One of the things on my to do list in Pembrokeshire was to visit the tiny city of St Davids in the far southwest corner of the county. The city has a famous cathedral, hence its city status, and the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace next door.
The restrictions had lifted enough for me to visit these attractions now, although it was stressed on the websites that you needed to book tickets in advance to be allowed entry. It was free entrance to St David’s Cathedral, but you still needed to reserve tickets. I had been checking the website since the previous week and there was always plenty of availability so it wasn’t necessary to book days in advance. My breakfast was a fairly leisurely and late one, so I set off just before 10am to take the approximately one hour journey to St Davids. I had 45 minutes to look around the cathedral and then was booked into the Bishop’s Palace.
The drive to St David’s from Tenby is beautiful especially if you take the coastal route and drive over the bridge at Pembroke Dock. There was no time to stop for photos on the drive to St Davids, but I spotted a sign for a picnic area close by so a photo stop on the way back would be possible.
The most spectacular part of the drive was easily the approach to Newgale, it was a real wow moment seeing this part of the coastline from a distance. This was definitely going to be a stop on the way back. It looked very wild and dramatic.
I satisfied myself with the view for now and pressed on to my destination which was now just 8 miles away. The city of St Davids looked quite busy driving through the streets, lots of people and shops and cars. However, there was a car park more suitable for visitors to the cathedral and bishop’s palace, which are next to each other, so it was easier to drive through the commercial centre and park up there.
It was just before 11am when I arrived, so I had a little time to have a look around the outside of St Davids Cathedral before my allocated entrance time. You can walk around the cathedral, but you can also walk up the hill to the gatehouse which is the sole survivor of the four gates that connected the medieval wall that originally surrounded the cathedral. From this elevated position you get a good view of the cathedral which is particularly useful for photos. After taking in the view from the gatehouse, it was my allocated time to go inside the cathedral.
St Davids Cathedral was built on the site of the burial place of St David who died on 1 March 589. Pilgrims flocked to his shrine here during the Middle Ages, the base of which is in the cathedral now and incorporated into a new shrine. This is right next to the most famous tomb in the cathedral, that of Edmund Tudor, the father of Henry VII who became king at the conclusion of the Wars of the Roses.
The cathedral has the usual impressive choir and stained glass windows, but I was most impressed by the huge cathedral organ that had some massive pipes that reached from floor to ceiling. They were particularly noticeable because these pipes were bright red. But I was amazed at the size of them. I am aware that church organs have a staggering number of pipes that range in size from barely visible to absolutely enormous, but I don’t think I had ever seen any as big as these before. I think this was possibly because I’d never really noticed them when I’d walked around other cathedrals, but these bright red pipes, surrounding a doorway, with a big sign next to them explaining exactly what they were, made them hard to miss.
It took less than 45 minutes to wander around the interior of the cathedral. I believe that in TBC (Time Before Covid) it was possible to climb the cathedral tower, but this was not an option today. It was a pity. Galloping up to the top of church towers is one of my favourite things to do. On the other hand, it was a fairly standard tower as far as church towers go, not a unique lantern like at Ely Cathedral or the twisted spire of St Mary and All Saints in Chesterfield. So I wasn’t bitterly disappointed. If it had been available, it would have been nice to run up the steps to the top, as it was, I was ready to go and look around the Bishop’s Palace instead.
When I first read about the Bishop’s Palace at St Davids, I assumed it was like Bishopthorpe Palace in York, which is the current residence of the Archbishop of York and not generally open to the public.
The Bishop’s Palace of St Davids is a ruin. When the Pope decreed that two pilgrimages to St Davids was the equivalent to one pilgrimage to Rome, Bishop of St Davids became the most coveted ecclesiastical role in Wales. Pilgrims flocked to this corner of south west Wales to visit the shrine of St David in the newly constructed cathedral.
The bishop’s residence was no match for the cathedral’s grandeur until the arrival of Bishop Henry de Gower in the 14th century who spent 20 years transforming a structure, which was apparently only fit for servants and animals at that time, into a show palace. The newly constructed Great Hall was where feasts were held and where Bishop Henry would welcome the more distinguished pilgrims. 200 years later, the Reformation reduced the magnificent Bishop’s Palace, like so many other spectacular medieval buildings, to ruins. And this is what you can visit today.
The Bishop’s Palace website was very clear in stating that if you didn’t book your ticket in advance online, you would not be able to enter. As with the cathedral, there was plenty of availability even on the day before, although I visited in the last week of May, just a week after more Covid restrictions had been lifted. It is possible that as the summer progresses and the crowds increase it may be necessary to book a little further in advance. However, when I arrived at the entrance, it was actually pretty relaxed. I could walk straight in because I had my ticket at the ready on my phone, but some people had turned up without a ticket and were told that they could go into the ticket office and purchase one there and then as it wasn’t particularly busy. The Bishop’s Palace is right next door to St Davids Cathedral, but only a small percentage of cathedral visitors appeared to be bothering to look around the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace.
