The Stackpole Centre is a National Trust group accommodation center and cottage in a unique landscape on the stunning south Pembrokeshire coast. We spent a family holiday here at the beginning of the summer holidays and found so many brilliant things to do.
The Stackpole Centre is a National Trust group centre and cottages on the stunning south Pembrokeshire coast. There are some lovely hostels in Pembrokeshire and The Stackpole Centre is the best located for a holiday around Tenby. We spent a family holiday here at the beginning of the summer holidays and found so many brilliant things to do.
The night we arrived the Tenby Male Voice Choir were having their annual BBQ at the Cresswell Arms at a quay on the Cresswell Estuary. This creeper-clad pub on the waterfront provided a great backdrop while the choir sang and the kids played on some stepping stones. Before the singing started the choir manned the BBQ selling hot dogs and burgers, so that was tea sorted. A great start to our holiday near Tenby.
The next day we discovered that Carew Castle, just 3 miles from yesterdays pub, was hosting a medieval village with period activities for the kids. We went along and for the cost of a few groats and a very good value entry fee we were all entertained all day. The castle is privately owned and there was a medieval knight in residence, claiming very realistically to be Sir Rhys Thomas the true descendant of the Lord of the castle. I still don’t know whether to believe him! Sir Rhys gave a tour of the castle and a demonstration of how to put on medieval armor. We wandered around the medieval tented village and the children used their groats to take part in medieval activities. They bought some dough from a hessian-clad lady who showed them how to plait it into medieval flat bread and baked it in her wood oven. They made a shield with a design of their own coats of arms and practiced writing with a quill. A few groats seemed to go a long way in that tented village on our holiday near Tenby.
Our castle entry tickets included entry to Cresswell Mill, five minutes’ walk down the river from the castle. Here we found a lady had opened her garden to make a café where we had welsh cakes and a lovely pot of tea. Cresswell Mill is a tidal mill and when we arrived the tide had just turned and the building was drumming with the power of the water. It had an excellent display and the children were very pleased with the activity books from the gift shop all about a holiday near Tenby. Walking back to the castle in the evening sun, the tide full in and huge banners fluttering from the castle tours, Carew castle looked tremendous. It looked alive and lived in.
The next day we headed to the pretty coastal town of Tenby, only 20 min drive from the Stackpole Centre. We parked in the south beach car park and walked along the sands to the harbour right in the heart of the town. The kids spotted a climbing wall in an old harbour building overlooking the sea. They were promoting “have-a-go sessions” and the two instructors couldn’t wait to pass on their love of climbing to our kids. Eventually, we extracted the children from the climbing wall and spent the day exploring. Tenby is a pretty seaside town with seaside shops, cafes, and pubs . It has two glorious beaches and boat trips to Caldi Island.
We stayed at the Stackpole Centre for nearly a week. We loved this area and really enjoyed our holiday. Despite the presences of numerous beaches, castles and coves along the coast we kept returning to Tenby and Carew Castle, and never exhausted their charms.