The walk begins in St Thomas's Square, originally an area of common land owned by the freemen of the borough. In 1285 Edward I granted the Lord of Dryslwyn permission to hold a fair and market in the town, and by 1800 there were eight fairs a year trading in horses, cattle, sheep, and pigs.
The weekly market is still held here, though it is a far cry from the 18th century when corn, butter, cheese, and poultry were bought and sold amidst dogs and rats raking through piles of refuse, and the destitute wandering between haggling traders bearing on their right sleeves the badge of pauper 'L.P.' (Lampeter Poor).
The High Street, dominated by the Victorian Town Hall and St Peter's Church, has been a bustling thoroughfare for centuries. It was the main drovers' road to England, and inns and alehouses sprang up along the route, with town life coloured by bloody frays, assaults, drunkenness, and blaspheming. Retribution was swift — six hours in the stocks cooled most tempers, and the whipping post near the town hall was a source of endless entertainment.
St David's University College (now part of the University of Wales) was founded in 1822 by Bishop Burgess, the Bishop of St Davids, for the education of the clergy, and was granted a charter to confer Bachelor of Arts degrees in 1863.
The earliest buildings on the site are the Neo-Gothic chapel and the student accommodation set around a quadrangle with a fountain. The secluded beauty of the college setting on the banks of the River Dulas provides an intimate and peaceful academic atmosphere.
The mound to the east of the quadrangle is a Norman motte and bailey thought to have been built by King Stephen. Destroyed in 1137 and subsequently rebuilt in 1403, it survived the guerrilla warfare of Owain Glyndŵr.
Leaving Lampeter behind, the route leads up through Mount Pleasant Wood, a mixed woodland of beech, oak, larch, and Douglas firs. Among the birds found here are coal tits, willow tits, marsh tits, long-tailed tits, bullfinches, greenfinches, and redstarts (instantly recognisable by their fiery red tails).
Castell Allt-goch, at just over 800 feet (240 metres) above sea level, is an impressively sited fort defended by two enclosed banks and ditches. Within these ramparts, circular huts with thatched roofs and walls of basketwork wattle or rough stone would have provided shelter for a people who spoke the Brythonic language, a forerunner of Welsh.
The way back downhill follows the route along which their farm carts once trundled over deeply rutted tracks.
The lane from Llanfair Clydogau that returns you to the town runs parallel with the River Teifi — a famous trout and salmon river rising in the mountains to the north-east. Light beech hedges entwined with honeysuckle and wild roses line the lane, and on their banks grow foxgloves, campions, violets, woundwort, and stitchwort. On entering Lampeter, a little to the south of the path at Pont Stephen, is the confluence of the two rivers: Teifi and Dulas.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
