A Visit to Kidwelly #1 - 6 October 2024

Yesterday I may have discovered a town with a cat as a mascot. The name of the place is Kidwelly and it’s in South Wales, UK.

When I visited I noticed there were quite a few cats painted either as murals or used in shop signs. The photo below shows you one example :

I took that photo from a distance but then as I got closer I began to see the wonderful detail of this painting.

I began to see here that the cat had a shadow and and that it was even signed but I could not make out the signature of the artist. Is this graffiti ? Normally and from what I’ve seen that sort of quick and furtive painting has got more lettering and angular designs.

It could be Jeans Art ? I’ll have to go back there one day to try and see that signature again.

This bright cat was painted on the side of a pub called ‘The Fisherman’s Arms’. That part of the town was quiet and only got a bit more active with the school traffic.

There were more cats painted on this dilapidated old building that was possibly a church.

The building had a lot of ‘For Sale’ (or ‘Ar Werth’ in Welsh) signs but I’m guessing it would be difficult to recover this sort of building from this state. It looked unsafe so I suspect that the building would need to be pulled down which is a shame because it’s quite impressive even in its current state.

Above is a close-up of the building with the cats.

Here’s the article I read about the black cat being a mascot of this town. It describes how the name of the town and all its ‘variations’ may be responsible for the association with cats:

Ancient recordings of the town’s name include Cadwely, Catwelli, Kadewly, Keddewelly, Kadwelve and Kedwelle. The origins of Kidwelly’s black cat might have come from the spelling, “Catwelli”.

I will be writing again about this quiet town soon. Thank you for reading !