SILVER BELLS

The romantic, ivy-covered ruin of Scotsborough House (right), its low, crumbling walls shaded by trees, lies half a mile from Tenby. Here, in the early 1600s, lived Thomas ap Rees and his family. It was said that, unable to hear the bells calling him to church, Thomas had one lined with silver, so its chime would carry clearly to his home. A local storyteller tells of how Scotsborough and another manor, Trefloyne, later came to fall into ruin. The then families of these houses had taken up wrecking as a living, putting false lights on Tenby’s clifftop windmill to steer ships onto the rocks and stashing the stolen cargo in a small cavern nearby. But their actions were rewarded in kind. Returning unannounced from abroad, the daughter of one house and son of the other were drowned when their ship was lured onto the rocks. It came ashore at the very place where the families stored their plunder.