Hello again, this week the “Landsker Line”. This is reputedly, the imaginary line that separated the Welsh speaking community from the non-Welsh speakers in South West Wales, and stretched from St Brides Bay in the West to Laugharne in the East with villages and towns such as St Clears, Lampeter Velfrey, Narberth, Llawahaden, Wiston, Great Rudbaxton, Wolfescastle, Hayscastle and Roch all within the vicinity of this line. The English-speaking areas, known as Little England beyond Wales, are notable for having been English linguistically and culturally for many centuries despite being far from the border with England. During the 11th and 12th centuries both invaders and defenders built more than fifty castles during a complex period of conflict, effectively to consolidate the line. The southernmost was Laugharne; others included Wiston, Camrose, Narberth, and Roch. These are often referred to as “frontier castles” but they were in fact set back a considerable distance from the frontier itself. In the heart of the Normanised colony, the two great fortresses were at Pembroke and Haverfordwest. There were other fortresses within the colony as well, including Manorbier, Carew and Tenby. The Landsker line has changed position many times, first moving north into the foothills of Mynydd Preseli during the military campaigns of the Early Middle Ages, and then moving southwards again in more peaceful times, as the English colonists found that farming and feudalism were difficult to maintain on exposed hillsides. As mentioned above, the frontier moved between 1600 and today. Historic data on personal names also shows that it also moved between 1200 and 1600. There were attempts to set up a number of Norman/English “planned villages” (e.g. Letterston and New Moat) north of the current frontier in the medieval period. These subsequently failed, and were re-occupied by Welsh speakers in the post Black Death period. In more modern times, the enclosure of commons allowed a substantial southward spread of Welsh speakers, particularly in Carmarthenshire. These are quite rare examples of Welsh-speaking areas expanding at the expense of English-speaking areas; in the central part of Pembrokeshire the shift of the Landsker southwards between 1600 and 1900 was in excess of 10 km. Now many people think that the word “Landsker” is a Viking word, but it is in fact of Anglo-Saxon origin and means “a permanent, visible boundary between two tracts of land, and may be a natural feature (e.g. a river) or an artificial feature (e.g. a hedge or a line of marker stones).” The castles and features along this line are worth visiting as well as the areas to the South and North of the Landsker, FBM Holidays (www.fbmholidays.co.uk) have many self catering properties within easy reach of all the Castles and villages mentioned, so whatever your nationality, give both you and your children a history lesson and discover the rich historical heritage here in West Wales. DS