Rebecca Riots

A week ago we drove from Tenby onto Cardiff mostly through teeming rain. We stopped at St. Clear's to look at this chainsaw scuplture of the Rebecca Riots. It commemorates an unprising against 'unfair' taxes including tolls at St Clears and across Mid/West Wales. The farmers blackened their faces and dressed as 'Rebecca and her daughters', probably from a passage in the Bible where Rebecca talks of the need to ‘possess the gates of those who hate them’ (Genesis 24, verse 60). After four years of protests (the toll at St Clears was destroyed three or four times) the laws started to be amended. 

From there it was a short hop to Carmarthen where we caught up with my brother-in-law - the carver himself Simon Hedger, wood sculptor. A lovely relaxed lunch until it was time to head onto Cardiff Bay.


Extra: the amazing Wales Millennium Centre, which just had to be photographed every time I passed it