A visit to Margam Country Park

The second week of the Severn Tunnel being closed was a good ten degrees cooler than the preceding one, so rather than do two round trips on the days I was due to take the Northerner to work, I decided to stay out all day with the dog and give her some really good walks. The first day we visited Margam Country Park, on the outskirts of Port Talbot.

Margam promised so many of my favourite things ... but didn't always deliver. For instance, I love old ruins, and Margam Abbey - which before the Reformation was the richest monastic house in Wales - has mightily impressive ones, only sadly they were fenced off. And yes, I know it's important to keep visitors safe, but I only really get a sense of a place when I can touch it. 

The Chapter House

The 12th century nave of the Cistercian Abbey still exists; it serves as the parish church and is dedicated to St Mary. Cwtch was very happy to be allowed inside ...

... and so was I, because it has stained glass I wanted to see. The 1904 East window, by James Powell of Whitefriars, is stunning, but the Morris & Co lights in the west wall, designed by Burne Jones, were all but impossible to see, owing to unfortunate arrangements of lighting, both engineered and natural.

The 16th and 17th century marble tombs of the Mansel family

The 12th century monastic fish pond

There was also a museum containing nearly thirty inscribed stones and crosses, some of considerable antiquity, which I would have loved to visit, but it would have meant leaving Cwtch in the car, and I didn't want to do that.  

The 19th century Gothic mansion known as Margam Castle, which is now used for events

The Drinker Moth caterpillar

There's a hill fort in the grounds too, and hill forts are also one of my favourite things, so before starting our walk, I decided to walk up to the top to take in the view. But it was a murky day - above, the view of the sea - and it was all overgrown with bracken, so you couldn't get to, or even see, the top. Around the back of the hill, there was an impression of ditches and banks, but it was all a bit disappointing.

The grounds also contained very many rhododendrons. (I dislike rhododendrons.)

We set off up a valley, following the route of St Illtyd's Way. 

After a time, our route took us over a stone stile and up a steep, rocky path to a conifer plantation ... 

... before the final leg back to the castle and ruins via the upper deer park. It was unseasonably cold and blustery: a complete contrast from the extreme heat of the previous week.

En route we encountered this wonderful, ancient ash tree, and I thought how easy it is to be dismissive when you're a casual visitor: if I lived nearby and visited often, I'd get to make friends with all the amazing trees that are undoubtedly to be found in the park.

The Bro Stone: an amazing viewpoint on a clear day!

Looking towards Port Talbot

The Yew Dragon, carved by Nansi Heming

'Shout' by Glynn Williams

We only got to spot any deer as we were driving out of Margam - they were safely in the lower park, away from Cwtch, who'd been kept on the lead in case we had encountered them. All in all, a bit of a curate's egg, really, Margam, though not helped on this day by the weather and the fact I lacked a dog-sitter. Maybe I'll be back one day, maybe I won't.

Return to Ogmore

The Severn tunnel being shut for its annual maintenance - and with the replacement bus service leaving Bristol too late in the morning and returning too early in the afternoon to accommodate anyone who works for a living - I've girded my lions for two weeks (Wednesday to Friday) of to-ing and fro-ing to Cardiff to drop the Northerner off and pick him up. The plan - as every year - was to stay there during the day and walk Cwtch somewhere interesting, but on Wednesday and Thursday this last week the temperature reached over 30°C, which is way too hot to be out all day with a dog.

But Friday was several degrees cooler, so after our morning chauffeuring stint ended, Cwtch and I headed for one of our favourite places, Ogmore-by-Sea. 

Having parked in the beach car park, we set off along the coast in a south-easterly direction towards Southerndown. The landscape was very familiar, as Cwtch and I had walked a short way further along this part of the coast in October 2023 - in fact, the south-easternmost point of our route touched the north-westernmost point of that earlier walk.

a female stonechat

We turned away from the coast up a dry valley to a road; then, just past West Farm Coastal Retreat, our route took us up a lovely walled bridle path that was full of flowers ... 

... to a lane called Heol y Mynydd, which in turn led to an area of common land, off which we diverted into a dry - and very sandy - glacial valley skirting the southern edge of Ogmore Down.

