Weatherman Walking

Dale Circular Peninsula Walk DALE TO WEST DALE BAY

DRIFTWOOD SCULPTING WORKSHOP 2 WEST DALE BAY

DALE FORT 10 DALE 1 3 WELSHMAN’S BAY CASTLEBEACH BAY 9 4

MILL BAY

WEST 6 BLOCKHOUSE RAF KETE 5 8

1 Points of interest

ST ANN’S HEAD Start 7 Finish

Route

The Weatherman Walking maps are intended as a guide The BBC takes no responsibility for any accident or injury Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf to help you walk the route. We recommend using an that may occur while following the route. Always wear of HMSO. © Crown copyright and database right 2009. OS map of the area in conjunction with this guide. appropriate clothing and footwear and check weather All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number APPROXIMATE DISTANCE: Routes and conditions may have changed since this conditions before heading out. 100019855. guide was written. 7 MILES WEST DALE BAY

For this walk we’ve included OS grid references should you wish to use them.

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This walk follows the Wales/ Coast Path, starting in the village of Dale and looping around the Peninsula in a clockwise direction to finish by the sandy beach of West Dale Bay, a distance of about seven miles. It’s a walk with dramatic cliffs, rich heritage, and spectacular views. Dale Peninsula

Start: Distance: Parking: Travel information: Further information: Dale Seafront Approx. 7 miles There is public parking at Dale (charge). Service Bus Dale 315/316, *Puffin Shuttle Visit Wales Coast Path website for more 400 (*seasonal, hail & ride). Details can be information and path diversions Starting Ref: Grade: found at www.pembrokeshire.gov. www.walescoastpath.gov.uk/plan-your-visit SM 81104 05850 Moderate uk/bus-routes-and-timetables. But this is a circular route so can start and Walk time: finish at the same point. Approx 3 hours

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Directions Dale operates a one-way system through the village. The large car park on the right, opposite the seafront, is well signposted. Cross the road and turn towards the village on the right. The coast path runs alongside the road and seafront and can be picked up at any point.

Dale

DALE Dale (near The Griffin)(SM 81147 05717) Dale Dale is a pretty, small village with a long sea-faring tradition. In the 16th-century, it was one 1 of Pembrokeshire’s most important ports and had a reputation as a smugglers’ hideout. By the 18th-century, the main cargoes were limestone coal and culm, a mixture of coal dust and clay used in the lime kilns.

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Directions Follow the waymark signs past The Griffin pub and keep left. The path is a tarmacked road that heads uphill.

Sean’s workshop Sean’s workshop

DRIFTWOOD SCULPTING Driftwood Sculpting Workshop(SM 81225 05618) WORKSHOP The path goes behind a small row of waterfront houses, built on a number of levels to 2 accommodate the hill. A few hundred yards up on the right is a wood sculptor‘s workshop.

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Derek and driftwood sculptor Sean and driftwood sculptor

Driftwood Sculpting Derek says, “I met former teacher, Sean Kenhoe, collecting driftwood on the shoreline in front of his home. Sean gets the inspiration for his sculptures from each different piece of driftwood he finds. He does his large carving in the workshop behind his home and finishes pieces off on his terrace overlooking the bay. His wife, Wendy, is also an artist.

Sean had just picked up a large branch and he showed me how he could turn something like that into a delicately carved seahorse. Having drawn a shape, Sean taught me how to gouge out the excess wood to form the outline. I have to confess I was a bit heavy-handed and went inside the lines a few times! We then took the branch round to his workshop at the back of his house, and he used a chainsaw to ‘release’ the seahorse.”

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Directions Heading on from the workshop, the path rises up through a wooded walkway for about half a mile. At the top of the hill there is space for a few cars to park, and the footpath is marked off the tarmacked path on the right.

Before heading off this way, it is worth taking a quick look at Dale Fort in front.

Dale Fort

DALE FORT Dale Fort (SM 82308 05218) The Victorian fort was built inside a far larger Iron Age settlement and was a key part 3 of ’s 19th-century defences. Now it is a Field Studies Centre for students of marine biology. View leaving Dale

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Directions Taking the footpath off the tarmacked path, you emerge onto the top of the peninsula, with expansive views of the Milford Haven Waterway and across to Watwick Point.

There are sheer red sandstone cliffs along the peninsula, with a nearly flat cliff-top plateau – the result of wave-cut erosion when the sea was 200 feet higher some 400 million years ago. The Dale Peninsula is Headland near Dale Fort largely treeless, but this walk takes in long slopes down to the sea that are unusual for being heavily wooded. The path winds down into Castlebeach Bay. Castlebeach Bay

CASTLEBEACH Castlebeach Bay (SM 81869 05046) BAY This little wooded cove has a secret and secluded feel, and the tiny beach is often deserted. 4 There are also the ruins of an old lime kiln where limestone was burned to make lime for farming use.

