New Quay (, standardised as Ceinewydd) is a seaside town, community and electoral ward in Ceredigion, Wales; it had a resident population of 1,045 at the 2021 census. Located south-west of Aberystwyth, on Cardigan Bay with a harbour and large sandy beaches, the town lies on the Ceredigion Coast Path and the Wales Coast Path. It remains a popular seaside resort and traditional fishing town, with strong family and literary associations with the poet Dylan Thomas and his play, Under Milk Wood.
History
Until the early 19th century, New Quay consisted of a few thatched cottages surrounded by agricultural land, the natural harbour providing a safe mooring for fishing boats and a few small trading vessels. The New Quay Harbour Act was passed in 1834 and a stone pier was constructed at a cost of £4,700. Trading activity increased and new houses were built as economic migrants arrived. As shipbuilding started up, the town increased in size with the construction of terraced housing up the slopes of the sheltered bay.Jenkins, J. Geraint. Ceredigion: Interpreting an Ancient County. Gwasg Careg Gwalch (2005)
By the 1840s, more than three hundred men were employed in building ships in three centres: New Quay itself; Traethgwyn, a bay just to the north; and Cei-bach, a pebble beach further north below a wooded cliff. Here were constructed not only smacks and schooners for sailing along the coast, but also larger vessels for sailing to the Americas and Australia. At that time, as well as shipwrights, New Quay had half a dozen blacksmith shops, three sail makers, three ropeworks and a foundry. Most of the men of the town were mariners or employed in occupations linked with the sea. Several of the old warehouses remain, having been put to new uses. Lengths of chain, metal rings and capstans, and a list of tolls for exports and imports can still be seen outside the harbourmaster's office.
By 1870, shipbuilding had ceased at New Quay but most of the men living there still went to sea. There were navigation schools in the town and many of the last square riggers that sailed the world were captained by New Quay men. Between 1850 and 1927, the Board of Trade issued 1,380 Merchant Master and Mate certificates to New Quay men compared, for example, with 21 certificates to Laugharne men and five to Ferryside men.
In 1907, a local newspaper noted that "New Quay...has more retired sea captains living in it than any other place of its own size in Wales."Cambrian News 12 July 1907 At the 1939 War Register, there were 58 sailors living in New Quay, of whom 30 were master mariners, compared with four living in Laugharne and one in Ferryside.
The historian S.C. Passmore has noted the "zeal for learning" that was present in New Quay. This was reflected in the opening of a Newspaper Reading Room in 1854, later incorporating a Lloyds Lending Library.Passmore, S.C. (2012) Farmers and Figureheads: the Port of New Quay and its Hinterland, Grosvenor
One of the first guides for tourists was published in 1885 by the Welsh Press: Guide to New Quay: Being a short description of New Quay as a watering-place.
The 1904-1905 Welsh revival began in New Quay.Bryan, Roger (2012) New Quay: A History in Pictures, Llanina Books and W.J. Lewis (1987) New Quay and Llanarth, pp28-31, Aberystwyth The three chapels in the town are Bethel, Tabernacle and Towyn; the two churches are Llanllwchaearn Church at the top of the town and St. Ina Church at Llanina on the eastern end of the bay. Coronation Gardens, at the bottom of the town next to the pier, were created in 1911 to mark the coronation of George V.
A Memorial Hall was built on Towyn Road in 1925 in memory of those killed in the First World War. Pupils from the London Nautical School were evacuated to New Quay during the Second World War and billeted around the town in residents' homes and hotels.
There were 877 residents in New Quay shown on the Register of Electors in May 1945. Of these, 587 were women and 290 were men, figures that partly reflect the number of New Quay men, most of them sailors, who were killed in the First and Second World Wars.
The post-war history of New Quay is largely that of the emergence of the town as an attractive holiday destination.
Governance
There are two tiers of local government covering New Quay, at community (town) and county level: New Quay Town Council (Cyngor Tref Cei Newydd) and Ceredigion County Council (Cyngor Sir Ceredigion). The town council meets at the Memorial Hall on Towyn Road.
Administrative history New Quay historically formed part of the parish of Llanllwchaiarn. A New Quay local government district was created in 1869, covering New Quay with the old village of Llanllwchaiarn around the parish church, but excluding the more rural parts of the parish. Such local government districts were converted into urban districts under the Local Government Act 1894.
The 1894 Act also directed that parishes could no longer straddle district boundaries, and so a new civil parish of New Quay was created matching the urban district, and the parish of Llanllwchaiarn was reduced to just cover the parts outside the urban district, despite Llanllwchaiarn village itself being within the New Quay urban district and parish.
New Quay Urban District was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972. A community called New Quay was created instead, covering the area of the abolished urban district. District-level functions passed to Ceredigion District Council, which was in turn replaced in 1996 by Ceredigion County Council.
Tourism and attractions Key attractions for holidaymakers include the harbour and sandy beaches, as well as opportunities such as boat trips to see the population of bottlenose dolphins that lives in Cardigan Bay. The town has a heritage centre and marine wildlife centre. The outskirts of the town feature many large holiday parks and caravan sites.
The annual Cardigan Bay Regatta, usually in August, has been conducted since at least the 1870s. Events now include inshore sports and dinghy and cruiser racing.
There are beach walks and cliff walks along the coastal path, south to Llangrannog and north to Aberaeron.
