Local conditions help me to focus, especially local weather. We left Cardiff today, and I had toyed around with going underground for a mine tour, but the weather today was supposed to be fairly good, and tomorrow (Thursday) is supposed to be quite bad, with heavy rain and wind. So I scrapped any idea of going underground on what could end up being our last rain-free day of the trip (showers forecast all upcoming week). I wanted to do something outside instead, and based on some internet research, I landed on the park right next to our home base town of Llandeilo. We headed over to Dinefwr Park.

Dinefwr Park is land that used to belong to the Rhys (“Rice” in English) family, who later became barons. The members of the family had many ups and downs, from one’s being a right-hand man of the king to one’s being the man who killed Richard III to one’s being jailed for treason, and finally the estate was sold in the 1970s to pay for death taxes resulting from two of the barons dying only six years apart (it seems as if the death tax was forty percent, so that’s a lot to lose twice in six years). The property was bought by the national trust in late 1980s, and the house was restored. So the park has a manor house, beautiful grounds, a herd of white cattle, a herd of roaming deer, and a castle ruin. It’s easy to see why I needed to come here.

We pulled into the car park and paid our five-pound parking fee and were asked if we wanted a tractor-pulled cart ride for five pounds each. We said sure and paid for that and then made our way up to the house to be picked up. A nice young guide found us and told us we were the only people on the tractor tour, and wondered if we could go on the 12:30 one instead. We were fine with that, and out of gratitude and because she was now free, she offered to show us around the house. Along the way, we picked up another docent in the first room, so our group was Meredith and I and two guides. It was great.

Because we were with staff members, they could take us around places not normally shown to people – the back-of-house laundry area, the servant hallway, the non-immediate-family family bedrooms, the third floor of the house. Along the way, our guide pointed out things we never would have noticed:

– how one portrait of a baron shows him looking authoritative, but the painter slyly put in papers falling from the baron’s desk to show he was losing control
– how the impressive main stairs started to slant after some renovations loosened them up, and they needed to have supports added
– how the stone shields on the outside of the house were all blank because the baron ran out of money to have them carved
– how some of the ceilings seemed to have plaster work, but were actually made of papier mache
– that one of the barons built a ground-floor bedroom for the butler when the butler got old
– that several old rooms were combined to be able to reduce the number of fireplaces since fireplaces started getting taxed

After the tour, we went back through the house on our own to read the placards and to see a few rooms we hadn’t seen, including the “below stairs” servants’ area in the basement. We then grabbed a quick snack in the tea room and headed out for our tractor tour.

And we were still the only ones on the tour. They decided to go anyway, and just as they were getting ready to set off, another couple joined us. So four tourists, a driver, a paid guide, and a volunteer guide. That’s good service.

The tractor ride was pleasant, and we got to go in fields around the house that are normally off limits. We got very up close with a herd of the white cows and calves that reside in the park, and we learned they are an endangered breed. The cows as a species have been in the areas since 900 and so are seen as special to the area.

From the tractor ride, I wanted to hike to the castle ruins on the hill. Meredith helpfully pointed out that I was taking off in the wrong direction. I told her the signs were pointing to the DIRECT way to go, but we were going via the deer park. I wanted to take the long way around. The walk through the deer park was under very mature trees (they didn’t laugh at my fart jokes) and had one great view of the manor house with some deer munching grass in the field facing us. There were a few carved wooden statues of animals along the path, and we eventually came out onto a very long boardwalk that followed a stream for some ways while the path wound through more trees.

That finally led us to the path for the castle, which went … wait for it … up. Somehow, castles often seem to be on hills. We took our time and made it to the top and were greeted with a castle ruin where the castle and walls were still in really good shape. The castle was from around 1200, although there are reports and tradition that there was a fortification there even earlier. We walked in through the door without having to lay siege, and were greeted with mostly intact walls, a largely intact round tower, and two square towers in good shape. The walls and all three towers could be explored, and the round tower and the taller square tower could be climbed, with excellent 360-degree views from the round tower. We walked everywhere we could access, and I even managed my fear of heights well, since the parapets were high enough to make me feel okay. By the time we got to the castle, the sun had mostly come out, and it was a very pretty day to look around at the surrounding hills. My guess is we were there for about half an hour.

We walked (the direct way) back to the car and drove the two miles to our hotel. We got checked in, and then walked the town for a bit, walking through a residential area to see how normal people live here, and we stumbled across a park that had great views after we climbed … wait for it … up. That wrapped up the touring for the day, as we got back to the hotel and had supper here. I have more scrambling and touristic improvising to do tomorrow to try to stay dry, but today worked out very well.