This Sunday, 13th April, we are having a ride out to St Fagans. We will be leaving the new café (ex Little Chef) on the A420 next to the BP garage just North of Faringdon at 9-15 am.  The post code is SN7 8PY, but this is about 1km North of our start point.

We will be stopping at a Monmouth pub for a drink and a break.

Car parking at Monmouth and St Fagans is free, but St Fagans ask for a voluntary contribution in a box in the entrance hall.  You do not have to make a contribution if you do not want to.  There is food to take away hunger pains, but not what I would call a meal.  So take sandwiches if you really want to eat well.  There are several places where tea and coffee are available.

St Fagans has many old, relocated buildings that give a nostalgic feel.  Several mills, a fine painted church, a chapel, a working men’s club, a Victorian farmhouse (that is on its original site) that has been set up for the Edwardian period and many other older buildings.  There is an interesting terrace of houses where each of the 6 or so houses has been decorated in successive periods about 30 years apart.  People might remember prefabs; those small steel houses built to last about 20 years after the second world war.  They have one of these.  And they also have an environmental house.  Funnily enough this is seeming rather dated now, although it is the most modern building there.

The site started with a huge house, or I suppose that it is a mansion, which is at one end of the site.  This has a large garden with green houses.

Anyway, if you are not trying to keep up with Rob on his Bournemouth weekend, you will be most welcome to take the back roads to South Wales, then the  Heads of the Valley road, and down to St Fagans (just North West of Cardiff).