Tenby & Lydstep Head, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, Autumn
After a morning spent carefully watching the weather apps, it was time to venture out.
Southwest of Wales one can find the historical port town of Tenby, or Dinbych-y-pysgod (“Fortlet of the fish”) to give its proper Welsh name. While we drove through the lashing rain, we arrived at Tenby in relatively dry conditions, wandering around the town and its beaches as the clouds gradually lifted and broke apart.
With the light getting better and better, we drove a further ten minutes southwest to Lydstep Head, a new location for us, to check out the area’s fabled cliffs.
Boy it did not disappoint.
Photos taken on my Fujifilm X-T2 using my Vivitar “Series 1” 28–105mm f2.8–3.8 zoom and Laowa 9mm f2.8 prime lenses. RAWs converted in Capture One for iPad then developed and finalised in Affinity Photo for iPad.
Tenby & Lydstep Head, Pembrokeshire, South Wales, Autumn by Ian Cylkowski is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Tenby
St. Catherine’s Island is a tidal island, just off Tenby’s south beach. It’s home to St. Catherine’s Fort, a Palmerston Fort constructed in the 19th century, in response to concerns about an imminent invasion from Emperor Napoleon III of France. Since the 1960s the Fort has stood empty, owned by no-one, though there are community initiatives to accommodate visits and tours.
This is the old Lifeboat Station, built in 1905 and superseded by the newer one just round the corner of Castle Hill in 2008. The old Lifeboat Station is now a private residence. Can you imagine?
As we continued to round the shoulder of Castle Hill the clouds above broke up and lifted. This allowed glorious autumnal sunlight to start emerging onto the scene, highlighting the beautiful coloured buildings of Tenby.
Tenby Harbour, enjoying a lot more sun as the clouds were lifting and breaking. Such a wonderful Welsh coastal scene.
Gosker Rock, which stands conspicuously all on its own on Tenby’s north beach.
Back on Tenby’s south beach, conditions were really starting to get epic. Time to head back to the car and find the cliffs of Lydstep Head.
Lydstep Head
On Lydstep Head, passing squalls quickly dowsed us in rain before carrying on across the sea. Their cloud formations made for epic compositions. I stacked 5 frames on top of each to shoot this photo of the cliffs at Lydstep Point with the rain clouds being lit up in the distance.
East from Lydstep Head another squall dropped a load of rain on top of Caldey Island. I zoomed in for a tighter composition of this fantastic phenomenon.
I mean, wow. The vertical cliff pictured here is Whitesheet Rock, with its dramatic vertical folds. Lots of Pembrokeshire’s coastline is comprised of limestone, which can often produce incredulous rock and karst formations.
A tighter composition of Whitesheet Rock. It doesn’t seem possible that cliff formations can look like this.
The other side of Whitesheet Rock above the aquamarine waters of Lydstep Haven.
Getting some of these compositions around Lydstep Head’s cliffs were some of the most challenging tasks I’ve ever done. The winds coming across the sea were funnelled through and around the geography of the area, creating blusters of 50+ mph. For a lot of these photos, I pretty much had to “spray and pray” to ensure I got something.
Powerful winds force the sea to crash against and around the cliffs of Lydstep Head, as they have surely done for millennia. Who knows what these magnificent cliffs will look like in another thousand years?
Much of Lydstep Head is owned and maintained by the National Trust. Period regenerative grazing occurs here, but closer to the cliffs the land is largely left to do what it will in the elements.
A slow-moving squall sits above Caldey Island in the distance whilst the sun drench the Lydstep cliffs with warm late-afternoon light as powerful winds blast the sea at the seemingly impossible cliffs.
Beyond Lydstep Head to the west, the Pembrokeshire Coastal Path continues over and above the cliffs. That will have to wait for another day.
For this day, circumnavigating Lydstep Head in glorious light and epic conditions was more than enough for the day.