Big House, Landshipping

Alun Lewis and Sarah Hoss, proprietors, Landshipping Mansion, Landshipping.

National Park residents Alun Lewis and Sarah Hoss have taken over a spectacular ruined mansion house located on the Eastern Cleddau. With the house in ruins, the couple are currently living in a temporary mobile home at the back of the site, from where they have been developing a business plan to bring life back to the site, which has substantial walled gardens and cottages and benefits from a private quayside where the couple have moored their charter boat ‘Cleddau King’.

Named after the old ferry boat that used to transport passengers and cars across the Cleddau in the days prior to the bridge being built, the ‘Cleddau King’ is a 40ft motor cruiser with a wide open deck specifically designed for fishing and scuba diving, and has proved popular with the tourists.

Alun’s been skippering the boat since 2001 and is hoping for a bumper year this year – if the weather improves. Alun is running special half-day fishing trips for Pembrokeshire Fish Week for a maximum of 12 passengers, and can provide rods, tackle and bait – and a great deal of expertise – for his passengers.

The trips will depart from Milford Mackerel Stage at 9am and 1pm – booking essential. (phone 01834 891222). If anything tasty is caught, then it’s straight in the pan for a real taste of fresh Pembrokeshire fish, which is just the way Sarah and Alun like to do things.

‘I catch it and she usually cooks it!’ says Alun, ‘we enjoy a variety of fish, from salmon and sewin, to more humble – but equally tasty catches such as flounder and mackerel. We have a fantastic fishing heritage in Pembrokeshire but there’s hardly a market for it any more, which is a shame – you can’t better freshly caught fish for taste and quality’.

Sarah agrees: ‘I could happily eat fish every day – and it’s so healthy, I don’t think we realize how lucky we are having this fantastic produce right on our doorstep. After eating fresh fish caught by Alun I never buy fish in the supermarket any more’.

When they are not busy fishing – or cooking – the couple are busy making plans for their life together at Landshipping Mansion – which looks like it’s going to be a big project.

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Sarah and Alun have a big combined family; they were both single parents when they met. Elaina, Sarah’s daughter, is 15; Alun’s son Gethin is 12. They also have two babies together: Geraint, now nearly 3 and 8-month old baby Freya. The family also has a collection of animals, from ferrets to dogs to Dexter cows and free-range chickens and ducks, which lay fabulous eggs.

Landshipping Mansion, affectionately known locally as the ‘Big House’, has a fascinating history dating back to the 1600s. The building became the main house of a notable country residence with all the other facilities that are normally associated with large country houses. The mansion is featured in the book ‘Historic Houses of Pembrokeshire’ and in a recent history book of the area ‘A River Never Sleeps’. The mansion and connected cottages are set in their own grounds, and enjoy a romantic setting enjoying panoramic views of the Eastern Cleddau river in the heart of Britain’s only coastal National Park.

Even in its current sorry state, the house still evokes the classic style of Georgian mansions found locally with echoes of the overall look of Picton Castle, which can be seen opposite and Slebech Hall, a short boat-ride away. It also serves as a witness to the heritage of the area as a bustling coal quay in the days when Landshipping enjoyed economic prosperity on the busy Cleddau waterway.

Proprietors Alun Lewis and Sarah Hoss intend to breathe life back into this ruined site by undertaking the conservation and renovation of Landshipping Mansion and its cottages.

Their plan has been developed in keeping with the aims of the National Park to support sustainable employment for its residents, while protecting the unique environment of the park for the enjoyment of residents and visitors alike. The conservation work is to be financed with the establishment of four holiday cottages and represents a substantial planning gain for the area.

The couple already run a successful charter boat operation – and they now have plans to convert the old cottages into holiday lets and they will endeavour to provide their future clients with exactly what market trends suggest discerning British holidaymakers want – locally produced quality food, whether for self-catering or serviced; clean, contemporary, high-class Wales Tourist Board accredited four or five star accommodation; countryside pursuits such as shooting and fishing; fully-escorted boat trips departing directly from the accommodation, water based activities such as canoeing; rambling, nature watching and guidance; specials such as organising pleasure flights to view the fantastic Pembrokeshire landscape from the air, affinity group activities such as gourmet food and wine lovers’ weekends, painting, photography and local history. ends

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Alun, Sarah and baby Geraint, on board the ‘Cleddau King’.

Alun Lewis Alun is very much a self-made man, an entrepreneur with many years’ experience of running business ventures. Alun is also a true countryman with a real understanding and knowledge of Pembrokeshire and a skilled boat skipper, fisherman and country pursuits enthusiast.

Alun is in his early 40’s and was raised in Llangwm, the village on the Cleddau estuary made famous for its herring boats and fisherwomen. Alun feels very much a guardian of this fascinating cultural inheritance: he is one of the last heritage fishermen left in the country and can be seen, in season, practicing this ancient art of compass net fishing to catch the finest salmon, sewin and sea bass.

