The Pembrokeshire Freewheelers
(Swansea DA, the Cyclists' Touring Club)
The Pembrokeshire Freewheelers are a cycling club in the South-Western corner of Wales, taking day-trips around the county every second Sunday. Rides start from a variety of locations, and with a different leader for each ride, so as to provide for great variety in the routes we travel.
The terrain here is highly varied, from the implausibly flat regions in the South to the Preseli Mountains in the North, and everything in between. The underlying geology ranges in age from Precambrian and igneous rocks, right through to Carboniferous Limestone and the Devonian Old Red Sandstone that gives the Southern soil its distinctive colour. Pembrokeshire lies at the meeting point of two mountain-building events: the Armorican, whose folds run East-West, and the Cambrian, running North-East to South-West. The former is responsible for the direction of the Ridgeway running between Tenby and Pembroke, and for the abrupt Westward turn of the Daugleddau into Milford Haven, where the river exploited a fault-line to find an easier path to the sea. The Cambrian folding meanwhile shows in the orientation of the string of outcrops along the North coast, and the ridge stretching from Roch to Treffgarne.
Pembrokeshire has about 200 miles of coastline, and boasts the only coastal National Park in Britain. In Milford Haven we have a deep-water inlet, created by flooding of a river valley when the sea level rose at the end of the last Ice Age. Many such valleys were flooded around the British coast, but most have now silted up. Milford Haven is an exception, due to its orientation facing into the Gulf Stream marine current. It is the largest such valley in Europe, and the large, deep natural harbour attracted several companies to build oil refineries here. The refineries, and a neighbouring power station, are the only heavy industry in the county.
Sea level changes account for many of the other geographical features in the region. The plateaux in North and South are the remnants of wave-cut platforms, where the sea planed off the bedrock to a level surface, little affected by the hardness of the rock. Only a handful of islands survived, now appearing as a string of distinctive outcrops from Garn Fawr overlooking Strumble Head, to Carn Llidi on St. David's Head, and the two hills on Ramsey Island. The Preseli mountains would at this time have been a peninsula extending from the Cambrian Mountains to the North. In the South of the county, there are no hard igneous rocks, and consequently the sea was not hindered, until the land rose (or the sea level fell) by some 200 feet. Since then, rivers and streams have cut their valleys into the platform. (There are also a few traces, mainly around the mountains, of an older 600ft platform.)
There is further evidence of the rise in sea level some 10,000 years ago: at extreme low tides, on several beaches around the coast, ancient tree stumps may be revealed. These are all that remain of a forest, drowned by the rising waters at the end of the Ice Age. But the Ice Age itself has also left its mark, most noticeably in the magnificent Gwaun Valley, arcing from the Preselis to Fishguard, separating Carn Ingli from the rest of the range as it does so.. Here we have a text-book example of a U-shaped valley, carved out by a glacier. The valley walls are so steep that they cannot be cultivated, and have remained wooded. The river Gwaun today is a mere stream, winding about the flat valley floor.
Pembrokeshire has its share of human history and prehistory too. A lack of modern agriculture has left the Preselis undamaged, and it is here where the oldest signs of habitation survive. Near Maenclochog is a stone circle, overlooked by a massive hillfort on the summit of Foel Drygarn. More modest Iron Age hillforts abound, as do Bronze Age tumuli. There's even a barrow cemetery, Dry Burrows, straddling the road between Pembroke and Angle. Contemporary with the barrow are several cairns on the summits in the Preselis. There are a couple of dolmens too - Carreg Samson near Trevine and, on the North side of the Preselis, the famous Pentre Ifan burial chamber. The Celts arrived a couple of centuries BC, and were converted to Christianity in the middle of the first millennium AD. Two great Celtic crosses, at Nevern and Carew, survive from this period. The patron saint of Wales, St. David, was born in the city which now bears his name - the smallest city in the UK. St. David was one of many Pembrokeshire saints. Legend say there are a thousand buried on Ramsey Island. Other signs of the Celtic Church remain in the form of Ogham inscriptions on a handful of gravestones, one in Nevern, another in St. Illtud's Church, Caldey Island. (The Celtic Church was an entity independent of Roman Catholicism, and that proved to be its downfall: it was intentionally snuffed out by missionaries from Rome.) St. Govan's chapel should also not be forgotten: this tiny building of unknown origin (there are conflicting theories) blocks the way to a small rocky beach. One must pass through the chapel on the way to the sea.
The Romans never truly conquered this part of Wales. The first invaders to leave a lasting impression were the Vikings, whose legacy is in place names: all of the off-shore islands in particular. But it was the Normans who subjugated the Celts, occupying the Southern part of Pembrokeshire, and defending the land with a string of castles from Roch to Tenby. This Landsker Line still marks a boundary between Welsh and English-speaking parts of the county. The castles also remain. Some, like Wiston and Camrose, are of the Motte and Bailey design, and little more than a large earth mound survives. Others, such as Roch, Haverfordwest and Carew, are still imposing stone structures, which remained in use for centuries. Roch castle, indeed, is still inhabited. Haverfordwest Castle looks more impressive from the outside than from within: only two walls stand - the rest was demolished on Cromwell's orders.
More recent alterations to the landscape include the two largest lakes in the county: Bosherston Lily Ponds are largely decorative, and were created a couple of centuries ago. More recent is Llys-y-fran reservoir, behind a dam on the Afon Syfynwy.
Industry has not always avoided Pembrokeshire - disused lime kilns nestle together in clusters beside the majority of the beaches in the country. From Porthgain in the North to St. Brides Haven and Sandy Haven in the South, lime kilns are a ubiquitous feature of Pembrokeshire beaches. There are also innumerable quarries scattered around, one or two still in use, and a number of disused coal mines. A spur of the South Wales Coalfield extends across Pembrokeshire, from Saundersfoot to St. Brides Bay. Coal seams can be seen in the cliffs around Broad Haven, and occasionally fossils may be found in the coal.
All this geography makes for diverse cycling territory - from the steepest of hills to the open, flat plateaux, from bare coastal cliffs to sheltered woodland, from broad beaches to roads winding between the refineries, from the stark beauty of the Presilis to the lush greenery of Bosherston Lily Ponds... We have it all, and we're very happy to be here.