Local Area Guide
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Lyn Brianne Reservoir and Gwenffrwd-Dinas
Drove up the road beyond Pumsaint the other day to take some time off and clear our heads with a short walk and chill out beside the reservoir. We drove out there via Llandre and Cwrt-y-cadno from Pumsaint which is a narrow twisty road that seems to go on for ages. We came back via Cilycwm and Porthyrhyd which is longer, but for the most part on wider roads.
The walk around the mini mountain (Dinas) was a mixture between nice and easy, to very up and down near enough scramble, which kind of killed my knees. Apparently there is a lower path thats easier, but we missed it entirely. Plus it didn’t help that I scrambled up to the Cave, where Wales answer to Robin Hood hid, it was reasonably easy getting up, but not so much getting down again as a bit slippy.
Exit from car park
Board walk from car park
Going anti-clockwise still easy
Starting to get interesting
This is where I put the camera/phone away, it got worse!
Past the hard bit
The walk is only about 2 miles around, but it took us two hours to do it, mainly because we did not want to go base over apex. Having said that Sarah did go for a tumble at one point, but picked herself up again with a bit of help from me. Back to the car and a cup of coffee and a sausage roll, then drove 1/2 mile up the road to the car park at Llyn Brianne for the marvellous views on offer.
Looking back down the spillway
Top of spillway and the ‘logging’ road going over it
Up in the Cambrian mountains there are some wonderful ‘mountain’ roads that would be brilliant for motorbikes, especially if you approach from the North, Tregaron side. Especially judging by the amount of bikers parked up. On and yes there are toilets there.
looking out across the reservoir from the car park
Looking back at the dam from the lower car Park
Looking back down the valley from the reservoir, from the lower car park
Although it is a marvellous place to take your Motorhome/Campervan, I would suggest you approach from Cilycwm and Llandovery, well certainly Motorhomes anyway.
St Dogmaels Day Trip
Crown copyright (2018). Visit Wales
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
© Y Felin
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.
© Cardigan Bay Quilts
© Defaid Dolwerdd
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.
© Kellett
Aberglasney Gardens
Took a day trip out in July to Aberglasney Gardens, which was on my to do list. It is located down near Llandeilo just off the A40, so easy to get to.
Aberglasney was made famous by the BBC television series “A Garden Lost in Time” which followed its restoration. Today it is quite simply one of Wales’ finest gardens, and at its heart lies a fully restored Elizabethan Cloister Garden that is the only surviving example of its kind in the UK today. Beyond this, visitors can explore 10 acres of over 20 different garden styles from formal to woodland, right through to exotic and modern along with the fully restored ground floor of Aberglasney’s grade II* listed mansion offer a stunning venue for exhibitions and events.
Ninfarium – Within what was the old house, that was beyond ‘restoration’.
The pond from the terrace wall
From under the terrace to the house
Gardens: Aberglasney’s 10 acres are home to many different garden styles, from our historic cloister garden to our productive kitchen garden and our unique Ninfarium. There are many aspects to explore, and the gardens change with the seasons to showcase a wealth of flowers and trees.
Mansion: The historic grade II* listed mansion at Aberglasney has been home to many a colourful character over the last 500 years – poets and artists, a Bishop, a High Sheriff, architects and solicitors, drinkers and those who fiercely abstained. However, prior to recent restoration it had been hard to visualise the grandeur of time gone by after decades of decline when the mansion stood uninhabited, neglected and vandalised. Today, the centre of the mansion is now is covered by a glass roof and is home to the ‘Ninfarium’, Aberglasney’s award winning sub-tropical indoor garden, where plants grow amongst the ruinous remains.
Tearooms: No trip to Aberglasney is complete without visiting the tearooms, idyllically located overlooking the Pool Garden. The tearooms are cosy inside while the terrace is a real suntrap. It’s the perfect place to enjoy good homemade, freshly prepared lunches or of course a quintessential afternoon tea including homemade cakes and pastries. You’ll also find a selection of wines, beers and ciders on the menu alongside great ice cream.
For more details see their website aberglasney.org
Welsh Anti Tourism Front | AKA ‘Welsh Parliament’
Cynnydd Ffrynt Gwrth-Dwristiaeth Cymru | AKA ‘Senedd Cymru’
Most small accommodation businesses look to achieve around 60% occupancy rates to be considered successful, so how would you feel if your ‘Government’ said you had to achieve 72% or pay the penalty.
The Welsh Senedd continue to press on with their draconian measures to kill off tourism and small accommodation businesses in Wales with key measures, already set in motion for 2023/24FY and no doubt the ‘registration’ one and others will follow.
- Minimum let days rule, from 70 to 182 days, otherwise money will be demanded.
- Everyone must register, be certified and rated, for which money will be demanded.
- Granny annexes classed as second homes, for which money will be demanded.
- Tourism tax, charged to visitors via a percentage on their accommodation.
They insist that they are consulting the industry, which in itself is true, but what they don’t say is that they completely ignoring that feedback. Now you may think I am just being cynical, but….
The Professional Association of Self Caterers UK (PASC) and its partners have and continue to put up very robust opposition to the 70 day and 182 day issue. We even suggested 105 days which is line with HMRC’s threshold and we put forward 500 written responses against. However, they still chose to go with the 9 responses from those that supported 182 days. All very disappointing.
