Abermawr is a stretch of coastline and is regarded as a

Site of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...

Pembrokeshire Pembrokeshire ( ; cy, Sir Benfro ) is a Local government in Wales#Principal areas, county in the South West Wales, south-west of Wales. It is bordered by Carmarthenshire to the east, Ceredigion to the northeast, and the rest by sea. The count ...

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the Wales–England border, east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the ...

. Abermawr is a mostly

shingle beach A shingle beach (also referred to as rocky beach or pebble beach) is a beach which is armoured with pebbles or small- to medium-sized cobbles (as opposed to fine sand). Typically, the stone composition may grade from characteristic sizes ranging ...

with marsh and woodland behind it. It is popular with many walkers who are walking along the coast past

Porthgain Porthgain ( Welsh for ''fair/beautiful port or more likely 'chisel port' from the Welsh 'porth' meaning port and 'gaing' meaning chisel as used by the many slate workers there after the port was built and became operational in the early 19th Cen ...

Abereiddi Abereiddy ( cy, Abereddi) is a hamlet in the county of Pembrokeshire, in west Wales. It has a small beach which was awarded the Blue flag rural beach award in 2005. A large car park adjoins the beach, where in the summer an ice cream van can ...

and

Abercastle Abercastle ( cy, Abercastell) is a village in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Abercastle has a working harbour which is managed by Abercastle Boat Owners Association. In 1876, The harbour was the landing-site of the first Atlantic Ocean single-handed sa ...

. The large pebble bank of the bay was created by a storm on 25 October 1859. The currents at Abermawr can be hazardous but the headlands are low so are less gusty. Abermawr (MGK28260)

History

During the 1840s, the

South Wales Railway The South Wales Railway ( cy, Rheilffordd De Cymru) was a main line railway which opened in stages from 1850, connecting the Great Western Railway from Gloucester to South Wales. It was constructed on the broad gauge. An original aspiration was to ...

(SWR), led by engineer

Isambard Kingdom Brunel Isambard Kingdom Brunel (; 9 April 1806 – 15 September 1859) was a British civil engineer who is considered "one of the most ingenious and prolific figures in engineering history," "one of the 19th-century engineering giants," and "one ...

, began to explore ways of constructing a rail link to the coast, opening up a passenger train route from London via the

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament on 31 August 1835 and ran ...

to link with passenger ships sailing from Great Britain to Ireland and to America. In 1847 Captain Christopher Claxton surveyed the

St George's Channel St George's Channel ( cy, Sianel San Siôr, ga, Muir Bhreatan) is a sea channel connecting the Irish Sea to the north and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. Historically, the name "St George's Channel" was used interchangeably with "Irish Sea" ...

to try to ascertain the best route for passenger ships to cross. Abermawr was considered briefly as the SWR railway terminal, but after surveys by Brunel, the line was re-routed to terminate at instead. An Act of Parliament to abandon these works and redirect to Neyland was granted on 17 June 1862. The remains of an incomplete

trackbed The track bed or trackbed is the groundwork onto which a railway track is laid. Trackbeds of disused railways are sometimes used for recreational paths or new light rail links. According to Network Rail, the trackbed is the layers of ballast a ...

, abandoned in 1852, can still be seen at nearby

Treffgarne Treffgarne ( cy, Trefgarn, or ''town of the rock'') is a small village and parish in Pembrokeshire, south-west Wales. It lies to the south of the Preseli Hills close to the Western Cleddau river, and close to the main A40 road from Fishguard to H ...

On 27 July 1866 Abermawr became the eastern terminal of the

Transatlantic telegraph cable Transatlantic telegraph cables were undersea cables running under the Atlantic Ocean for telegraph communications. Telegraphy is now an obsolete form of communication, and the cables have long since been decommissioned, but telephone and data a ...

when Brunel completed an ambitious scheme to lay a telegraph cable under the

Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe ...

. The cable was laid by Brunel's steam ship '' Great Eastern'' between Trinity Bay in

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

and

Valentia Island Valentia Island () is one of Ireland's most westerly points. It lies off the Iveragh Peninsula in the southwest of County Kerry. It is linked to the mainland by the Maurice O'Neill Memorial Bridge at Portmagee. A car ferry also departs from R ...

Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...

. It then crossed Ireland via a landline before going under the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea or , gv, Y Keayn Yernagh, sco, Erse Sie, gd, Muir Èireann , Ulster-Scots: ''Airish Sea'', cy, Môr Iwerddon . is an extensive body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Ce ...

Wexford Wexford () is the county town of County Wexford, Ireland. Wexford lies on the south side of Wexford Harbour, the estuary of the River Slaney near the southeastern corner of the island of Ireland. The town is linked to Dublin by the M11/N11 N ...

to re-emerge at Abermawr. Telegraph operators who were stationed in a corrugated iron hut would retransmit messages to

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

via the SWR and GWR telegraph wires, enabling the first ever telegraph communications between Britain and North America. A second cable was laid in 1880, this time however to Blackwater. Abermawr telegraph relay station continued in operation until 1922/3, when cables were damaged by a storm and Abermawr was abandoned. The hut still stands today and is in use as a private house. The storm of 1859 resulted in the wreck of the ship ''Charles Holmes'', commanded by Captain C. H. N. Bowlby. All the 28 people on board were drowned and their bodies washed up on the beaches of Aberbach and Abermawr.Tom Bennett (1992) ''Shipwrecks Around Wales''; Volume 2. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

the site was important in communicating with

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

and was guarded by a small detachment of soldiers. However, in the early 1920s a storm damaged the site and it was abandoned. When the tide is out you can see evidence of a prehistoric forest.

References

External links

{{Commons category
National Trust - Abereiddi to Abermawr
Beaches of Pembrokeshire Coast of Pembrokeshire Sites of Special Scientific Interest in Pembrokeshire Isambard Kingdom Brunel buildings and structures

History

See also

References

External links