Ferryside ( cy, Glan-y-fferi) is a village in the

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, villag ...

of St Ishmael,

Carmarthenshire Carmarthenshire ( cy, Sir Gaerfyrddin; or informally ') is a county in the south-west of Wales. The three largest towns are Llanelli, Carmarthen and Ammanford. Carmarthen is the county town and administrative centre. The county is known ...

, Wales. It is south of

Carmarthen Carmarthen (, RP: ; cy, Caerfyrddin , "Merlin's fort" or "Sea-town fort") is the county town of Carmarthenshire and a community in Wales, lying on the River Towy. north of its estuary in Carmarthen Bay. The population was 14,185 in 2011, ...

near the mouth of the River Tywi. Originally a ferry crossing, then becoming a fishing village, it has developed as a holiday and retirement area. The village has its own lifeboat station and was the first village in the UK to switch from analogue to digital television. The 2011 census showed the village to have 846 residents.

History

Originating as a landing-place on the ferry route to

Llansteffan Llansteffan, is a village and a community situated on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Tywi, south of Carmarthen. Description The community includes Llanybri and is bordered by the communities of: ...

(the ferry was used by

Giraldus Cambrensis Gerald of Wales ( la, Giraldus Cambrensis; cy, Gerallt Gymro; french: Gerald de Barri; ) was a Cambro-Norman priest and historian. As a royal clerk to the king and two archbishops, he travelled widely and wrote extensively. He studied and taugh ...

in 1188), Ferryside developed as a fishing village. In 1844 the population of the parish was 895. Much of the village developed after 1852, when it became linked to

and Swansea by

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 ...

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 ...

Amenities

School

There is a school that has been there for over 150 years.

Worship

The parish church is St Ishmael's, built on a rock near the shore. In 2006, the graveyard and grounds were selected for an innovative project aimed at encouraging

biodiversity Biodiversity or biological diversity is the variety and variability of life on Earth. Biodiversity is a measure of variation at the genetic ('' genetic variability''), species ('' species diversity''), and ecosystem ('' ecosystem diversity' ...

churchyard In Christian countries a churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church, which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language and in both Scottish English and Ulster-Scots, this can al ...

s. There are two chapels near the centre of the village and another church, St Thomas, in the centre of the village.

Facilities

Ferryside has a post office, a public house (''The White Lion''), a sports and social club (previously the rugby club), a general store, hotel (''Three Rivers Hotel & Spa''), restaurant-caterer (''Pryd O Fwyd''), antiques shop and caravan park.

Transport

Ferryside railway station has regular rail connections to London Paddington, Pembroke Dock, Milford Haven, Carmarthen, Swansea and Cardiff. Bus services connect to Carmarthen and Llanelli.

Ferry crossing

The ferry service across the River Tywi to Llansteffan was discontinued in the 1950s. A new service was launched in 2018 by Carmarthen Bay Ferries using a customized Sealegs Amphibious Craft offering 15 minute crossings to

and two hour river excursions, having received a grant of £300,000 from the

Coastal Communities Fund The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones ...

. The grant had been applied for by a former resident of the community
Professor Kenton Morgan
and local reactions to the service and the culture of grantsmanship was covered in a BBC Radio 4 programme.

Community magazine

''STISH'' is a monthly magazine by the St Ishmael's community for the villagers of Ferryside and

Llansaint Llansaint is a village of farmsteads and cottages in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It includes a cluster of 19th century stone-built houses around the church, and is surrounded by farmsteads and modern residential development. History Early settlemen ...

, run by volunteers to bring news of local events and articles of local interest. Ferryside Village Forum is an online source of information.

Sailing

Ferryside is home to the River Towy Yacht Club.

Lifeboat station

The Ferryside Lifeboat was first established in 1835, 11 years after Sir William Hillary founded a national lifeboat service which subsequently became the

Royal National Lifeboat Institution The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) is the largest charity that saves lives at sea around the coasts of the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands, and the Isle of Man, as well as on some inland waterways. It i ...

(RNLI). Ferryside lifeboat was run by the RNLI until 1960, and was re-established as an independent service in 1966, one of more than 70 such stations around the British Isles. It is now part of St John Cymru, the ambulance charity, and is launched by HM Coastguard in response to ’999′ calls and distress calls on VHF CH16. With the second largest tidal rise and fall in the world making the local waters hostile, the lifeboat is available 24 hours a day throughout the year. It is staffed by local volunteers who rely on donations to the service for its funding. The current lifeboat station was constructed in 2010 and opened by the Duchess of Gloucester. The service uses a 6.4 metre Ribcraft semi rigid inflatable with twin 115 hp engines, and a smaller craft. Callouts average 28 a year, a number that is rising as a result of an increase in leisure craft. The station received a government grant to buy new equipment in 2017.

Fishing

Ferryside developed as a fishing village, particularly for shellfish.

Cockles

Along with

Laugharne Laugharne ( cy, Talacharn) is a town on the south coast of Carmarthenshire, Wales, lying on the estuary of the River Tâf. The ancient borough of Laugharne Township ( cy, Treflan Lacharn) with its Corporation and Charter is a unique survival ...

