Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

My broadband connection has been running like a dog today but near as I can figure it, the most likely answers seem to me to be:

Q1. Newcastle Emlyn

Q2. The Sagranus Stone

(N.B. For question one, I found several references which claim that the first legal printing press in Wales was situated in the village of Adpar but reading about the place, it seems to have been assimilated into and is now considered to be part of the town of Newcastle Emlyn. The Eastender Himself is taking a punt on Newcastle Emlyn being the correct answer)

The initial clues place us once more in Wales, specifically, the town of Newcastle Emlyn. I found several references which claim that the first legal printing press in Wales, was installed in Adpar (now a district of Newcastle Emlyn) by a gentleman called Isaac Carter (c1718/1719). Newcastle Emlyn sits on the river Teifi, which at 75 miles, is believed to be the longest river in Wales.

Travelling west/north west from there brings us to a village called Cilgerran, where there is a castle, which appears, from the pictures I found of it, to have two towers and was allegedly built sometime during the 12th century (first mentioned in texts published c1164). Seven miles west/south west of Cilgerran, lies the site of Nevern castle (be careful not to pick Castell Henllys here, this is an iron age hillfort with a replica iron age village on it). Nevern castle was built by some good ol' Normans and was fought over by them, more than JR and Bobby Ewing fought over Southfork. William Fitzmartin and his father in law, Lord Rhys, were in dispute over ownership of the castle for years and Hywel Sais, a son of Lord Rhys, is alleged to have torn the place down in 1195.

The village of Nevern is situated within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and the church in Nevern was founded by a St Brynach (feast day 7th April) c6th century. The Eastender Himself had to look up what a 'Portal Dolmen' was, seems to be a crude megalithic burial structure made with three flat rocks standing perpendicular to the ground and a capstone laid flat on top. The one the puzzle author is describing, is most likely Pentre Ifan, which is around two miles south east of Nevern. Judging from the size of it, someone very big must have been buried there (Readers are advised that such tombs often contain barrow wights and barrow zombies and that these can follow you home and become almost as much of a pest as people who stalk celebrities).

Journeying seven miles north east from Pentre Ifan brings us to a dorp called St Dogmaels. Two miles east of there is the town of Cardigan where a gardening broadcaster called David Clay Jones was born c1923. The ruined abbey is called St Dogmaels, named after the sixth century saint (feast day June 14th). The church next to the ruined abbey, (which I believe is called St Thomas's) contains a Rosetta stone like object, which is inscribed with script written in both Latin and Ogham. Ogham is an ancient twenty character alphabet, believed to be Irish/Pictish in origin and seems to me to be even harder to read and write, than both kinds of Armenian (eastern and western). The stone is called 'The Sagranus Stone'.

Our friends down the road at Kaledo Jewellery have asked us to give them a plug, the Eastender Himself has no problem with this, as he believes that business is business. There are some very high quality artisan silver products for sale there. See link:

Kaledo Jewelley

The artisan's blog can be viewed here, for those of you who are interested in seeing how such beautiful things are made:

Kaledo Jewellery Blog

Link to Sunday Times Competition:

Sunday Times Where Was I?