St Govan's Chapel, Pembrokeshire, Wales

 

St Govan’s Chapel is a tiny stone building (20 x 12 feet, 6.1 m × 3.7 m) perched in a ravine in the cliffs overlooking the sea at St Govan’s Head, Pembrokeshire, Wales. It is believed to date from the 5^th century.

Nobody is quite sure who St Govan was. Some people believe that he was a disciple of St David, while others that he was a thief who became a convert. There are also theories that he was actually a woman who was the wife of a 5th century chief, and even that he was King Arthur’s knight Sir Gawain who spent the rest of his life as a hermit after Arthur’s death.

There are several legends and strange beliefs associated with the chapel. One of them concerns the stone-cut staircase that leads down to the chapel – this is that the number of steps is different depending on whether you are going up them or down!

Inside the chapel there is a vertical cleft in the rock which, according to legend, first miraculously opened to conceal St Govan from his enemies. The rock closed behind him and did not reopen until the danger had passed. A wish made while standing in the cleft and facing the wall will be granted provided that you do not change your mind before turning round.

Just below the chapel is St Govan’s healing well and the red clay in the cliffs has been credited with the power to heal sore eyes.

Whether or not one believes any of the stories associated with the chapel it is well worth a visit for a view of the dramatic limestone cliffs and the sea crashing against them at their base.

© John Welford

Chiswick House, London

 

Built by 3rd Earl of Burlington in 1725-9, Chiswick House is a magnificent villa modelled on Palladio’s villa rotunda at Vicenza in Italy. It is situated in West London and surrounded by urban areas, but was originally designed as a country villa.

The perfectly formed neo-classical exterior is complemented by spectacular plaster ceilings by William Kent.

The Earl did not actually live in Chiswick House, but in an adjacent Jacobean mansion (demolished in 1758), using the Villa for displaying his works of art and entertaining his friends, who included poets Alexander Pope and Jonathan Swift, and the composer George Frideric Handel.

The Villa was inherited in 1753 by the fourth Duke of Devonshire and in 1788 the fifth Duke commissioned James Wyatt to add wings to the north and south. These were demolished in 1952.

In 1892 the eighth Duke moved to Chatsworth in Derbyshire and the house became a private mental home.

In 1928 it was bought by Middlesex County Council and is now in the care of English Heritage.

The gardens and grounds, which lead down to the River Thames, were originally adorned with a whole host of follies, statues and other additions. Many of these have disappeared over the years, but what remains include an Ionic temple, a Doric column, statues of Caesar, Pompey and Cicero, two obelisks, a cascade, an avenue of urns and sphinxes, a rustic house, a deer house, a bridge built by James Wyatt in 1788, and a large conservatory attributed to Joseph Paxton.

© John Welford