It was the pond that brought us here

I am sitting at the table in Trefalen farmhouse kitchen. It is the same as always. Dogs stretch across the tiled floor and there are coffee cups, biscuits, flowers, as well as the campsite reservation book, on the table. There is a rubber chicken on my knees, deposited by one of the dogs. A camper is on the phone, making a reservation for tonight. And a caravan is pulling up outside the ever open door.

      However I am not here today to borrow a tin opener or to bring a present of some newly picked radishes. On the kitchen table, in a space carefully cleared for them, is a pile of brown envelopes. The envelopes hold cuttings, photos and letters for me to explore. Because today I am going to learn more about Trefalen, and about how Lawrence and Marcia came to own a cliff top farmhouse, fifty acres of farmland , and a campsite.

     Trefalen Farm was, for centuries, the home of substantial tenant farmers, part of the Stackpole Estate .

The estate was sold to the National Trust in 1967, but Trefalen (then Trevallen) was bought by an electricity board pension fund. In the early 1990’s it was being farmed by the Davies family, Jim and Elma with their son Simon. Then the National Trust persuaded the electricity board to sell up. So the Davies family moved to Buckspool Farm, on the outskirts of Bosherston (from where Simon still farms forty acres of Trefalen). However nothing happened  for two or three years. The farm remained empty. And this is where the story of Lawrence and Marcia begins.

     It is Lawrence’s story to start with. He grew up further along the coast, in Pendine, son of the artist Arthur Giardelli, who had moved to Wales many years before. The family visited Broadhaven beach frequently.

    ‘There were no steps down to the beach then,’ says Lawrence, ‘just lots of little paths meandering down from the cliffs. But what I remember most is the farm with a duck pond. All I wanted was to live there on top of the cliffs and play in the duck pond.’

     Lawrence grew up and moved to London. But many years later, anxious now to return to Pembrokeshire, he spotted an advert in a local paper.  ‘Unique opportunity to purchase farmhouse with outbuildings in coastal location in Pembrokeshire National Park.'
‘I could only think of two possible places it might be. And one was my farm with the duck pond'.
      Here Marcia takes up the story.

     ‘It was the farm Lawrence remembered. But they told us it wasn’t for sale, that the National Trust still wanted it. They had even put a NT gate across the entrance. It was just that it hadn’t been paid for yet. But we travelled down from London just to peep through the downstairs windows. The kitchen was underwater but we put an offer in, and then forgot about it. Ages later we had a call. If we could exchange contracts within 28 days it was ours.’

     And somehow they did it. Within 28 days they had sold their house in London, and found themselves the owners of a run down, grey farmhouse with waist high grass, broken fences, a few unexpected campers and a kitchen full of water. But no pond.

     ‘The pond was used to wash the horses and the carts,’ explains Lawrence, ‘and when horses were replaced by tractors they tried to wash the tractor trailers in the pond. But they were too heavy and the wheels went through the clay bottom so gradually the pond began to drain.’

    ‘But,’ he added, ‘it was the pond that brought me here and the pond was the first thing I set out to rescue.'

     So the pond is back, just inside the farm gates; dark and tranquil, overhung by trees, covered in water lilies. The house, camouflaged during the war, is white again. And the farm buildings have been restored. Trefalen is once again a white farm with a pond on a cliff top.

     But it is more than that. Go into the farmhouse today, or wander around the farm, and everywhere there is evidence of past lives. The ty bach (little house) with its two seats, one each for child and parent, is still there, though now home to my garden tools. The stables are still there, though now doubling as Elly's workshop. And the two Flemish chimneys, so useful in the days of smuggling, are still there. Trefalen Cottage, admired by so many for its unique shape, is built around what was originally the outside of the  second chimney. 

     And then there are the bobbaloobies. But that is another story.