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Directions Beyond the bay, the path climbs up through the woodland. It passes the ruins of an old cottage, occupied from 1830 to 1900 by a local family who worked the lime kiln. Passing Watwick Point and Watwick Bay, you then follow a narrow path towards one of the highest points on the walk giving excellent views across to Milford Haven. Watwick Point

Just below the path is West Blockhouse, and next to the path are three navigation towers. Navigation Towers

WEST West Blockhouse (SM 81806 03574) Navigation Towers (SM 81721 03575) BLOCKHOUSE West Blockhouse was an imposing Victorian fortification but is now holiday accommodation 5 managed by the Landmark Trust. Its position is well hidden, and it was built to defend the area from a possible attack by Napoleon III and his armies.

Alongside it stand three navigation towers – these and the single one at Watwick Point provide a guide to tankers as they enter the waterway.

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Directions The path meanders along the headland for another Mill Bay half miles or so to Mill Bay, the landing site which was to change British history forever.

There’s an information sign next to the footpath.

Path overlooking Mill Bay (SM 80891 03534) MILL BAY In August 1485, Pembroke-born Henry Tudor (later King Henry VII) landed at Mill Bay with a 6 force of several thousand men. It’s recorded that night they stayed in Dale and then travelled to Bosworth Field, gathering support as they went. Henry’s army, which had swelled to 5,000 men, defeated Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth, and he took the English crown.

Henry became Henry VII, and started the mighty Tudor Dynasty which, included Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.

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Directions Leaving Mill Bay, you walk through a gate and cross the ’s Head St Ann’s Head tip of the Cows at St Ann peninsula. The waymark points across a field, picking the signs up on the west side.

There are cows in the field, but they are used to walkers and keep their distance.

ST ANN’S St Ann’s Head between the two lighthouses (SM 80612 02925) HEAD St Ann’s Head is said to be the sunniest place in Wales and has some of the lowest rainfall 7 figures in the region, so the chances of great views across the water to the small island of Island are generally good.

Skokholm was Britain’s first bird observatory, established in 1933 and like its island neighbours, and Middleholm, is now internationally recognised for its wildlife.

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Directions From the stone path, turn right. You will find yourself between two of the county’s six lighthouses. The one behind you is the only working mainland lighthouse in operation in Pembrokeshire. The one ahead is now used for holiday accommodation.

Past the former lighthouse, the area is known rather unpleasantly as The Vomit. You Cottages at St Anne pass a lane of houses on your ’s Head right and a small car park. The site ahead here on the right at Kete Kete was once a Second World War naval base.

(SM 8009 0449) RAF KETE Former site of RAF Kete RAF Kete was used during the war as the Royal Navy’s Air Direction School for training radar 8 technicians and fighter direction officers. It was then commissioned as HMS Harrier in 1948, the Royal Navy Meteorology School, until its closure in 1961. It once consisted of many buildings and huts, but now the site has been cleared and lies under pasture.

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Directions Opposite the small car park, the coast path veers back onto the headland to the left. The Frenchman’s Bay stretch of about a mile and a half passes Frenchman’s Bay, Little Castle Point and Welshman’s Bay.

WELSHMAN’S Path over Welshman’s Bay (SM 79943 04325) BAY The red cliffs may be stunning, but they can also be dangerous. 9 The footpath here stays close to the cliff edge with wild, ragged rocks and pounding waves below, not a place to get in trouble.

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Mountain Rescue Exercise Mountain Rescue Exercise

Mountain Rescue Derek says, “I met the Western Beacons Mountain Rescue Team, who needed a ‘casualty’ for a practice run. Being lowered down on the ropes was a bit nerve-wracking, but I felt totally safe when the team hauled me back up the cliffs on a stretcher. The original mountain rescue team formed in 1964. They now cover one of the largest operational areas covered by a single mountain rescue team in the UK, responding to call-outs from both the South Wales and Dyfed Powys police forces.

I said on the way down that I was a ‘Pembrokeshire Dangler’ – that’s a weatherman’s joke!”

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Directions Heading on from Welshman’s Bay, it’s about another mile and a half along the headland before you drop down at Great Castle Head – the site of an Iron Age fort - to a point above West Dale Bay. Here there is a style and flat route straight across the peninsula from west to east, leading you back to Dale and the car park a short way further down on your right. Sunset at West Dale Bay

WEST Path over West Dale Bay (SM 79986 05849) DALE BAY West Dale bay is a popular spot for keen surfers. It’s challenging as the currents can be pretty 10 strong. You also have to be determined as there is a steep walk down to get to the bay and no facilities. The beach is a mix of sand and shingle, backed by the area’s distinctive red cliffs, which can really glow at sunset.

West Dale Bay

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End of walk

End of the Walk Derek says, “I really enjoyed this walk, the views were stunning, and I also did it in beautiful sunshine, which was a bonus. When I got to West Dale Bay, it was pretty late in the afternoon, and there was just the most amazing sunset. You couldn’t do anything but stop and watch the sun go down. I hadn’t visited this little bit of Pembrokeshire before, but I know I will be returning here.”

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