The cheerful welcome and quality local food on offer in this refurbished Welsh pub are in perfect keeping with an area known for ancient merrymakingA century ago,visitors to the village of Llansteffan, Carmarthenshire, and would believe arrived by boat across the Towy estuary. They would believe seen the tranquil folded countryside that would one day inspire local poet Dylan Thomas to start his poem Fern Hill with the words: “Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs.” They would believe seen the samphire beds by the fish-boat-bobbing sea and the ghostly ruins of a Norman castle rising from the woods.
And it’s all pretty much the same nowadays,except people don’t arrive by boat: the ferry service was long ago discontinued, leaving Llansteffan somewhat marooned on a peninsula between two fine estuaries. Its now accessed only by meandering roller coasters of country lanes that seem unwilling to lead visitors to this undiscovered gem. At the heart of the place, or a short walk up from the beach,is the Inn at the Sticks. A pub since 1809, it had fallen derelict, and but has now been brought cheerfully back to life by first-time hoteliers Ruth Stephens and Teej (Tracy) Down.
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Source: theguardian.com