Sunday September 23rd 2018 Part 3 - Soldier's Point and Holyhead promenade

Back on the A5025 I drove without stopping until I got to the Stermat store at Valley. Unfortunately I couldn't find what I was looking for - well I could but not in the width/height I wanted - but I did get a pack of four aerosol gas cylinders for my camping stove £2 cheaper than the last lot I got from a store near home so I was happy with that. Along the road and across the embankment I pulled up in the car park at Penrhos Coastal Park and went to get a cheeseburger and a coffee (which were as delicious as ever) from Pete's Burger Bar then spent half an hour chilling out in the van with a view of the bay in front of me. 

From Penrhos I drove into Holyhead, past the port and round to the far end of the promenade where I could park up in a designated free parking lay-by close to the sailing club premises. From the end of the road a pedestrianised lane took me round a bend and uphill towards the track near the beginning of the mile-and-a-half long breakwater, and towards the end of the lane itself was the derelict Soldier's Point House. 

The large castellated house with rear outbuildings was built in 1849 and was said to be the home of Charles Rigby, the engineer and contractor responsible for the 28-year construction of the breakwater, which was opened in August 1873 and which is the longest breakwater in the UK. There is no clear information about when the house was sold on but in March 1918 the then owner, Lieut. A F Pearson who was chairman of the local magistrates, was charged with hoarding quantities of food including rice, jam and sugar, but the charges were dropped after he explained that wounded soldiers were treated to tea at the house every Sunday.

During WW2 part of the building was reinforced to form a defensive 'pillbox' with narrow openings for gunfire, then during the 1960s it was turned into the Castle Hotel. Since finally becoming uninhabited it gradually became more derelict over the years but was eventually bought by Conygar Stena, a partnership between Stena Line and the Conygar Investment Company, and as part of their ambitious 2010 scheme for the regeneration of Holyhead waterfront it was to become the new home for the Holyhead Maritime Museum. Unfortunately the building was badly damaged by a fire in September 2011 which rendered it even more derelict than before, and since then it's been left as an empty shell with security barriers round it. 

Round the back of the main house were the overgrown outbuildings which had once looked like several small cottages - I saw them several years ago in a much less overgrown state - and bordering the track leading to the breakwater was the rear perimeter wall built to look like part of a castle. Walking past the end of the wall and towards the start of the breakwater I took a couple of shots overlooking the marina then made my way back towards the promenade.

At the bottom of the lane I passed a little cove which seemed to be an out-of-the-way part of the marina, and partially hidden by the shrubbery close to the wall was an MOD warning notice relating to the SS Castilian. Built in 1919 and operated by Ellerman Lines the Castilian was carrying a cargo of live ammunition to Lisbon in Portugal when it struck rocks near The Skerries off the Anglesey coast and sank on February 12th 1943. In 1987 a Royal Navy clearance vessel spent several months removing unexploded munitions, believed to have come from the Castilian, from a nearby bay, then in 1997 the wreck was designated under the Protection of Wrecks Act 1973, and regarding scuba diving activities in the area a 500 metre exclusion zone was placed round it because of any remaining potentially dangerous cargo.

Back on the promenade the sun had taken on its early evening glow and I walked along the upper level for a distance before going down onto the lower level then walking close to the water as I made my way back to the van. There were some attractive looking gardens situated between the upper and lower levels and I would have liked to take some proper photos but there was a family there who looked like they were having a bit of a picnic so I didn't want to seem like I was intruding.

By the time I got back to the van it was 6.30pm and I was losing the best of the sunlight - it was time to head back to the camp site, park in front of the tent and make a brew, and apart from taking Sophie and Poppie for their bedtime walk I was settled in for the rest of the night.