When you are walking around the 70-square-mile Gower Peninsula in South Wales, the first place in the UK to be officially designated as a National Landscape (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) in 1956, which is one below National Park status, your thoughts are not just occupied by the coastal scenery, the limestone flora, the crashing waves, the coves and long beaches, the wild horses and ponies and the black-suited cormorants clustered on the cliffs like deacons discussing the sermon after chapel. They are mainly on how you will reward yourself at the end of your walk along the Welsh Coastal Way.
100-year-old ice cream, Cawl Welsh lamb stew or fruit crumble and custard?
Your vision of the finishing line will revolve around tubs of Joe’s ice cream: raisin and rum, Oreo, Malteser, cherry sorbet or Welsh cake or maybe a caramel fudge ice cake.
The first thing you eat or drink after a long walk tastes like the best thing in the world.
Joe’s Ice Cream was founded in 1922 by Joe Cascarini whose family arrived from Abruzzi 40 years earlier, had opened a café in Swansea to feed Italian migrant workers. Joe’s has taken over from seaweed or lava tread, once described as “the only edible cow pat in the world”. Joe’s ice cream is now the gastronomic delight of the Gwyr. As well as saltmarsh lamb.
The rewards of staying at the Oxwich Bay Hotel are also gastronomic. There, you can reward yourself with not only the largest cheeseboard in Wales and perhaps the world but also the best fruit crumble in Wales, if not the world.
If you get the bay-facing Three Cliffs (Tri Chlogwyn) room, you also get the best view from a bedroom and one of the best post-walk collapse-and-recover locations. Anywhere.
Traditionally, with its Viking named Worm’s Head (Pen Pyrod in Welsh) headland, wildflower meadows, the remains at low tide of the 1887 Helvitia and stories of the Great Gower Gold Rush when gold coins washed ashore from the wrecked Dollar which was allegedly carrying the dowry of Catherine of Braganza, the wife of Charles 11. Views from Rhosili Down across to West Wales, Lundy Island and the North Devon coastline, Rhossili beach – stretching from Spaniard Rocks and Burry Holms – gains all the plaudits.
But 2.5 miles in length, Oxwich Bay is its unsung rival. At its eastern end are the Three Bay cliffs of High Tor and Pobbles after which other Old Rectory rooms in the Oxwich Bay Hotel are named. You can also stay in pods in the Secret Garden, Ivy Cottage or a static holiday home. It is a very popular wedding venue.
The hotel is set in the Oxwich National Nature Reserve, which is a unique mix of beaches, woodlands, cliffs and salt and freshwater lakes. It is also the home of rare plants such as the dune gentian and round-leafed wintergreen and insects like the small blue beachcomber beetle and wetland birds such as water rail and little grebe as well as the occasional wintering bittern. Go in January and February and you will have the place to yourself. As well as a few hardy surfers and lucky dogs and dog walkers.
The former rectory was built in around 1788. In 1958 the Williams family opened the Cliffside B&B which in 1988 became The Cliffside Hotel with a small restaurant for residents only. Its name changed to the Oxwich Bay Hotel in 1975. It is now owned by Ian Williams and open all-year-round.
The Chesnut Room’s fireplace is set into the trunk of chestnut tree brought from the Frampton Court Estate in Gloucestershire. The large tree that runs across the room was felled from the local Penrice Estate which extends from Horton to Oxwich.
Just 13 miles from Swansea and an hour from Cardiff Airport, Oxwich is a village of traditional, white-walled fishermen’s cottages, an old post office and thatched cottages, one of which was allegedly stayed in by the preacher, John Wesley,
How many beaches in Wales have a shorefront Michelin-star restaurant? Rhossili doesn’t. Chef Hywell Griffiths’ the Beach House Restaurant is open only during the summer.
There is a public footpath along the coast from Oxwich Bay around Oxwich Point to Port Eynon Bay and onto Rhossili, starting at St Illtyd’s Church by the hotel.
Named after a prominent figure in the early history of the Catholic Church in Wales who was born in the 5th century, it is largely medieval. The tower and its bell date from the 14th century. The ancient font was allegedly brought here by St Illtyd himself in the 6th century. Near the altar are two effigies made of local sand and plaster. They occupy a recess known as “Doolamur’s Hole”.
According to local tradition, the armed knight and his lady represent members of the De la Mere family of Oxwich Castle who drowned in Oxwich Bay in the early 14th century. Some historians say the armour suggest 15th century and may depict Sir John Penrees (d.1410), who reinforced Llansteffan Castle during Owain Glyndŵr’s rebellion.
A well in the upper churchyard dried up long ago. It was believed to be haunted. A ghostly white horse known as a ceffyl dŵr (water horse) used to be seen in the churchyard before jumping into the well.
Port Eynon is the most southerly point on Gower and is thought to be named after an 11th century Welsh Prince. Once there was a booming trade in oyster fishing, limestone quarrying, lobstering and crabbing as well as smuggling.
Illicit brandy is no longer hidden under the church altar or in the nearby Culver Hole which may have been created by the little people of the Gower, the Tylwyth Tag.
Now families rock pool in its huvvers and scarras. And queue for fish ‘n’ chips and ice cream at The Seafarer.
The oldest buried human remains in Britain were found in 1824 on Gŵyr. Dating back more than 30,000 years, the red ochre-daubed bones called the Red Lady of Paviland actually turned out to be a man.
The entire Gower Peninsula walking route, starting from Gowerton, covers over 80km of spectacular coastline before finishing in Swansea Bay. It takes in Weobley, Pennard and Oxwich castles, the Mumbles, Langland Bay, Caswell Bay, Broughton Bay, Ivy Tor, Turba, Overton Mere, Paviland Caves, Pwlldu Head, Pwll Du, Yellow Top, Mewslade Bay and the oyster catchers and eider duck piping in the Llanrhidian marches.
Legend has it that Arthur’s cromlech was thrown by him from the other side of the Lougher estuary after he found it in his shoe.
There’s also a strong folk tradition on Gŵyr, best experienced at the Gower Folk Festival in June.
Whichever route you take and whatever direction you go, there will always be a Joe’s waiting for you at your journey’s end.
The Gower is not all about plunging cliffs, bellowing blowholes and large expanses of heather, gorse and sand. It is also about large tubs of freshly churned vanilla ice cream. With vermicelli sprinkles.
Or, if you go to the Oxwich Bay Hotel, chef Phillipa Barnett’s tasty handiwork and very welcome, very generous portions.
For more information on exploring Wales, please visit: www.visitwales.com.
Author Bio:
Kevin Pilley is a former professional cricketer and chief staff writer of PUNCH magazine. His humour, travel, food and drink work appear worldwide, and he has been published in over 800 titles.
Photographs courtesy of Visit Wales and Oxwich Bay Hotel
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