, Ferryside was once at the heart of the cockling industry in Carmarthen Bay. Cocklewomen from

could collect about 650 tons of cockles a year, and did so until around 1900. The cockle industry now experiences intermittent bursts of activity when the Ferryside cocklebeds are opened to commercial pickers: intensive 'strip-cockling' occurs and several hundred cockle-pickers work the estuary beds with tractors. In 1993, Ferryside saw what are known locally as 'the cockle wars': fights between rival gangs on the beach, notably between gangs from the

Gower Peninsula Gower ( cy, Gŵyr) or the Gower Peninsula () in southwest Wales, projects towards the Bristol Channel. It is the most westerly part of the historic county of Glamorgan. In 1956, the majority of Gower became the first area in the United Kingd ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

, the Dee estuary and Glasgow. Because commercial quantities of cockles at Ferryside were rare, there were no licences required to harvest them. In addition to gaining the village rare visibility on the front pages of national newspapers, the cockle wars led to a Parliamentary debate and calls for the beds to be licensed.

Analogue television switch off

On 30 March 2005, Ferryside and

became the first areas in the United Kingdom to lose their

analogue television Analog television is the original television technology that uses analog signals to transmit video and audio. In an analog television broadcast, the brightness, colors and sound are represented by amplitude, phase and frequency of an analog s ...

signals. Residents of the Carmarthenshire villages - on either side of the River Tywi - voted to switch to digital after taking part in a pilot scheme. Homes were given digital receivers for each of their televisions. A helpline was set up for residents' teething problems, and one-to-one support was made available to the elderly. After three months, the households were asked if they wanted to keep the digital services or revert to analogue only. More than 85% of households responded and 98% voted to retain the digital services. Hence at the end of March 2005, the analogue channels, BBC One Wales, ITV1 and S4C, radiating from the Ferryside transmitter, were switched off leaving BBC Two Wales as the only analogue channel remaining. Viewers wanted to keep this channel because it provided certain programmes that the digital equivalent, BBC 2W, did not show.

Notable people

Notable ex-residents of the village include the General Sir

Thomas Picton Lieutenant-General Sir Thomas Picton (24 August 175818 June 1815) was a British Army officer who fought in the Napoleonic Wars. According to the historian Alessandro Barbero, Picton was "respected for his courage and feared for his irascible t ...

of Iscoed Mansion, a former governor of

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

who died at the

Battle of Waterloo The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh C ...

, Hugh Williams, the 19th century Chartist lawyer who played a prominent role in the

Rebecca Riots The Rebecca Riots (Welsh: ''Terfysgoedd Beca'') took place between 1839 and 1843 in West and Mid Wales. They were a series of protests undertaken by local farmers and agricultural workers in response to levels of taxation. The rioters, often m ...

and the portrait and landscape painter

Gordon Stuart Gordon Thomas Stuart (30 May 1924 22 July 2015) was a Canadian-born Welsh portrait artist, known for his portrayals of Dylan Thomas. Stuart was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and attended Ontario College of Art and Design. He met Thomas in ...

(five of whose portraits can be found at the National Portrait Gallery, including those of

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social and ...

Dylan Thomas Dylan Marlais Thomas (27 October 1914 – 9 November 1953) was a Welsh poet and writer whose works include the poems " Do not go gentle into that good night" and " And death shall have no dominion", as well as the "play for voices" ''Unde ...

and

Huw Wheldon Sir Huw Pyrs Wheldon, (7 May 1916 – 14 March 1986) was a Welsh broadcaster and BBC executive. Early life Wheldon was born on 7 May 1916 in Prestatyn, Flintshire, Wales. He was educated at Friars School, Bangor, at the time an all-boys ...

). The parasitologist J. W. W. Stephens, FRS, was born in Ferryside in 1865. George Parry, a metallurgical engineer and prolific inventor of Ebbw Vale Steelworks retired to Ferryside in 1866 and died on 6 February 1873 at his residence Steel Villa. Dylan Thomas was a regular visitor to Ferryside, both as a child and later when he lived in Laugharne. His maternal great-aunt, Amy, had married Captain David Jones, the Ferryside coxswain. They lived at Alpha House in Eva Terrace. Their son, David, ran the Dorothy Café next to the Ship Inn; he was followed there by his son, Raymond, who was Thomas’ second cousin. Thomas’ drinking in the White Lion, and his friendship with Dick Bright of 2, Neptune Villas, is described by Bright's niece, Beryl Hughes. Thomas' childhood holidays in Ferryside have been described by Stanford-ffoulkes, a descendant of Amy and David Jones. There is more on Dylan Thomas and Ferryside, with photos and a family tree, a
Dylan and Ferryside
Ferryside may have been an influence in the writing of ''Under Milk Wood''. Llareggub's occupational profile as a town of seafarers, fishermen, cockle gatherers and farmers has been examined through an analysis of the returns in the 1939 War Register for Ferryside, comparing the town to New Quay, Laugharne and Llansteffan. This analysis also draws upon census returns and the Welsh Merchant Mariners Index. It shows that New Quay and Ferryside provide by far the best fit with Llareggub's occupational profile.Thomas, D.N. (2019) Llareggub and the 1939 War Register, published online a
The 1939 War Register
/ref>

References

External links

Carmarthenshire County Council, Ferryside WalkPhotographs of Ferryside and surrounding area GeographVideo footage of Ferryside Station

Dylan Thomas, Llansteffan, Llandyfaelog and Ferryside
{{authority control Seaside resorts in Wales Villages in Carmarthenshire Carmarthen Bay Fishing communities in Wales Fishing communities River Towy