Beauty and fantastic legends in Wales
peninsula, edged by t he Pembrokeshire Coast National Park with some of Europe’s finest beaches.
We split our stay between the county’s top hotel of 2016, Twr y Felin, and two sister properties.
The former 19th-century windmill, home to refugees and Wrens in the war, was bought by world-renowned local architect Keith Griffiths and turned into a luxury art hotel.
It opened in 2015 and is a design dream, with a dreamy fine-dining Blas Restaurant to match.
We took a short stroll to stunning Caerfai Bay before tucking in to guinea fowl confit and pigeon breast and salted cod and crab tortellini.
Our second night was spent at the Penrhiw Hotel, a former priory now also a temple to design.
Guests stay on a B&B basis but complimentary transfers are available to and from the Twr y Felin restaurant. Then we moved to magnificent Roch Castle – a Norman stronghold built on a rocky outcrop with breathtaking views, now a sixbedroom, five-star hotel.
Pitchfork
Restoring Roch was clearly a labour of love. Home to conquerers and courtesans – a mistress of Charles II was born here – and a Royalist stronghold in the Civil War, it’s one of 51 forts and castles in Pembrokeshire.
Legend has it that in the 1300s a witch warned nobleman Adam de Rupe that he’d die from a poison bite within a year. So he built Roch Castle and vowed to stay on the top floor for 12 months. As the final day approached, he ordered a servant to fetch logs for a fire. As he stoked the flames, a snake slithered out and delivered the prophesied fatal bite.
In St David’s Cathedral, our guide Francis Northall told us legends linked to Wales’s patron saint. How his mother Non, King Arthur’s niece, was raped by his father, a prince called Sant and gave birth by the sea in such agony her finger marks are still visible in the rocks.
When David was born a sacred spring began to flow – and we visited Non’s Well and chapel outside the city. Later we took a stroll along Whitesand Bay and visited Coetan Arthur, another burial chamber.
There is so much to see and do in Pembrokeshire. Head further afield to the seaside resort of Tenby, or Little Newcastle, birthplace of legendary pirate Bartholomew Roberts.
Stop in Fishguard, where Liz Taylor and Richard Burton filmed Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood.
It’s also the scene of the last foreign invasion of mainland Britain, by 1,500 Frenchmen, in 1797. There, in St Mary’s churchyard, lies the grave of cobbler Jemima Nicholas.
She captured 12 soldiers – armed only with her pitchfork.
Or so legend has it. FACTFILE: Rooms from £154 at Twr y Felin, twryfelin.com, from £150 at Penrhiw Hotel, penrhiwhotel.com and from £ 150 at Roch Castle, rochcastle.com. For more information see visitpembrokeshire.com.