A pupil at Milford Central School, Alun obtained qualifications in motor and agricultural engineering at Pibwirlyd College, Carmarthen and Rease-Heath College, Cheshire and spent most of his spare time either fishing or working on local farms before setting up a business on his own in plant hire, haulage and agricultural engineering, which he ran successfully for 20 years before becoming a boat operator.

With his father, Glyndwr, Alun also ran the roofing and flooring centre at Middle Hill, Freystrop, Haverfordwest. Operating his own equipment won Alun the ‘Cleddau King’ when it broke loose in a storm. Having no means of salvaging the fishing boat, the owner’s insurance company sold the boat to Alun at his own risk, and he successfully recovered the boat using his own plant. Alun then refitted the boat at his former business premises and redesigned it specifically for SCUBA diving and fishing. Local dive

centre Dive-Pembrokeshire UK heard about the boat and jumped at the chance to offer their divers trips on the ‘Cleddau King’.

While renovating the boat, Alun also attended Haverfordwest College to obtain his skipper’s ticket. Alun’s a fully qualified 50-passenger boat skipper and very experienced in the challenging waters off the Pembrokeshire coast as well as being one of the few boat skippers who really knows the waterways of Pembrokeshire.

Alun has already had a great deal of success with the ‘Cleddau King’ and it is in demand for diving and fishing trips as well as generating income from being a useful workboat for contractor work such as laying boat moorings in the estuary and work for the coastguard. The boat is wheelchair accessable and plenty of creature comforts such as a toilet and fully-fitted galley.

Alun has recently been publicly appointed member of the Environment Agency Fisheries, Environment and Recreation Advisory Committee representing Welsh heritage fishermen on this government advisory committee.

Alun has fulfilled his lifelong dream of living and working on the river since developing the idea of Landshipping Mansion and Cleddau King Boat Charters with Sarah. In the early days of their relationship Alun took Sarah by boat to Landshipping and it was soon clear to them both that this magical place was going to be a very important influence on their life together. They have combined their diverse and complementary talents to launch their business, which sprang from their personal relationship, their growing family and their mutual love of Landshipping and living in the National Park.

2. Sarah Hoss Sarah is originally from Cardiff, and was persuaded

by Alun to leave her city life and set up home with him in Pembrokeshire after he charmed her with some spectacular moonlit boat trips up and down the secret waterway.

Sarah was a freelance BBC TV producer at the time; it was while researching interesting characters able to tell the story of Pembrokeshire’s fishing heritage that they first met. Sarah also made a groundbreaking BBC documentary about Alun’s life in Pembrokeshire at the start of the new millennium called ‘My Wales’ which was repeated the following year. Sarah also had a regular ‘food feature’ spot on Radio Wales’ Livetime daily magazine programme, where she provided a platform for local small scale food producers and challenged the belief that all food must be purchased covered in plastic in a supermarket.

Sarah studied journalism at Cardiff University and has been a freelance journalist for many years. She enjoyed a successful writing career and is the former group editor of the ‘Glamorgan Gem’ newspapers, based in the Vale of Glamorgan.

Sarah has also done stints on the Cambridge Evening News and the South Wales Echo.

Prior to moving to Pembrokeshire, Sarah had built up a successful career as a freelance radio and television journalist (BBC’s Good Morning Wales, Wales Today) and moved on to become a television producer, bringing Welsh food and produce to the BBC audience in many programmes such as ‘Franco & Friends’ and ‘Angela Gray’s Hot Stuff’. Sarah also collaborated with Welsh celebrity chef Angela Gray on her cookery book ‘Hot Stuff’.

Alun and Sarah’s paths crossed several more times as other tv projects brought Sarah down to Pembrokeshire, and they finally got together in 1999.

Sarah and Alun first appeared on television together in the BBC Wales Today anchorwoman Sara Edwards’ series ‘The Rivers of Wales’ and took Sara and Fiona Philips (of GMTV fame) out for a day’s fishing and feasting on board the ‘Cleddau King’. The couple were also followed by a film crew for a year for a half-hour documentary about their life and the programme ‘This Land’ was shown throughout the BBC network nationally and overseas and created much interest in their exciting project.

Sarah has worked with many celebrity chefs, and worked with foodie aficionados such as Lloyd Grossman, Sophie Grigson and Franco Taruschio and food producers in Wales and beyond. Sarah has also a few strong flavours of her own and has become very experienced in cooking wild Pembrokeshire game and fish when Alun presents her with the produce.

Sarah started her professional life as a chartered physiotherapist, and worked in Yorkshire, London and the Middle East. Now busy at home with the couple’s two babies, Sarah’s last post involved working with disabled clients designing adapted houses to suit their needs, an experience which will be put to good use as the couple develop their own business ideas.

Ends Contact details: 01834 891222 for information or photos. sarahhoss@aol.com