St David's Head, a seal pup and few quoits

No holiday cottage would be complete without a large collection of brochures, describing local attractions. Ours was no exception and rummaging through it on our first evening I found a colourful map of St David's.  I really should have photographed it, but many of my best ideas arrive in my head too late. Anyway, on this map, and close to St David's Head was a symbol like this:

That's a quoit," I confidently declared, and in my mind conjured up visions of quoits in Cornwall that I knew so well... such as this one:

Chun Quoit, in West Cornwall

These neolithic burial chambers – usually referred to as dolmens, but always quoits in Cornwall – are thought to originally have been covered with earth, at least as high as the cap stone. I used to think that the Cornish ones were best, until I came across this monster in France. (I refer, of course, to the stones and not the stunning individual beneath!)

In truth, structures like these may be found in many countries, and the time was surely right to seek out some Welsh ones.

The nearest car park to St David's Head is at Whitesands Bay.  I paid £5 for the privilege of joining the crowds, then headed off along the coast path. In the warm, late-afternoon sun the view back across St David's Bay was magnificent. That's Ramsey Island in the distance.

In a little cove I spotted this seal pup. Three days ago there was a distressing news story about beach-goers in Cornwall driving a pup like this back into the water, believing it to have been abandoned. DON'T DO IT!  Its mum's milk is extremely rich. She feeds her pup for about 3 weeks until it's good and fat, then deliberately leaves it on the foreshore to fend for itself.  Soon this little creature will shed its fluff, take to the water of its own volition and hopefully live a long and contented life.

Soon, high on the hillside ahead of me and silhouetted against the sky, I spotted the quoit. O dear, it had partially collapsed!

On closer inspection it did turn out to be rather splendid, though. Further investigation on the Internet revealed it to be the Coetan Arthur Dolmen, or Arthur's Quoit. Whether there is any connection with the Arthurian legends of Cornwall I know not.  Perhaps someone will enlighten me.

My fascination with quoits (or dolmens) had now truly been rekindled, so every brown road sign pointing to some ancient burial chamber was enthusiastically investigated. A couple of days later I came across this little beauty in a small grassy enclosure, beside a housing estate in Newport (Pembrokeshire's Newport, that is).  Again, there's a connection with the mysterious Arthur and I think it to be the nicest I've ever seen... well, perhaps the nicest after Chun Quoit!

Carreg Coetan Arthur

 The grand-daddy of them all is surely this one.

Guide books wax lyrical about Pentre Ifan, and rightly so.  The massive capstone is reckoned to weigh 16 tonnes. Theories abound as to its original purpose, but most probably it was a communal burial site. It's certainly very large for just one body; but then, so are the Egyptian pyramids! A nice alternative theory is that it never contained any bodies at all, but was simply built to impress. Five and a half thousand years after it's construction, it manifestly still does.