Natasha de Chroustchoff: 'RichardFenton.pdf' (2021)

Description

Lede
The Fenton family were active in Fishguard for several generations and they made quite an impression on the town.

Story
The first member of the Fenton family to arrive in Fishguard - in the late 18th century - was Lieutenant Samuel Fenton, a naval officer who transformed the fortunes of a fishing village so dependent on the local catch that its inhabitants were known as Sgadan Abergwaun – Fishguard herrings. The well-travelled Samuel spotted that if the fish were cured in the Mediterranean style they could be traded to the continent. He had the harbour enlarged with a solid stone breakwater, quay and warehouse. Business boomed and for a while the fisher folk had money to jingle. So did Samuel: when an American privateer captured one of his ships he had to pay £1000 ransom to stop a bombardment of cannon balls – not before his sister was wounded. Alas, in 1799 the herring shoals moved away, never to return.

Richard Fenton arrived in Fishguard towards the end of his Uncle Samuel’s life. Born in St David’s in 1747, Richard was well educated in Oxford and London where he became acquainted with some the best known figures on the cultural scene including the writers Oliver Goldsmith and Samuel Butler, the painter Joshua Reynolds and the actor David Garrick. It’s said he met his wife when strolling through the London streets with Goldsmith. Passing a garden where a tea party was in full swing. Romantic Richard spotted a pretty girl and declared that he would marry her - if he could only meet her! His friend boldly walked in and greeted the host as an old acquaintance despite never having seen him before. Rather than commit a social gaffe the host warmly welcomed them and thus Richard met his future wife. Her name was Eloise and she was the daughter of a Swiss aristocrat.

After practicing as a barrister in North Wales and having three sons with Eloise, Richard moved his family to Fishguard in 1793. When his uncle died three years later Richard Fenton was the main beneficiary and he set out to build a fine gentleman’s residence. The site chosen was a meadow beside the winding river Gwaun above the harbour. With a nod to his wife’s heritage Richard designed a small continental-style mansion which he named Plas Glynamel: ‘honey vale’ in poor Welsh. According to the fashion of the day he devised a romantic setting: the steep valley side was blasted away to create a terrain of rocky outcrops, winding paths, secret grottoes and a hermit’s cell – complete with a hired hermit. Specimen trees were planted along the river. It was an ideal landscape in which to entertain his artistic and literary friends.

The house completed, Richard Fenton embarked on an ambitious new project: A Historical Tour of Pembrokeshire, published in 1811. This impressive volume covers his twelve itineraries around the county describing towns and villages, grand gentry houses (whose hospitality he enjoyed as a guest), and ancient ruins and remains. Some of these he excavated himself and his identification from scattered tile fragments of a Roman villa site has been recently been proved correct.

When Richard Fenton died in 1821 aged 75 a friend eulogized him as “a man of indefatigable industry, of a fine poetical fancy, of a very cheerful disposition… and the person of best information on almost every subject.”

When building his mansion, Richard Fenton was cursed in Welsh by a local woman, Anne Eynon. His uncle Samuel, to whom she had been a housekeeper, had promised the lifetime use of a field and a cottage which Richard had, unwittingly, absorbed into his new estate. Although he made full recompense to her, Richard was very disturbed by the incident and indeed her prophecy that the property would pass out of his family's ownership with the third of his line proved correct when his grandson Reginald - a big game hunter in South Africa - died in 1924, 100 years after Richard Fenton's death.

Factoid
The old harbour in Lower Town is a pleasant place to visit: highly photogenic, with a pub (The Ship) close by and a café and ice cream van in summer. Freshly caught fish sometimes available!