Coffee Morning and Talk October 3rd

Yesterday, we welcomed Gareth Mills as our speaker – it has become something of a tradition that Gareth opens our Programme of Talks, which we run from September through to May. These events are very popular and on this occasion drew a very large audience of 120, proof enough of Gareth’s popularity! As usual, our volunteers begin the morning with a coffee morning and open up the museum and council chamber. Then all assemble in the George Lewis room for the talk. On this occasion Gareth traced the history of a family so important in the history of both Pembroke and Pembroke Dock – the Meyricks of Bush. The two other great estates which feature largely in our history – Stackpole and Orielton – had been the subject of Gareth’s previous two talks. Gareth said he owed much to the published history ‘Meyricks of Bush: the Story of a Pembrokeshire Family’ by Michael McGarvie which traces the family origins in Anglesey to fairly recent times when Bush House and its surrounding estate was sold to Pembrokeshire County Council. The House was converted into a school and the Council later built the grammar school, then comprehensive, in its grounds. More recently, of course, this has been replaced by Ysgol Harri Tudor. Bush House fortunately remains (although a 1905 rebuild of the original which burnt down in 1866) and is now a residential home for the elderly.