Bog Myrtle & Peat

It was cold and I was lonely on the day I went to Strata Florida, and I couldn’t believe it would take so long to get there. The visitor centre was shut for the winter, and mine was the only car parked by the entry to the ruins of the old cathedral. I got out, and all my well-kept warmth poured out from the open door.

There was snow on the ground, and flat light reduced the surrounding hills to a drab diorama. It’s a small, unlikely place to plant a religious centre; near the top of a glen at a fork in two streams. As I looked back towards the village, I saw hedges lying one on top of the other, superseded by belts of dark, loveless trees which ran to a sudden, overhanging skyline. Strata Florida means “vale of flowers”, but there was nothing like nectar in those coldly brightened fields. 

There’s not much left to see of the cathedral, and that dereliction heightened my sense of being alone. With company, we could have checked the echoes by talking; another person might have seen something I missed. By myself, I felt small beneath the bulk of the grand medieval doorway, then lost in a tangle of wall-remains and the gravestones of medieval knights. This used to be a significant site, but it’s nothing now. The stones have been taken away to build new and more urgently needed things; what’s left are only memories which ring differently when they aren’t your own. I was glad to learn about the bard Dafydd ap Gwilym and Prince Gruffydd ap Rhys II, but it wasn’t love at first sight.

I left one set of footprints in the snow. My breath cooled above the coloured, patterned tiles which were recently uncovered on the chapel floors. They’ve put a roof over these tiles to protect them from the weather, and there’s a wooden bar to stop people walking upon them. I leant far over the bar and took some photographs of a dragon and a harpy which offered only small disclosures of this building’s former greatness. There was nobody to stop me bending beneath the bar and taking a closer look, but I didn’t. And after twenty minutes, I left.

Later as I crossed the Cambrian Mountains and descended into the Elan Valley, I wondered if the snow would catch me. It was certainly lying deeper in the hills than it had lain at Strata Florida, and flecks of slush were spattering noisily on the sump. I began to frighten myself with the possibility of sliding off the road, and the threat felt greater because I was alone. I drove for miles without passing another car; I crossed great plains of grassland and rushes, where even the sheep seemed close to an edge. I forced myself into courage I didn’t feel, stable for so long as I kept on moving. 

Then a slow descent to Rhayader, where I stopped in the town to gather something for lunch. There was no point finding somewhere nice to sit down and read menus, though several options beckoned. It made better sense to eat in the car on the way to somewhere else. My boots crunched the rocksalt on the pavement; I made bright conversation with shop assistants, and then I gave myself permission to leave again. 

So now I can say that I’ve been to Strata Florida and Rhayader in a single day. Neither stand out so noisily as the absences I found in both places, and the drifted space which lay between them. 

Picture: Medieval tiles at Strata Florida, photographed 24/1/2