Maintenance work on Tenby’s historic town walls is set to be undertaken after the summer season.

Members of Tenby Town Council have been fighting an ongoing battle to have an up-to-date structural survey carried out on the condition of the walls and after a recent ‘walkabout’ with Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority building conservation officer, Rob Scourfield, had been given assurances that the best way forward would be to provide an assessment of the immediate problems, and the preparation of a specification, which would also form the basis of a grant application to Cadw, for work to be undertaken.

Mr. Scourfield had explained that the walls were extensively repaired some 30 to 35 years ago, and suspected that most of the problems were straightforward, and concerned weed growth and some minor repairs, explaining that he had worked on a similar scheme with Cadw at Carew Castle.

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the town council, Mr. Scourfield provided members with an update on the walls, stating that the previous spray treatments by Pembrokeshire County Council had been successful, and had included checking for loose stones along the parapets.

He explained that the problems now included - inevitable return of areas of vegetation, including ivy and valerian. Lesser vegetation including pelitory-of-the-wall, pennywort, toadflax and wallflowers are generally not damaging to historic walls; a vertical crack in the length along St. Florence Parade (possibly due to palm tree roots) - to monitor; some minor damage to southern entry to Five Arches and around cellar hatch to Bush Inn; mnor areas of loose masonry to inner faces (e.g. to the rear of Clarices, Upper Frog Street); the Barbican gallery being full of (toxic) droppings, dead birds etc; 1588 plaque weathering.

“The ideal plan of attack is to commission a single contractor to treat the weeds and undertake the masonry repairs, October being the optimum period,” said Mr. Scourfield, mentioning rope-access specialists, as this would obviate the need to gain access to private properties (subject to notification).

He also said that PCC had agreed to prepare a schedule of works for Cadw consent and tenders, and prior to that check on their jurisdiction with regards to the inner faces of the wall, wall-walk etc.