A little day out

The weather forecast last night said it would be sunny in Tenby today. The weather forecast this morning was less optimistic but definitely 0% chance of rain.

Just approaching Tenby and it didn't look hopeful!

Fortunately by the time we got there and on the boat I could put the wetness down to sea spray.

Tenby is about 53 miles from Swansea unless your sat nav takes you down the quiet back lanes only wide enough for one car at a time. But we got there in the end. 

Things I forget about Tenby:

it's built on a hill so there are lots of ups and downs;

it's a tourist resort so, in July, it's crowded.

But we were there early so getting a boat trip was easy. Caldey is a small island less than three miles off the coast of Tenby. I last went there when I was about eight. I think my my mum must have been in hospital at the time as I went with Auntie Joan and Uncle Horace. I guess their children, my cousins, must have been there too. All I remember was the precarious landing quay.

It hasn't changed a lot, still very simple boats carrying passengers to and fro, but all scaled up I imagine to cope with the bigger crowds.

In 1906 Caldey Island was bought by a community of Anglican Benedictines and they built the Abbey, the 'Italianate' building seen below. It is built around a central garden.

Then in 1913 the community converted to Catholicism, and in 1925 sold the island to the Cistercian order, who remain there to this day.

Interesting fact: in the twelfth century Henry I gave the island down to the low water mark to one Robert Fitzmartin. This is interesting because for most of coastal UK the area between low and high water marks belongs to the Crown. 

Immediately next to the Abbey is the Abbey Church and a short distance away is St. David's Church, which is Caldey Island's parish church. It would be a very pretty place to get married or buried!

It's mostly Norman but built on the foundations of a 6th century Celtic church, which in turn sits on an early Celtic burial ground.

Stained glass window made in the 1920s by Dom. Theodore Bailey, a Caldey Benedictine monk.

A little to the north, south - I don't know, I was totally disorientated - are the remains of the original priory and St Illtyd's Church with its unusual leaning spire and cobblestone floor.

The priory was home to the Benedictine monks who lived on Caldey in mediaeval times. It's in ruins now but the church is still consecrated ground.

There's also a chocolate factory on the island. I was expecting a Willy Wonka type tour but I was disappointed. It was basically a shop behind which you could see some chocolate being worked. 

And there are red squirrels and black swans.

But we didn't see a single squirrel or a monk in habit.