Cas-wis

Pathway to Clarbeston Road railway station.

Clarbeston Road to Whitland railway line.

An Arriva train bound for Milford Haven has just pulled in and two passengers wait for the doors to open. Victorian OS maps show the station to be east of the road bridge [from where this shot was taken], but now it is on the west side. I stopped in the hope that the station would be an old GWR style building, but was obviously disappointed. I would guess that before the GWR built the line through here, the village of Clarbeston Road would not have existed, though a map of the 1880's shows a few dwellings and two pubs.

The pub is so called because it was on a crossroads - the Maenclochog to Haverfordwest road and the Woodstock to Wiston road. The layout was changed when the railway was built. The inn was mentioned as early as 1770.

The village is named after the railway station. Given that it's in the parish of Wiston, and it's on the road to Wiston, it's odd that it wasn't called Wiston Road.

Opened in 1854 by the South Wales Railway on its line from Carmarthen to Neyland, the station was originally on the east (far) side of the road bridge - see SN0120 : Clarbeston Road 1st railway station (site), Pembrokeshire. Line extensions to Fishguard and Milford Haven were later added and the station is believed to have been moved to this site in 1914 by the Great Western Railway. This allowed for a bay platform to be included on the north side of the line (extreme left of image), now removed. View south east towards Clunderwen and Carmarthen.

This pub serves the small community of Clarbeston Road, centred around the railway station and some two miles west of Clarbeston itself. The name of the pub indicates it was once at a crossroads, but that was eliminated when the railway was built.

Opened in 1854 by the South Wales Railway on its line from Carmarthen to Neyland, this station lost its wooden booking office in a fire in 1907. In 1914 it is believed to have closed and replaced by a new station immediately behind the camera position (see SN0120 : Clarbeston Road railway station, Pembrokeshire), although some OS maps were showing it at this location until 1963. View south east towards Clunderwen and Carmarthen.

Road Bridge as seen from platform at Clarbeston Road Station. Taken with the Lomo LC-A on Kodak Tri-x 400

The road junction can be seen beyond the house on the road to Wiston from Clarbeston Road. Turn left into Lamborough Lane.

Minor road junction and disused milk churn stand near Clarbeston Road.

Tidy pub just out of the village on the road to New Moat and Maenclochog.

The red sign on the front wall says "Welcome, Come and have fun" but nothing going on here this wet autumn day.

Some way out of the village, but there has been a council footpath laid all the way from the Memorial Hall. SeeSN0221 : Clarbeston Road football ground by Ceridwen.

A well preserved motte-and-bailey castle, built by the Flemish settler, Wizo, in the first half of the twelfth century. Remains of a later stone shell-keep also survive. The bailey area is quite extensive

The lane leading south from the village

Wellies definitely recommended as the lane was virtually a river!

William the Conqueror’s second son Henry 1st decided soon after his coronation in 1100 to strengthen his hold on Wales by introducing Flemings from the inundated low countries to Pembrokeshire to subdue the warring Welsh. The Flemings had a reputation as good soldiers, enterprising farmers and skilled craftsmen, whom Henry believed could colonise and govern his new territory, leaving him to control the rest of the kingdom. The Flemish chieftain was a fierce warrior called Wizo, who decided to occupy the fertile farmland in the area known as Roose or Rhos, and he chose Wiston as the site for his motte-and bailey HQ, Wizo’s Tun. It was in all probability already the site of an Iron Age rath or enclosed settlement. By 1112 he had established Wiston as a Borough, with all the privileges that status brought with it, including a Royal Charter to hold an annual fair and a weekly market. He and his followers built a village in the typical linear style of a Norman settlement, and this remains the ribbon form of Wiston to this day. The early 12th century motte-and-bailey structure, which would have been a wooden pallisaded enclosure on the top of a defensive mound, which is still visible from the road, and is described by antiquarians as the best example of a motte-and-bailey castle in South-West Wales, was replaced in the 13th century by a stone keep. It had in the meantime been attacked several times by the Welsh who resented the intrustion of these foreign troops on their soil, right on the notional Landsker line separating the occupied territory from the Welshery to the north and east. The Welsh captured Wizo’s Tun in 1147 and 1193, before Llywelyn the Great destroyed it and burnt the ‘town’ in 1220. Henry III ordered the rebuilding of the castle before 1231, and this is when the sturdy stone keep was erected. Today visitors to the site will see a large bailey and a high motte surrounded by a deep dry ditch and crowned with the remains of a polygonal shell keep. Access is through a simple arched doorway on the southern side and the remains of a flight of stone steps inside suggest that the keep was originally a building of at least two storeys. It appears that there was a third phase of later construction to thicken the walls.The unusually large bailey south of the motte is defended by an earth bank and ditch and the remains of medieval buildings lie under the turf. Access to the bailey would have been via the eastern entrance. The castle and manor house were owned by the Wogan family of Picton Castle by 1324 and acquired by the Cawdors in 1794