Post by Dave on Dec 2, 2021 8:41:37 GMT
Pennard Castle & Three Cliffs Beach 6th June 2021
Lyn urgently needed to visit her mum in Swansea who is very unwell and I offered to drive her up there and took the opportunity to visit the Three Cliffs Beach near Swansea.We were up at 5am on the road by 6am and the drive up was just fine, we arrived at Lyn’s sisters house where her mum is now living and after spending some time there I headed off to Three Cliffs.
The walk down to the beach is down a very steep and narrow path but you instantly get wonderful views of the three cliffs that the beach is named after. The vastness of the sands hit you and due to access etc, it never gets busy there and in the winter months hardly anyone goes there. At the bottom of the path you are met by a river called Pennard Pill that snakes through the vast valley into the sea. Here there are stepping stones that get you onto the first part of the beach.
I had taken the drone which I had not flown in ages and sadly forgot how to use some of its capture features but I got it up and had a fly around, sadly for some strange reason I am having a problem with the memory card in the drone and as yet have not been able to view any of the footage and fear it might be lost. But I am still glad I took it with me and there was so much space to fly and the whole place was seagull free.
I knew there was a ruined castle there high up on a cliff about a mile walk from the beach and I had planed to walk up and see it. It was a very tiring walk as you end up walking in deep sand all the way up there. The castle was never very big and lived a short life and not a great deal is known about its history. It certainly never featured in any major battles to capture it. While not a lot is left of it, I was not going to miss out on the opportunity of exploring what was left.
History Of The Castle
Pennard Castle is a ruined castle, near the modern village of Pennard on the Gower Peninsula, in south Wales. The castle was built in the early 12th century as a timber ringwork following the Norman invasion of Wales. The walls were rebuilt in stone by the Braose family at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, including a stone gatehouse. Soon afterwards, however, encroaching sand dunes caused the site to be abandoned and it fell into ruin. Restoration work was carried out during the course of the 20th century and the remains of the castle are now protected under UK law as a Grade II* listed building.
It was time to head back down to the beach where people have spent a great deal of time pilling up stones to make sculptures, I have never seen to many in one place, even small houses have been built and I would say there were at least two hundred sculptures in total.
It was now time to leave and face the long climb back up the path back to the car park, by now my legs were feeling like lead and it took me a while to get up there not helped by the fact chatterbox Dave got chatting to a family on the way down for a good ten minutes or so.
I have not had a McDonalds for well over a year due to covid 19 and I drove to one in Swansea which I really enjoyed. Sadly it was now time to pick Lyn up and then drive all the way back to Paignton, all good things must come to an end.
How the castle once looked