This part of the valley has the name Pant Mari Flanders, allegedly after one of several Flemish settlers who came here in the Middle Ages, having either fled religious persecution or been enticed to move here from the Low Countries with promises of rich farmland. The cowl around this well dates from this time.

 

Top row: thrift and bird's-foot-trefoil; red clover; bristly hawksbeard; slender thistles

Middle row: poppy; an escaped snapdragon; red campion; dog roses, one with a thick-legged flower beetle

Bottom row: spiny sowthistle; foxgloves; rough hawkbit; scurvy grass

Eventually we reached the River Ogmore, also very familiar from previous visits, and headed for the sea. 

Looking back up the river ...

... and across to Merthyr Mawr warren and Porthcawl

Back on the beach, Cwtch very bravely went for a walk but only because I rolled up my trousers and went in first.

The Ride of the Valkyries

Modest treasure

Other flowers are available

At the end of April, I thought I'd had all the bluebells I was going to get, at least in Bristol, but there were a few late surprises in some more sheltered pockets, like this lane at Winterbourne in South Gloucestershire ...

... and also at nearby Monk's Pool Nature Reserve.

There were also cowslips still blooming in one of the meadows on Purdown beneath the BT tower.

Mostly, though, it's been a glorious month of cow parsley and wild garlic, both of which bloom in profusion at Badock's Wood, in the Trym gorge ...

... and in Hermitage Wood, high above the River Frome on Purdown.

Oh, and mustn't forget my favourite whitethorn, here also in Hermitage Wood ... 

... and further upstream on the Frome, at Winterbourne Down.

And, of course, lots of other flowers too ... 

row 1: cowslip; red campion; yellow mustard; ground ivy; whitethorn x 2; comfrey

row 2: greater stitchwort; wood avens; cuckoo flower (lady's smock); hedge mustard; dog rose; jack-by-the-hedge (garlic mustard); bluebells, yellow archangel, wild garlic; hemlock water dropwort

row 3: horse chestnut, whitethorn and cow parsley; green-winged orchid; rowan; forget-me-not; flag iris; lesser celandine; columbine; elder blossom

row 4: fringe cups; yellow archangel; buttercup and vetch; wood speedwell; wild strawberry; herb Robert; black mustard; alkanet

The squeeze-belly stile leading down to Wickham Glen was also beautifully dressed with cow parsley and alkanet ... 

... while downstream at Eastville Park lake, there were cygnets, ducklings, goslings, cootlings and, rather ominously, the local heron. 

Where there are lots of flowers, there are insects, but most of them far too flighty for me to take a photo of.

Fungi don't move around much, though there's not a lot about at present:

Good times for hoggin finding, though: last year's leaf litter is gone, mud is no longer an issue, other people are out walking and displacing soil, and spring showers make the ground soft enough to dig bits out:

On Halfpenny Bridge at Snuff Mills

Path at Vassalls Park

There was deep sadness one morning when I was walking at Blaise and found that a favourite tree - a sweet chestnut estimated to be between four and six hundred years old - had fallen in the four weeks since I'd last visited it. 

I'd got into the habit of photographing it every time I saw it: above, on the left hand side, is how it looked in November, March and early April. 

Nearby in the wood, there was another fallen tree - a beech - blocking the path ...

... and another in the woods at Winterbourne Down. It's been such a year for falling trees, with no signficant wind storms to cause it. I can only assume it's down to extremes of climate - a hot dry summer, followed by a very wet winter, followed by a dry spring.

Other sadnesses: a fallen bluetit and a fallen nest. 

More predated bluetit feathers here, along with an (early) moulted great spotted woodpecker tail feather, a goldfinch primary and a tawny owl secondary.

After the loss of one old friend, making the acquaintance of a new one - this magnificent, railing-eating oak in the woods at Bishop's Knoll - was a comfort. 

Old Sneed Park nature reserve

Old Sneed Park Lake

After the hurly-burly of spring, Cwtch and I are looking forward to summer, where you can wander along side paths and end up getting lost in woods you know perfectly well all the rest of the year. Bring on the peace of the deep, dark woods.