The National Trust's Llanerchaeron estate is located nearby, as is the 18th century Ty Glyn Walled Garden in Ciliau Aeron. The Neolithic Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber and the Castell Henllys Iron Age Village are located near to the town. Restored steam engines on the Vale of Rheidol Railway leave from nearby Aberystwyth, on the scenic route to .
Amenities New Quay has a large primary school, a doctors' surgery, a small branch of the county library service, a fire station and a Memorial Hall. There is also a public park at the top of New Quay, next to the tennis court.
New Quay Bowling Club is on Francis Street, at the top of the town. New Quay Golf Club first appeared in 1909, but closed in the 1920s; the nearest today is Cardigan Golf Club.
In addition to the hospitality industry, there is still significant employment in sea fishing and fish processing.
New Quay Lifeboat Station, operated by the RNLI, houses two lifeboats. In 2014, the station celebrated 150 years of service, during which period it made 940 callouts.Bryan, Roger (2014) The New Quay Lifeboats: 150 Years of Service and Courage, Llanina Books.
Transport Public transport is provided by Richards Brothers, which operates the T5 TrawsCymru bus route to Aberaeron, Aberystwyth, Cardigan, Fishguard and Haverfordwest.
The town has never been served by a railway, as schemes to open routes to Cardigan or Newcastle Emlyn were abandoned in the 1860s; the Lampeter, Aberayron and New Quay Light Railway was never completed, due to the First World War. The nearest National Rail station is at , away.
Plas Llanina Plas Llanina is a mile or so to the north of New Quay on the cliffs above Traethgwyn and Cei Bach beaches. It is considered a good example of a small-scale, post-medieval gentry house. It has a chequered history, including some interesting owners and various stories associated with them. It belonged to the Musgrave family from around 1630. By the end of the 18th century, it had passed into the ownership of the Jones family, the last of whom was Edward Warren Jones. When he died, he left the Llanina Estate to his two godchildren, Mrs Charlotte Lloyd (of Coedmore) and her younger brother, Charles Richard Longcroft.Phillips-Evans, J. The Longcrofts: 500 Years of a British Family (Amazon, 2012)
The house remained with the Longcrofts until about 1920, its last owner being Air Vice Marshal Sir Charles Alexander Holcombe Longcroft (1883–1958), who had been born and brought up at Llanina. He is considered to be a founding father of the Royal Air Force.
Sometime in the late 1930s, the house and grounds were rented by Lord Howard de Walden as a summer residence.de Walden, M. (1965) Pages from My Life, Sidgewick and Jackson In the late 1940s, it was bought by Colonel J.J. Davis and Betty Davis, who later moved to Ty Glyn in Ciliau Aeron. By 1964, Plas Llanina was derelict. It was subsequently bought in 1988 and rebuilt by a London banker.David, P. (1998) The Tide Turns at Llanina, in Welsh Historic Gardens Trust Bulletin, Winter, p. 6, Rebuilding Llanina
The house lies next to the church of Saint Ina, with a public footpath to both the church and the beach.
Dylan Thomas Dylan and Caitlin Thomas lived in New Quay from September 1944 until July 1945, renting a cliff-top bungalow called Majoda.
It stood, said Thomas, "in a really wonderful bit of the bay, with a beach of its own. Terrific. Made of wood and asbestos, Majoda's facilities were basic: it had no mains electricity, gas or water, and the lavatory and a water tap were both outside; Thomas also refers to his "wood-and-asbestos pagoda" in his letter-poem of 1 September 1944 in Collected Letters. It was, wrote Caitlin, "cheaply primitive"Thomas, Caitlin (1986) Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas, Secker and Warburg and they were there during one of the coldest Cardiganshire winters on record.
There were several other families from Swansea living in New Quay, who had come after the city's bombing of in February 1941, including the historian and artist Myra Evans (1883-1972). She was a local historian and artist, who had also written a children's operetta; her portrait of Dylan Thomas has been published.. Her husband, Evan Jenkin Evans (1882-1944), had been professor of physics at Swansea University since 1920. Thomas's Swansea friend and distant cousin, Vera Killick, lived next to Majoda in Ffynnonfeddyg cottage, whilst her sister, Evelyn Milton, lived further along the cliff top in Traethina.Register of Electorate, New Quay, 1945
Vera and Evelyn's mother, Margaret Phillips, had been born in Llanarth, the next village to New Quay. Thomas also had an aunt in Swansea and four cousins in New Quay, who had lived there since the 1920s; Thomas Legg's parents, Captain George Legg OBE and his wife, Margaret, also lived in the town. George and Margaret are to be found in the 1945 Register of Electors for New Quay, as is their daughter-in-law, Theodosia. A more distant relative, the First World War fighter pilot ace, James Ira Thomas Jones, also known as Ira Taffy Jones, who lived his wife Olive in Tylegwyn for much of the Second World War.
Thomas had previously visited New Quay in the 1930s, and then again in 1942–3 when he and Caitlin had lived a few miles away at Plas Gelli, Talsarn. Dylan and Caitlin lived in Plas Gelli with Vera Killick, Evelyn Milton and their mother, Margaret Phillips. His New Quay pub poem, "Sooner than you can water milk" dates from this period, as does his script for the filming of Cardigan Bay for the final part of Wales - Green Mountain, Black Mountain. The film comes to an end with a panoramic sweep of Cardigan Bay from Pengraig cliff above New Quay, followed by a shot of Carreg Walltog rock on the shore below.