With the Mammoth yet to re-join us and having reported back on the huge success of his travel presentation…. he is taking bookings apparently…and a severe telling off for having gone to the Kilns I decided to ignore his final words, ‘do NOT go anywhere without me’ and take Alfie the Dog to the beach.
Just over an hour’s drive away is the Welsh town of Tywyn, meaning beach, seashore, sand-dune in Welsh. As we sped through the Snowdonia National Park towards the coast, I admired the beautiful scenery and looked forward to a hopefully rain free walk along the beach and into the town.
I had looked at the Talyllyn Railway for Alfie and I to have a chug through the area but they don’t appear to have an option for a single person with their mutt and wanted to charge me £48.00 GBP which was ridiculous, we would have to make the most of what we could afford.
Parking spaces aplenty we left the car in the watery sunlight and wandered along the prom, an ironwork shelter which had been donated by John Corbett of Worcester was worth noting if the threatened rain did make an appearance. Much of the town’s infrastructure was put in place by John Corbett, who in the 1870s decided to develop the town into a major tourist resort to rival Torquay in Devon.
Tywyn is in the heart of Cardigan Bay and is a Victorian resort town which started to thrive when the railway arrived in the late 19th century, the small town pre dates the Norman invasion but was inhabited long before that and was the location of the first religious community administered by the Breton saint Cadfan upon his arrival in Gwynedd in the 8th century.
The beach was lovely and as Alfie romped across the sands dashing into the waves and jumping into the rock pools the sun made a huge effort and its rays started to warm me. With several miles under his paws the panting beast looked like a doggy sandcastle as we walked into the town itself.
A lovely clock tower sat in a prime location, now selling books and cups of tea I was unable to find out anything about the lovely buildings history and had to content myself with the Church of St Cadfan. Dating back to the Norman invasion, it houses an inscribed stone from the 8th or 9th century known as St Cadfan’s stone. The inscription on this stone is the oldest known written Welsh in the world. I tried the large wooden door in the hope that I could see in the inscription for myself, sadly it was locked.
In 963, the previous church on the site was sacked by Vikings. Later, during the 12th century, the church became the subject of a memorable poem by Llywelyn Fardd. The earliest parts of the existing church date back to the 12th century, though originally it had a central tower which collapsed in 1693.
Unable to go in Alfie led the way over the graveyard, not a path to be seen and each step meant stepping on someone’s loved one. We arrived at an area with waist high grass and hundreds more headstones before giving up and walking ten feet along the road to reach the Assembly Rooms.
Built in 1893 as the town’s assembly rooms, they were originally used for the ‘noble pursuits as badminton practice and variety performances’ there words not mine. Now it hosts the towns cinema but recent evidence of very early film showings has been uncovered providing proof of film showings happening there since 1900 including adverts showing footage from the Boar War. This places the Magic Lantern Cinema at the start of Cinema in the UK when they were showing films 9 years earlier than any other operating Cinema in the Britain. I wondered what the earlier audiences would make of the very smart scarlet colour that the building has now become.
Hidden away on the information board about the Assembly rooms was also a note that stated that John Lennon had holidayed in the town in 1969, Imagine what he would think of it now.
As we made our way back to the car, I found I had enjoyed the small outing and wondered what Woolly would have made of it, there were only days left now until the Mammoths return, I couldn’t wait.
