Into the West

Pennsylvania was the old name for this tiny deserted settlement on the edge of the land: Pennsylvania was the destination to which its dwellers aspired  but whether they reached it in reality or only in their dreams is not recorded.
It seems that in the 17th century religious non-conformists, Quakers in all likelihood, settled in this far foothold to escape persecution. Turning their backs on the land, they set their sights on the new world, in particular the Welsh settlements in Pennsylvania where religious tolerance would allow them freedom of worship.
Now a cluster of ruins is all that remains. A few people hung on here until the early 20th century, scratching a living from the poor soil, working for a pittance on local farms and fishing, somehow, from the cliff-girt bay called Y Gesail Fawr (The Big Armpit)  below, by shooting a line across the inlet and dragging the bait across.  The catch was dog-fish which the women would hawk in the streets of nearby St David's.
The rough track that passed the cottages was known as The Road to Philadelphia (or New York). The hamlet was so isolated that the doctor could only visit on horseback and when typhoid fever struck there was little hope for the victims. Those that survived moved away.
Now the place is known as Maes-y-mynydd (meadow over the hill) but it retains a wild and wistful charm, exposed as it is to the rigours  of the elements in its starkly beautiful situation. So mysterious and unknowable is its history that it's become a blank slate ripe for inscription. A local illustrator, Jackie Morris, has set a story, The Seal Children, here and her illustrations  conjure a perhaps nostalgic version of how it might have been - but I fear the reality was grim. One suggestion is that the local landowner poisoned the well to drive the people away. We'll never know but every time I return I feel the powerful pressure of the past take hold.

Listen to Into the West sung by the inimitable Annie Lennox. The words of the song seem very fitting.