One of the places we visited today on our vacation in South West Wales was Haverfordwest Priory.
Like many such buildings dating from that time, it is now a ruin, although a very pretty one.
It lies alongside the banks of Western Cleddau, a river that runs through the large town of Haverfordwest.
Its on a large site not that far form the town centre and is maintained by CADW - a Welsh government department, setup for the protection of Welsh historic sites.
It dates from around the 12th century, so is clocking in at around 800 years old now. It must have been a magnificent site in its day, and according to the information boards that were there, it became quite a wealthy place in its time.
Then along came Henry the 8th, who in the 16th century dissolved the monasteries after he fell out with the Vatican over one of his numerous requests to remarry. That was the end for the priory. He would have stripped it of its wealth, and then had it pulled down ! He wasnt a nice guy !
You can still see the cloistered square quite clearly.
The cloister appeared to have had some kind of ditch running around it as well - maybe for drainage.
The building had some quite large arched windows. And you can see the square holes at the top which would have held the wooden beams that would have supported the floor above.
The original garden has been excavated and is being re-used, which is quite nice.
It is situated in a really lovely site, but the info board says when the land was gifted to the order it was quite poor and prone to flooding.
As can be seen above, its quite a pretty river too. And interestingly one of the closest other things to the priory is the skate park, which is over the river and up a bit !
It was a really lovely site to visit, and its free to enter. As can be seen the weather today was lovely, but tomorrow we are forecasted to have lots of rain and high winds ! A storm is coming in from the Atlantic - so we'll see how well we fare on our vacation tomorrow !
