May 9 - The Last Invasion of Britain

Today was one of those serendipitous days that you can’t ever predict will happen.  I had booked a tour to Carew Castle and Tenby for this morning.  When I got up it was gray and drizzling and the thought of walking through an old castle with slippery, worn stone walkways was unappealing.  I decided to ditch the tour and take the tender ashore and visit the little town of Fishguard, Wales where we landed. It turned out to be a splendid decision.

From the tender there was a shuttle to take us to the center of town.  On the bus there was a charming local man who volunteers to meet us tourists and tell us a little about the place. He was fascinating and the story of the town’s moment in the history books is wonderful so you’re going to hear it all.

In 1797 the French and British were fighting and Napoleon dispatched warships carrying about 1400 troops to land and capture Bristol (where we docked yesterday). The wind didn’t cooperate with the French fleet and they wound up sailing into Fishguard Bay, our port today. The local fort fired its one and only cannon and cannonball as an alarm to the local townsfolk.  The French thought they were meeting stiff resistance so they withdrew and instead landed at a nearby beach in the village  of LLanwnda (good Welsh name).  The French soldiers were a ragtag bunch of mainly recently released jailbirds (Napoleon had his best troops fighting on the continent).  So, when the French came ashore and began plundering the surrounding town and houses they found lots of food and wine and proceeded to get very drunk. A local woman named Jemima Nicholas, who was a cobbler, came down to see what the furor was about dressed in a red cape and a black top hat carrying a pitchfork. She looked so fearsome to some of the drunken French soldiers that she managed to round up 12 of them and march them off to be locked up in the church in Fishguard.  Then she sent word out to the surrounding farms that the women should dress in their red cloaks and black hats, which happened to be everybody’s Sunday best clothing, and stand on the hills above the beaches.  From the French ships the women looked like British soldiers, or at least their drunken state led them to believe that, so after two days the French surrendered.  In the surrender agreement signed in the Royal Oak Pub in Fishguard, the French commander referred to the "several thousand British troops of the line" coming to meet them in battle.  And so ended the last invasion of Britain in February, 1797.

About 15 years before the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Fishguard the townspeople decided to do something to commemorate the event.  They decided to make a tapestry like the Bayeux Tapestry recounting William the Conqueror’s invasion.  Over the next 13 years with the help of an artist who was from the area originally they designed and then stitched a 100-foot tapestry telling the story.  Seventy-three women stitched 41 panels using 154 different colors of threads depicting the events of the invasion.  The pieces were carefully assembled and are on display in the town hall in Fishguard.

A few of the panels of the tapestry.  Look at the detail that these ladies stitched.

Jemima's outfit that threw off the French

Paul, the delightful guide, who told me the whole story next to a plaque with the names of the stitchers

The shuttle bus dropped me off near the town hall and I went up to see this marvel in the second-floor museum.  The guide was a lovely man named Paul and he told me all about it.  I was the only visitor there at the time and he walked along with me as I looked at the beautiful work that had been done.  There was a figure wearing Jemima’s red cloak and hat by the door as well as a portrait of her. They had a marvelous video recounting the creation of the tapestry and the group effort it took.  There were also photos of King Charles, who was then Prince of Wales, and Princess Anne coming for the anniversary celebration.

Across the street is the Royal Oak Pub festooned with British flags and a sign above the doorway declaring it the site of the signing of the peace treaty.  Next to the pub is a monument to the soldiers from Fishguard lost in WWI and WWII with all their names listed and on a wall next to the monument is a wall covered with wreaths of poppies with the logos of local organizations that contribute  to and maintain  the monument.  The British always do a marvelous job remembering the men they lost fighting for Britain and the phrase "lest we forget" is etched in their souls.  Close by was the St. Mary's, the church in which Jemima locked up the French soldiers. It was small but very pretty and I liked the dark wood. The stained glass windows were newer than the church and commemorated the Battle of Fishguard.

The Town Hall where the tapestry is housed

The Royal Oak Pub where the French surrendered

Memorial to those who perished in the two world wars

St. Mary's Church

The town was quaint and the people were delightful.  I sat on a wall waiting for the shuttle after my walkabout.  An elderly lady came along with a bag with some groceries on her way home from shopping.  She sat down next to me and we had a lovely chat about the coronation and her life in Fishguard and mine in Virginia.  After a while she said she needed to go and told me she had just bought some thick pork chops and was going home to cook them along with some "Pembrokeshire new potatoes and runner beans" she had put up last fall.  

These are two views from the town.  The first is a little fishing village below and thee second is a view of the bay and our ship in the mid-distance. Can you tell I fell in love with this place?

I missed seeing a castle but I think my day was much better having heard the story from Paul and chatting about life in this little welsh town with the nice lady whose name happened to be Anna.