St Dogmaels Day Trip

This is a brief summary of our recent trip to St Dogmaels on a Tuesday morning, in a search for some locally produced proper stoneground flour, from ‘Y Felin’ known for their fabulous unadulterated real flour, with no additives. We had been advised that the best time to go was Tuesday mornings, as there is a Local Producers Market every week.Parking in the public car park at What3words location ///regretted.stylist.could’, which is free in the winter months but Pay-n-Display otherwise, from there it is a short walk down church street towards the mill pond and Abbey area.

Y Felin (The Mill) – This was our first port of call, as one of the last working water mills in Wales producing traditional stone ground flour. Producing a wide range of stoneground flours available from the Mill shop, including flour milled from ‘Hen Gymro’ (Old Wales) heritage flour grain, together with some unbleached white and a bag of 100% wholemeal flour, which is what we bought.

The miller Emma also runs guided tours of the mill for the full heritage experience and educational tour. By appointment only though, so please contact Emma to book. Adults £8, Children £4 and Family ticket £20, at the time of writing. For additional details see Emmas website www.y-felin.com or phone 01239 613999.

Local Producers Market – We then turned our attention to the local market, which is a small affair, run every Tuesday 09:00 to 13:00, sitting beside the ruins of St Dogmaels Abbey and overlooks the Mill pond and the mill itself, plus a museum and cafe. There is usually a broad selection of dedicated stall holders, including the ones me and Sarah visited on the day, Cardigan Bay Quilts for beautiful quilts and welsh wool blankets, Defaid Dolwerdd Caws for very tasty Dairy Sheep Cheese, and Preseli Photography for framed pictures, of the stalls we visited. Other stalls, depending on circumstances offering produce such as cured meats, seasonally locally caught fish, locally grown flowers, seasonal vegetables, delicious pies and pastries, handmade jams and chutneys, honey and natural remedies using bee products. There is usually a few local craft sellers and often live music in the summer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Dogmaels Abbey – Also worth a visit are the century spanning ruins of St Dogmaels Abbey, a significant religous settlement, which was founded in 1120 on the site of an earlier pre Norman church, St Dogmaels status as a religious centre can be seen in extensive ruins which span four centuries of monastic life. Elements of the church and cloister are 12th century in origin, while the tall west and north walls of the nave are 13th century. Ther’s a fine north doorway with 14th century decoration and a north transept, built in the Tudor period.

The Abbeys restored coach house is now home to a museum and visitor centre that sheds light on several centuries of Christian life via artefacts that take you on a journey through time. There is also an impressive computer generated reconstruction of the Abbey at its 15th century peak. See the Cadw website www.cadw.gov.wales

Estuary Walk – As the rain had not yet started as forecast, we decided to take a walk from the car park part way along the estuary to stretch our legs a bit. Now we could have gone down to the ‘beach’ to view the Blessing Stone which is marked on Google Maps, but only found out about it whilst researching this post and okay no great miss, this is just a stone that was used to bless fishing boats, dating back to the middle ages. Our walk was only short but pleasant, with a few bits where the path is near the edge and obviously starting to slip away, its quite safe currently as handrails, but if I owned one of the properties next to the path this would be of a concern.

Also worth investigating in the town is ‘St Dogmaels Pottery’ just a bit further along from where we walked, showing work by Peter Bodenham. Should you travel a mile or so further up the road you come to Poppit Sands Beach, or back to Cardigan itself.