in great, loud, heavy thuds and crashes as it hits my outdoor cupboard and my decking. Again, awesome, but I really wish that it would be just a little less exciting!
I’ve been reading a book about the history of Wales in the early Middle Ages, and the thought of engaging in war with the English in this sort of weather, with nothing more than motte and bailey castles as protection and no gas-fired central heating and hot water really turns my blood to ice. God knows what they were wearing, but I bet it didn’t keep out this sort of incessant weather.
I was also thinking about Dai’s comment that he wasn’t taking the boat out to do any fishing due to the weather forecast. It is unimaginable what it would be like at sea on a any day of the last three days, but particularly today when rain and wind have joined forces to toss life on land around. A staggering thought.
Last week Dai had caught some huss so I bought a small piece and put it in the freezer. I had never cooked it before. Huss, also known as rock salmon, was my standard purchase from my favourite fish and chip shop when I lived in London, so I knew that it was full of flavour. I made it into a fish stew.
I skinned and cooked some tomatoes, lightly fried onion and garlic in olive oil, sprinkled over a little smoked paprika and whizzed it all up in the food processor. I added herbs, ground fennel, a seriously good pinch of saffron and a big spoonful of piri-piri for a good hit of heat. A little fish stock, a little white wine and a small glug of brandy completed the mix. I sliced the huss into chunks, fried them quickly in olive oil, and then removed them from the pan. Next, the components of a pack of frozen shellfish from the Chester Waitrose went into the same pan, and those too were removed once they had heated through. Into the fishy juices I poured the tomato mixture and reduced it down. The huss went back into the pan first and then the shellfish, all topped with clams in their shells to warm through. It was accessorized with a fresh coriander gremolata over the top, and served with a grilled slice of crusty Welsh bread with a clove of garlic rubbed over it for dipping in the juices. A delectable glass of Sancerre to accompany it wrapped things up perfectly. Not as glamorous or authentic as a French bouillabaisse or as delectable as a Spanish zarzuela, but my simple Algarve-inspired fish stew was a lot quicker to produce and required much less fish!
The huss was absolutely divine. It holds its shape, retains its gorgeous flavour and has a wonderful texture. It would make a brilliant substitute in recipes that demand the much more expensive monkfish. I popped down into Aberdovey and bought an even bigger bit this morning, given that it freezes so well. Dai says that the weather is too rough to go out for the next couple of days, so no dressed crab or mackerel for the time being. I am still not quite up to dealing with a live lobster.
Aberdovey Londoner 
