Cadw enrolled

It's been warmer today, but still with a pall of low cloud and mist making the outdoors very un-inviting. Even so, we made an effort to go out after breakfast, walking up the lane close by, and then a little down the road it comes out on, to visit Oxwich Castle, open this weekend and then closed until next April. It's a Cadw property, which was the sixteenth century Elizabethan home of the powerful Mansel family, who also acquired neighbouring Penrice Castle by marriage in the early 15th century.

Once a prestigious mansion house with a staff of fifty, Oxwich was probably too costly to maintain. It had its heyday for about fifty years, then over centuries it fell into ruin, with only part of the property remaining as a dwelling. The family bought the land and buildings of Cistercian Margam Abbey after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries, and that became the Mansel clan headquarters instead.

The Oxwich ruins were sold to the state after the Second World War, and restoration of what remained of the Elizabethan buildings was a slow burn Ministry of Works project, opened to the public finally in 1994. The few remaining sections of its walls show it had four storeys over a basement, and the huge square tower had six. With wet mist swirling around and through the ruins, it was very atmospheric, like being inside a black and white movie.

A two storey section alongside the ruined main house was for five centuries divided into two cottages and these were occupied until after the war. Replacement homes had to be constructed nearby before restoration could begin. The ground floor has been nicely converted into a gift shop and interpretation centre. The upstairs is sparsely furnished with period pieces, but also has a clothes rail of Elizabethan costumes for kids and youngsters to try on. The whole place is more of an education centre relating to mediaeval Gower than it is a museum or a stately home.

The receptionist-cum-custodian told us about the place, and promoted the virtue of taking out an annual Cadw subscription. Clare enthused about this as a possible Christmas present, so the deed was done. It is valid also for English Heritage properties, and Wales has so many fine castles and other buildings looked after by Cadw that it's worth our while, even if we have been to quite a few of them all over the past fifty years.

We walked down to the village again. Clare fancied fish and chips for lunch. I fancied a curry, so while she waited for hers to be cooked, I went back and cooked my own. She had more chips than she could eat, so I had curry and chips for lunch, a rare event indeed for me.

I rained and was overcast for much of the afternoon, but when it stopped about half past four, we decided to go out for another walk, and went to the beach as the sun was setting, albeit totally hidden by cloud and mist. The whole hour was like a very long twilight. The sea was coming in as we walked along the beach. It didn't start raining again until it was dark enough to merit leaving the beach and heading back to the bungalow. It was quite a mysterious experience like hovering between two worlds. And it produced some interesting photographs also, just like Oxwich Castle.