PASC UK
Indeed their own statistics show an average occupancy rate of 51% for Ceredigion, where we are. Going with their new 252 minimum days that we must be available to let for and their own occupancy figure of 51%, this equates to no higher than 128 days at most, that should be booked. Not 182 as they want, which would be an occupancy rate of 72%, that is very hard to achieve, especially in this economic climate.
Then we have the ‘everyone must register and be certified’ if you operate an accommodation business in Wales approach, well this is obviously just the Senedd revenue raising and jobs for the boys. All the assumptions they make in explaining why why it is necessary, fly in the face of what ‘market forces’ already enforce. They go on for example about minimum standards, mentioning PAT testing, EICR certification, public liability insurance, risk assessment statements and the like, all of which are covered/required by your insurance if you want to be covered and by the booking agents who require them anyway. If not you would probably be breaking the law anyway, so we don’t need additional interference. As for quality and cleanliness standards, if you are performing badly in this area you will lose customers anyway as your reviews will be rubbish, so self policing. It’s called ‘market forces’ or is that too capitalist word for the Senedd?
Basically all this meddling is just another expense that pushes us towards the ‘I won’t bother then’ route, so leading to a decline in small accommodation businesses in Wales. Which is one of the few ‘industries’ that can actually thrive here in Wales if the Senedd would just stop sticking their oar in. It’s already bad enough, that to succeed in getting sufficient bookings you need people like ‘Booking dot Com’ and ‘West Wales Holiday Cottages’ and the like, who take a decent proportion of the booking fee as commission already. Then there are the operating costs, property maintenance, plus ‘cleaners’ that you need as the good ones are not cheap.
We are not a ‘Cash Cow’ for the commercially challenged and Economics illiterate politicians to sponge off.
Then we come to the ‘second homes’ thing, how can a flat on the first floor of an outbuilding, within the curtlidge of the main house, be considered a second home? It is never going to be sold or rented out separately, so the Senedd’s stance of adding to the housing stock is nonsense. If it come to it, we shall just rip out the kitchen or whatever, so it can no longer be classified as a so called ‘self contained unit’ by the VOA, which helps nobody.
At least running this business contributes to the local economy, unlike our politicians. Putting too many hoops for people to jump through, they simply stop jumping through them!
Yes there are bad businesses out there, but they will still be out there with this legislation, as they work off the radar. This to put it simply is lazy legislation from a Senedd who just can’t be bothered to make use of the rules and laws already at their disposal.
Solar Installation
UPDATE OCTOBER: Solar energy generation for October was 212.67 kWh from the 4.5kW array
Many of you have asked about our solar panel installation which was installed in Early September this year, after I calculated that in theory it should pay back in ~11 years based on the calculations I did, see link below. This was based on the electricity supplier at the time British Gas and the prices per unit I was on then.
The process of the install all went okay, other than people should be aware that if being fitted to a slate roof, there will be some losses and as such will need spares, we ended up using around 30 new slates in total, not because the lads did a bad job but the existing slates were either already broken or cracked already.
The new PV Solar installation is working well and is helping us to reduce our dependance on the grid, which judging by the number of power cuts we have around here is not a bad thing, let alone what will probably happen this winter. The solar array itself is around 4.5kW with a 3.6kW hybrid inverter, plus a 13.4kW battery bank to make best use of what power is generated, as this helps balance it all out. We also added an electric vehicle charger and a Solar iBoost device for the immersion in the annex, which diverts electricity to the immersion when there is surplus power which would otherwise be bound for the grid.
There have been a few teething issues with it, but all working well now and the guys came out and solved the issues very promptly.
The roof faces SSW so pretty good for catching the sun, okay so the sun don’t shine much in the winter, but at least I can charge the batteries up at night on cheap rate grid power and use later when it would otherwise be peak rate.
Now when I started this, we were with both British Gas and SSE as we had two meter boxes, one for the House (with BG) and one for the Annex (with SSE). Now this was obviously costing us two standing charges and the hassle of dealing with two bills and what with the way the market was going that could be seen earlier in the year this just had to change but what….
It just happened that we had a chap stay with us who worked for Energy Local who was working locally at the Capel Dewi solar PV site and would we be interested in their energy supply idea, which they were offering in our area now in conjunction with Octopus. First thought was yeah right pull the other one, as seems too good to be true, but after some explaining of the principles and why ‘our’ energy prices are so ridiculously high we thought lets go for it, particularly as they are associated with Octopus Energy.
Lets put it this way British Gas were charging around 30p/kWh with a standing charge of say 50p/day whereas with EnergyLocal/Octopus we pay a variable tariff depending on the time of the day, but the average price is around 19p/kWh with a standing charge of 27p/day, so not a hard decision really.
The next step is to get the MCS certificate so I can contact Octopus for their export/outgoing tariff.
NB – It was the SSE meter that we kept, but changed provider and the BG meter was removed by BG themselves. However I didn’t reckon on British Gas being such a bunch of useless idiots, I wont go into the detail here but they were utterly useless and probably fraudulent in their activities, in the process of getting rid of them and afterwards. Even though they removed ‘their’ meter and I cancelled my account with them, they still tried to charge me for a supply and electricity usage, even tried to restart the direct debits (without a meter), very stressful!
