A Wandering Botanist: Travel Story--More of Wales

Sunday, October 19, 2025

Travel Story--More of Wales

When I wrote a blog post about my visit to Wales a couple weeks ago (link), it got long before I had shared the full trip. Here are more pictures from Wales, starting at about Cardigan and continuing southward.

the countryside in Wales

Another view of the countryside, it was very scenic.

We turned inland to see a restored Iron Age hill fort, Castell Henllys. I love archaeology so had lots of questions. Apparently the people who built the fort worked iron that they traded for--one of the buildings was a smithy. My photo doesn't show it but there was a berm, at one time topped by a wooden wall, on three sides and a very steep drop on the fourth, so it was well-protected.

Iron Age hill fort, reconstructed

The guides talked how the huts were constructed, with big trees forming a framework under the thatch, and clever design at the top so that smoke went out but rain didn't come in, and more. Another hut was believed to have been food storage and kept stored grain off the ground, safe from mice (rats reached England after the Iron Age) and especially mold and mildew. I could have spent hours there, and previously, I had no idea I had any interest in the Iron Age.

food storage building

We got there by a pleasant walk through a forest. My tour did not include much in forest walks, mainly mountain and coastal vistas, but I think Wales has many pretty glades to explore.

Welsh forest

This was more typical of what I saw, a pasture with sheep

It was September but lots of things were flowering, from roses in people's gardens to roadside weeds. I saw dandelions (Taraxacum vulgare) but several other yellow composites (plants in the Asteraceae family) were common as well. This is smooth hawksbeard, Crepis capillaris. Like dandelions they close when it is cool and gray, so were inconspicuous until the sun came out.

smooth hawksbeard, Crepis capillaris

This is the California poppy, Eschscholzia californica (poppy family, Papaveraceae), native to North America, having escaped from cultivation.

California poppy, Eschscholzia californica on a Welsh road

At the Nevern Church, huge old yews (Taxus bacata) surrounded the church and shaded a very old cemetary. I had read of church yews, originally pagan but appreciated and conserved by the Christians, so it was cool to see them. Lots of trees had mystical connections throughout human history. Yews are evergreen and the only evergreen which can resprout after being cut, so were doubly honored as representing eternal life.

ancient yews

It is hard to make the size clear in a photo, here is the trunk of one (2x the reach of my arms in circumference).

ancient yew, Taxus bacata

We stopped at the National Wool Museum, whcih honored the long history of Wales' woollen industry. The museum had saved some of the machines from the 18th century, crude by modern standards, but very advanced compared to spinning and weaving in a farmer's house. The loom below is from the early 1800s and Museum weaves the cloth that they sell on it. They were warping it while we were there, showing us more than a thousand very long threads rolled on cones behind the loom.

19th century loom

I was particularly interested in the teasel carder. I had read that up into the 20th century nothing was better than the seed heads of fullers' teasel (Dipsacus fullonum) for raising a knap on a piece of weaving, making it softer and more even. Here is the machine with seed head after seed head packed in rows to be combed across the newly woven wool. Even today some high end wool products are teased with the plant seed heads. (See my post on teasel link)