Bow Street, Ceredigion
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Bow Street is a large village in the Tirymynach district of
Ceredigion Ceredigion (), historically Cardiganshire (, ), is a Principal areas of Wales, county in the West Wales, west of Wales. It borders Gwynedd across the River Dyfi, Dyfi estuary to the north, Powys to the east, Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire t ...
, Wales, approximately north-east of
Aberystwyth Aberystwyth (; ) is a University town, university and seaside town and a community (Wales), community in Ceredigion, Wales. It is the largest town in Ceredigion and from Aberaeron, the county's other administrative centre. In 2021, the popula ...
. As well as Bow Street itself, it is now often considered to include the neighbouring smaller village of Pen-y-garn and the hamlet of Rhydypennau. All three places stretch in a long narrow strip along the main Aberystwyth to
Machynlleth Machynlleth () is a market town, community and electoral ward in Powys, Wales and within the historic boundaries of Montgomeryshire. It is in the Dyfi Valley at the intersection of the A487 and the A489 roads. At the 2001 Census it had a po ...
road, the A487. Bow Street is also a
post town A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, Ireland, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system.Royal Mail, ''Address Management Guide'', (2004) Including the correct post town in t ...
, and as well as covering the villages of Bow Street and Pen-y-garn and the hamlet of Rhydypennau, it also includes the nearby village of
Llandre Llandre (), or Llanfihangel Genau'r Glyn, is a village in Ceredigion, Wales. It lies 5 miles north of Aberystwyth in the north-west of the county, on the road from Rhydypennau, Ceredigion, Rhydypennau to Borth. To the north of the community lies ...
and the hamlets of Taigwynion and Dole, together with the surrounding farms. The population of the
Community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...
, Tirymynach in 2011 was 1,901.


History


Toponymy

The earliest attestation of the name 'Bow Street' yet found is in the parish registers of Llanbadarn Fawr, where there is a
baptism Baptism (from ) is a Christians, Christian sacrament of initiation almost invariably with the use of water. It may be performed by aspersion, sprinkling or affusion, pouring water on the head, or by immersion baptism, immersing in water eit ...
entry dated 9 February 1777 for a "Wm son of Jenkin & Ann Thomas, Bow Street". It would appear that the name is derived from the London street of the same name, and that its application to the small cluster of houses that would become Bow Street was connected with the turnpiking of the main Aberystwyth to Machynlleth turnpike road from 1770 onwards. It may be that the choice of name was influenced by the fact that the road does actually bend slightly at this point, and might therefore have been analogous to the ‘bow’ of the London
Bow Street Bow Street is a thoroughfare in Covent Garden, City of Westminster, Westminster, London. It connects Long Acre, Russell Street and Wellington Street, and is part of a route from St Giles, London, St Giles to Waterloo Bridge. The street was ...
. There are two small lanes in the village which are also known locally by English names, these being ''Cock and Hen Street'' and ''Thread Needle Street'' (sometimes ''Thread and Needle Street''),. Supposed traditions associating the name Bow Street with a local magistrate do not appear to stand up to scrutiny, and probably developed later as a way of justifying the existence of an English place name in a predominantly Welsh-speaking area. In his seminal work on Cardiganshire
placename Toponymy, toponymics, or toponomastics is the study of '' toponyms'' (proper names of places, also known as place names and geographic names), including their origins, meanings, usage, and types. ''Toponym'' is the general term for a proper nam ...
s, Iwan Wmffre suggests that an earlier name for Bow Street may have been ''Rhyd-y-castell'' ( ford of the
castle A castle is a type of fortification, fortified structure built during the Middle Ages predominantly by the nobility or royalty and by Military order (monastic society), military orders. Scholars usually consider a ''castle'' to be the private ...
). But the ford of Rhyd-y-castell was actually located on the small lane called Cock and Hen Street, that runs alongside the Welsh Black (formerly the Black Lion) and leads towards Clarach and Llangorwen, and not on the main Aberystwyth to Machynlleth road where the first houses in Bow Street were built. Though there is no officially sanctioned Welsh equivalent to Bow Street, the author and novelist Tom Macdonald, who spent part of his childhood here, recounted that "old folk told me it was once called Nant-y-Fallen". The small stream still called Nant Afallen runs under the main road a little to the north of where the original hamlet of Bow Street first grew up, and was applied to the row of small cottages that once stood nearby. The name ''Nantyfallen'' was also later extended to refer to those cottages running up the slope from the brook towards Cross Street. Occasionally in Welsh writing the name Bow Street is spelt as ''Bwstryd''.


Transport

Bow Street railway station on the
Cambrian Line The Cambrian Line (), sometimes split into the Cambrian Main Line () and Cambrian Coast Line () for its branches, is a railway line that runs from Shrewsbury in England, westwards to Aberystwyth and Pwllheli in Wales. Passenger train services ...
reopened in February 2021 following its closure in 1965 under the
Beeching axe The Beeching cuts, also colloquially referred to as the Beeching Axe, were a major series of route closures and service changes made as part of the restructuring of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain in the 1960s. They are named ...
. Plans for the station to be reinstated were first published in July 2016 and approved in August 2017, and work had started by January 2020 with the new station initially planned to be opened later that year, but it actually opened on 14 February 2021. A road leads down to
Llandre Llandre (), or Llanfihangel Genau'r Glyn, is a village in Ceredigion, Wales. It lies 5 miles north of Aberystwyth in the north-west of the county, on the road from Rhydypennau, Ceredigion, Rhydypennau to Borth. To the north of the community lies ...
and
Borth Borth () is a village, seaside resort and community in Ceredigion, Mid Wales; it is located 7 miles (11 km) north of Aberystwyth, on the Ceredigion Coast Path. The community includes the settlement of Ynyslas and the population was 1,399 ...
on the coast. To the south is Comins Coch and to the east, Plas Gogerddan.


Climate


Tornado

In the early hours of 28 November 2006, the village was struck by a
tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with the surface of Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, although the ...
, that was rated T3 on the
TORRO Scale The TORRO tornado intensity scale (or T-Scale) is a scale measuring tornado intensity between T0 and T11. It was proposed by Terence Meaden of the Tornado and Storm Research Organisation (TORRO), a meteorological organisation in the United Kingdo ...
. This caused structural damage to more than 20 houses, as well as uprooting trees, and damaging power-lines, caravans and a railway bridge. No injuries were reported. Some papers caught up in the tornado were found a week later, away in the village of
Corris Corris is a village in the county of Gwynedd, Wales, about north of the town of Machynlleth. The village lies on the west bank of the Afon Dulas (which here forms the boundary with Powys), around that river's confluence with the Afon Deri. ...
.


Notable residents

* Tom Macdonald (1900–1980), journalist and novelist * J. T. Rees (1857–1949), musician and composer


References


Bibliography

*


External links


1891 First Ed. 6” Ordnance Survey Map showing ''Bow Street''www.geograph.co.uk : photos of Bow Street and surrounding area
{{authority control Villages in Ceredigion