Fishguard

9 Aug

Fishguard has two stone circles! I had no idea this was the case until I arrived and drove past another circle on the way to the one on maps. This seems to be a running theme with my travels, it is surprising how many stone circles I have randomly come across. The first stone circle I visited was the one that I found on maps. It was up on a cliff and was located in a residential area and so was readily accessible and parking was easy to find. 

This stone circle was particularly fascinating as there was writing on the stones. I was surprised to see this as I have never seen any others with writing on, and as I got closer I noticed there were names of towns or areas on the stones, such as Nanhyfer, Llanllawer and Casmael, all towns in northern Pembrokeshire. This is very interesting as it indicates that each town gave a stone to make up the stone circle in Fishguard. However, there was a bit of an issue with this stone circle in that the stones themselves were being covered by lichen, obscuring the names that were on some of them. This wasn’t happening on all of them, as can be seen by the Nanhyfer stone down below, but on others it was a massive problem.

As can be seen with this stone, the name of Nanhyfer seems to have been painted on, whereas all the others had the names carved into the stone. This suggests there has been some maintenance done on the stone circle, but perhaps it was long enough ago that the lichen was not a problem on the others at that point. After doing some research I came across the fact that this stone circle was erected in 1936, suggesting that there must have been some maintenance done since then, and maybe the lichen wasn’t a problem at the time. 

It is certainly a problem now however, as can be seen on this stone. The writing is almost entirely obscured, meaning the name of the town or area that donated the stone can’t be seen and so cannot be credited with inclusion in the circle. This is a shame and needs to be rectified. As with a lot of heritage sites, the heritage itself needs to be protected, and any information that is present about the stone circles needs to be protected, especially in this case as there is so little information already that to lose any of what we do have would be disastrous. I will be contacting the appropriate body or organisation to suggest some maintenance be done on this particular stone circle, as it is the first one I have come across that needs some. 

The second stone circle was not as fascinating as the previous one but is still worth a visit, especially if you are with children as the playground next to it looked fun! There is not much else to note about the stone circle in the park apart from the fact that I came across it entirely by accident and it is not present on maps or acknowledged on google. See, it would be interesting to know why there are two stone circles in Fishguard, with one having names of towns and areas on and the other being so obscure that I almost didn’t know it was there. 

When visiting Fishguard, the Old Town is also well worth a visit. If you head down the hill there is a lovely harbor with a cafe next to it to enjoy some fresh lobster rolls and a cup of tea. I certainly enjoyed sitting by the water reading my book and appreciating the wonderful view.