DE BARRI TOMB, MANORBERE.
Gerald de Barri was gathered to his fathers, at a ripe old age, in the year 1220. He is reputed to have been buried in St. Davids Cathedral; where at least one tomb is pointed out as the last resting-place of this great ecclesiastic.
Little is recorded of the subsequent history of Manorbere Castle. The place appears to have been abandoned at an early period; its hanging woods and vineyards were abandoned to decay, whilst its dismantled walls and subterranean vaults harboured bands of lawless freebooters, who haunted these coasts a century ago. Wild work went forward at Manorbere in those half-forgotten days. It is related how a certain famous smuggler, notorious for his desperate enterprises, eluded the vigilance of the revenue men by running his vessel ashore near the headland ycleped the Priest's Nose; and conveying his illicit cargo, under cover of night, to the cellars with which the neighbourhood abounded.
Rousing ourselves at length from these cogitations on the sandhills, we put the best foot foremost and hie away past a spring of pure water known as the Druid's Well, to the sunny slopes of that selfsame Priest's Nose. Scrambling warily amidst brakes of prickly furze, we presently espy a mighty cromlech standing in a nook of the hill, beside the narrow path. A soft westerly breeze draws in 'gently, very gently from the sea,' as we perch beside this relic of the immemorial past; wafting the scent of wild thyme and gorse over warm, crisp turf that shimmers beneath the lusty summer sunshine. Hence unfolds yet another charming view of the gray old castle, set amidst a breadth of feathery woodland that clusters under the lee of the sheltering hill. A turn of the head reveals the varied line of coast stretching away, league upon league, past the groves of Stackpole to the bluff, perpendicular landfall of St. Govan's Head.
Returning to quarters by another route we fetch a wide compass round; pursuing the path that hugs the shore, which, hereabouts, is indented by several fissures of very peculiar character. A short distance beyond the cromlech we encounter the first of these; a chasm so narrow that a boy might leap across it, yet of imposing depth, with sides as smooth and perpendicular as any house wall, and floored with the seething ocean.
The Church Path Manorbere
A quarter of a mile farther on we strike a little way inland, to investigate a still more remarkable lusus naturæ of a similar kind. Here the insidious onslaught of the waves has tunnelled beneath the intervening cliff, and penetrated far into the land; excavating a dark, narrow, and profound fissure in the perpendicular strata of the Old Red sandstone; so that, gazing seaward through the cleft, we can see the foaming surf sparkling in the sunlight upon the rocks beyond. Thence we extend our ramble to Castle Head, a rocky point jutting boldly out to sea, and scarped with the broad, fern-clad furrows of a prehistoric earthwork. This appears to have been the stronghold of some invader from over seas; for the protecting banks curve inland, and, sweeping down to the rocks on either hand, enclose the outer extremity of the headland. Secured thus against attack upon their landward flank, the occupants were protected in rear by the broad expanse of the 'inviolate ocean,' whose restless billows, surging far below, mingle their music in wild harmony with the harsh cries of countless sea-fowl.