Tuesday 26 February 2019

Terminalia in Haverfordwest: a mildly psychogeographic weekend

The NHS instructed the Frau to voyage to Haverfordwest (town of many dentists), so we use the opportunity for a Citybreak in that fine Pembrokeshire settlement. Unfortunately the appointment is on Terminalia, celebrated in Aberystwyth in 2017 and 2018.

Nothing daunted, I embark on a one-man celebration of Terminalia by walking the Haverfordwest walls. This is a challenge as no real trace remains of them: luckily, the RCAHM have a fine map: this is a hand-annotated copy of the 6-inch OS of the town, allowing a tour of what-was, or what-might-have-been.

Many pictures exist, and your particular attention is drawn to

  1. The sites of four gates: the North gate, the Red Gate, the South Gate, the West Gate
  2. The only likely remnant of original structure, by Perrot Road.
  3. Between Bridge Street and the river is a ginnel (gwli yn Gymraeg) named Hole in the Wall, with its own local attractions. It's now a car park.
  4. . . . and various instances of the course of the wall, where the structures in place may well have reused original materials.
(I have laboriously noted lat/long in wall feature captions, should anyone wish to follow in my footsteps).

The day was certainly not without psychogeographic, or pseudo-psychgeographic, or perhaps quasi-pseudo-psychogeographic, experience, and much of this can be seen in the series of pictures. Again, highlights would be

  1. An uncaptioned but important looking piece of stone.
  2. The beautiful Palace Cinema.
  3. An interesting use of the word managemen. The picture includes nice reflections of St Mary's Church and the author.
  4. The Price of Rice.
  5. The somewhat forlorn St Mary's Cemetery on Portfield. "Something" was done about this last year.
  6. The Old Quay Snooker Club [closed].

An absolute and psychogeographical highlight was approaching the Haverfordwest Museum in the ruined castle, advertised as open 10.00-4.00, except Sundays. On arrival, we discovered the qualifying phrase "Easter-October", making us about 2 months too early. Luckily, a fine beshorted angel in company of two baby labradors was there and we fell into conversation. He learned that the visit was primarily to visit Wales' oldest pillar box, and lost no time in beating on the window of the closed, dark building. A woman appeared, looking out suspiciously. "Oi Morag", he cried, "This bloke has come a long way to see the postbox".

So Morag opened up and let me in: a very fine box - the pictures include supporting documentation, and a picture of Morag.

(The angel later confided "Post-boxes don't do it for me".)

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