Nevern (Nanhyfer)

Nevern is small, shaded and unusually atmospheric. The church of St Brynach sits among ancient yews beside a river, and in its churchyard stands the Nevern Cross, a carved stone cross more than three metres high dating from around the tenth or eleventh century — one of the finest of its kind in Wales, dense with interlace patterns and still standing where it was raised. Inside and around the church are earlier inscribed stones, including ogham-marked memorials, which place Christian activity here well before the Normans arrived.

The village's best-known curiosity is the bleeding yew: one of the avenue of yews leading to the church door exudes a dark red sap from a wound in its trunk, more or less continuously, and there is no shortage of stories to explain it. Above the village, a wooded footpath climbs past a cross carved into a rock face — a pilgrims' station on the route to St Davids — to the earthworks of a Norman castle on the ridge, and the walk is short but genuinely worthwhile.

As a place to stay, Nevern is quiet to the point of silent. There is a pub and a church and that is roughly it; no shop, no beach, and narrow lanes with a low bridge on the way in. Newport, two miles away, supplies restaurants, cafés, a big estuary beach and the climb up Carn Ingli. Pentre Ifan burial chamber is five minutes, the Preselis ten, Cardigan fifteen. It is a good compromise for people who want Newport's assets without Newport's summer prices and parking.

A small number of cottages and converted farm buildings sit in and around the village, usually with gardens, parking and river or valley views. They suit couples and families who value quiet and are happy to drive or walk the couple of miles to Newport for food, shops and the beach.

On the B4582 just off the A487 between Newport and Eglwyswrw. Narrow lanes and a small bridge in the village; Fishguard Harbour station is about twenty minutes by car.