The Bishop’s Palace ruins can be seen in around 45 minutes. There is an upper and lower floor. There was just one part of the upper level ruins that was inaccessible as they were being stabilised, otherwise there was a logical order to walk around the ruins starting on the lower level on one side, then ascending to the upper level and staying on the upper level round to the other side of the ruins and finally seeing the lower level ruins on that side. There were plenty of opportunities to take some wonderful photos, some of the windows acted as a frame to St David’s Cathedral behind and the impressive architecture of the Great Hall was still evident despite there being no roof. You could see from the main wall of the Great Hall with its large entrance archway and intricate window above that are still intact what a magnificent building this would have been in its heyday.
After taking a few final photos of the Bishop’s Palace inside and then from a distance as I made my way back to the car park, I decided not to stay and look around the city of St Davids, but instead head back towards Tenby, making a couple of stops along the way.
First on the list was that marvellous looking beach in Newgale I’d seen on the way here. Newgale wasn’t a sunbathers’ beach, this was a paradise for surfers. The waves were big and crashing, the sky was dramatic, the beach was windswept and cold. Newgale was an appropriate name. An artificial sea wall of large pebbles had been built to protect the road, previously the waves had been so powerful they had come crashing over the road and caused a lot of damage to the road surface, plus the obvious danger to drivers. Now this was a barrier you had to clamber over and down, although there was a spot at the end of the car park where pedestrian access over these stones was easier.
I didn’t spot the easiest route when I headed from the car park to the beach. It was raining a little, it was very windy and it was cold so I was decked out in a waterproof coat and white gloves. I love getting photos of me wearing gloves on a beach! It wasn’t too bad clambering up the artificial sea wall of pebbles, but there didn’t seem to be a gentle slope route to get from the top down onto the beach. I just took it carefully. I walked along the wild, wet, windy beach for a time, taking photos, watching the kitesurfers making the most of the current conditions and enjoying the stormy weather.
There wasn’t a lot of point walking the entire length of the beach so I started to walk back towards the car park and this time spotted the mat that had been placed over the stones on the part of the sea wall where the angle was at its most gradual. It was much easier to access using this pathway, a useful thing to remember if I ever returned here.
There was one final stop to make and that was at the Cleddau Bridge which crosses the River Cleddau between Neyland and Pembroke Dock. There is a particularly nice view from the bridge and there was a path for pedestrians at either side as well. There was no facility to stop on the bridge, but there was a picnic area just before the bridge, that I had seen the signpost for on the way to St Davids that morning. As a picnic area, it is rubbish. Yes, there is a picnic table in the grass next to the car park. No, there is no nice view of anything. All you can see if you’re stupid enough to sit here and have a picnic is a load of overgrown weeds. No views of the river, the bridge or the towns on either side of the water. But you can use it as a car park and then walk onto the bridge from there where the views over Pembrokeshire are wonderful.
A couple of interesting facts about the bridge are that during construction in 1970 this steel box girder bridge collapsed killing 4 men and this brought about a change in bridge building. The box section of the bridge had been cantilevered out, but the support had not been thick enough and buckled causing the bridge to collapse. This fatal flaw cost lives in other parts of the world where bridges constructed in this way also collapsed. However, after the Cleddau Bridge collapsed, a new standard of box girder bridge design was implemented and this was the last major bridge disaster in the UK.
Sadly this also has a reputation as a bridge for jumpers and there was the Samaritans phone number as we walked on. To be fair, Pembrokeshire Council have made it as difficult as possible for anyone to climb up and jump off and I think it was fairly obvious to passing motorists I was simply a tourist taking photos of the view from the bridge and didn’t cause anyone any unnecessary alarm.
Then it was time to head back to Tenby. I had an early meal booked for this evening, but I was content that I had seen St Davids Cathedral, which had been on my list of places to visit for a long time, that I had also got to see the ruins of the Bishop’s Palace and the added bonus of the bridge and the magnificent beach at Newgale.
I travelled to Tenby in May 2021.
St Davids Cathedral is open 7 days a week. It is free to enter. Donations are appreciated. It is no longer necessary to book tickets in advance, but social distancing measures are still currently in place.
The Bishop’s Palace in St Davids is open 7 days a week. It is recommended to book tickets in advance to guarantee entry. Tickets cost £4 for adults.
St Davids is 35 miles from Tenby. It takes approximately one hour to drive there using the coastal route over the Cleddau Bridge.
Newgale Beach is 8 miles and a 15 minute drive from St Davids.
I stayed at Hammonds Park Guesthouse in Tenby, a 10 minute walk from the town centre with free parking and breakfast included. A large double room with a four poster bed and sofa and bathroom with bath and separate shower and a sea view cost approximately £55 per night. I booked through Expedia.
Read about my other adventures in Wales
