Closer Than St Ives: A Coastal House for London Groups | Waterwynch House
There is a moment somewhere on the M4, often around the time Cardiff appears in the distance, when the drive to the Welsh coast stops feeling like an effort and starts feeling like the point.
The landscape opens. The road lifts. On a clear day, the hills of South Wales appear ahead, and the journey begins to feel less like a necessary inconvenience and more like the first part of the stay.
For London groups looking for a large coastal house for a long weekend, Cornwall is often the default. Waterwynch offers a different answer.
From London, Waterwynch House is just over four by car from the commuter belt. St Ives, the Cornish benchmark many London groups instinctively reach for, is closer to five hours. From much of the London commuter belt and the South East, Pembrokeshire is not the longer option many people assume. In this case, it is the more surprising one.
The journey
The drive from London to Waterwynch gives you a choice that most journeys to a holiday house do not. You can take the fast route or one of two scenic alternatives, and all three are worth knowing about.
The direct route
The M4 to Newport, then the A48 towards Carmarthen and on via the A40 and A477 to Tenby. Straightforward and largely motorway, with a natural stop around the Prince of Wales Bridge, Cardiff or one of the services beyond Newport. Most groups arrive in time for a walk down to the beach before dinner.
The scenic valley route
From Newport, divert north to Abergavenny and join the A465 towards Merthyr Tydfil. This adds around twenty minutes but gives a dramatic sense of arrival into Wales: broad valley views, exposed hillsides and the landscape changing around you as the road runs along the northern edge of Bannau Brycheiniog, still widely known as the Brecon Beacons.
The full scenic route
From Abergavenny, take the A40 through the heart of Bannau Brycheiniog via Crickhowell and towards Brecon. This adds around an hour but makes the journey part of the holiday. The Sugar Loaf mountain visible to the south of Abergavenny, Pen-y-Fan rising above the national park, historic market towns with good stops for coffee: some groups choose this route specifically, treating the drive as the beginning of the stay rather than merely the means of getting there.
All three routes converge at Carmarthen and follow the same road south towards Tenby.
The arrival
The final stretch of the journey to Waterwynch House is along the Narberth Road, a country road that gives little away. Then you turn left into Waterwynch Lane and, almost immediately, the sea appears below you for the first time.
The lane descends between fields and then into a wooded valley, the trees closing in on either side. You enter the grounds through a cherry tree lined avenue, which in spring is spectacular, the blossom on the trees as the lane curves down towards the house. To the left, the formal lawns open out. Ahead, the house sits above the bay with the sea beyond it.
Even arriving after dark, which a Friday evening journey from London almost always means, has its own quality. The avenue, the car park and the house are lit with a warm glow against the cold dark night. The bay is invisible below but present, the sound of it carrying up from the darkness. By the time the front door is open and the lights are on inside, the drive has already started to recede.
Why Pembrokeshire rather than Cornwall
Cornwall is a reasonable answer when a London group starts planning a long weekend by the sea. So is Devon. Torquay, Salcombe and Dartmouth, the English Riviera resorts that many London groups consider as their benchmark for a break by the coast, are roughly the same distance from London as Waterwynch. The journey times are comparable. What is not comparable is what you find when you arrive.
The most popular parts of Cornwall and Devon are busy, well-discovered and in high season can feel it. The roads around St Ives, Salcombe and Dartmouth in summer are well known to anyone who has tried them on a Friday afternoon. The best houses book early and the coastline, beautiful as it is, is shared with a great many other people who have had the same idea.
Pembrokeshire is different in character. The coastline is wilder and less developed, with a quality of light and a sense of remoteness that the more visited parts of Cornwall and Devon rarely offer. The area has the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, with some of the finest protected coastline in the UK nearby. And the drive, as anyone who has taken the scenic route through Bannau Brycheiniog will tell you, is part of the experience rather than something to be endured.
Pembrokeshire is not the compromise. It is the better-kept secret.
What you arrive at
Waterwynch House sits above Waterwynch Bay, a secluded stretch of coastline just outside Tenby in Pembrokeshire. It sleeps up to 30 guests across 12 ensuite bedrooms, with five reception rooms, a bar, a cinema room, a games room, a music room, a treatment room, an arts and crafts room and direct access to the beach and shoreline below. The house and grounds are taken on an exclusive-use basis, which means the whole property belongs to your group for the duration of the stay.
Tenby is around two miles away, reached by car in a few minutes or on foot via the coast path. At low tide, adventurous walkers can also make parts of the journey along the shore. See out journal article about exploring Waterwynch as low tide for more information. Saundersfoot is in the opposite direction, equally close. Caldey Island is visible from the bay and accessible by boat trip from Tenby harbour.
For a group that has driven four hours from London on a Friday evening, what Waterwynch offers on arrival is the thing that is hardest to find at the end of a long week: somewhere that feels genuinely removed from everything, entirely yours, with enough space for thirty people and enough to do that nobody needs to organise anything if they do not want to.
The drive is around four and a half hours from much of the South East. Most guests say it felt shorter than they expected.
As featured in The Sunday Times and The Times
Waterwynch House was featured in both The Sunday Times and The Times as one of the most fabulous UK holiday lets for big parties, recognised for its setting, music room, cinema room, arts and crafts den, treatment room and the stargazing Sky Room overlooking Carmarthen Bay.
Planning your stay
Waterwynch is available for exclusive hire throughout the year. Weekend stays run from Friday to Monday. Midweek stays run from Monday to Friday. The house is family-friendly, dog-friendly and 5-Star rated by Visit Wales with a 97% quality score.
Summer weekends and bank holiday weekends book earliest, often six to twelve months in advance. If you are considering a long weekend from London, checking availability early is worth doing.