Cefn Sidan ( Welsh for 'silky ridge'; [1] also known as Pembrey beach [2] ) is a long sandy beach with dunes, which form the outer edge of the Pembrey Burrows between Burry Port and Kidwelly, facing southwestwards over Carmarthen Bay in South Wales. Cefn Sidan beach is backed by dunes, salt marshes, Pembrey Forest and the Pembrey Country Park.
Cefn Sidan stretches for nearly eight miles from the coastal town of Burry Port to Tywyn Point at the mouth of the Gwendraeth estuary near Kidwelly. The sand has small grains and the beach is backed by dunes of windblown sand. There are sand bars projecting as shoals into Carmarthen Bay at either end of the beach. [3] The beach has a life guard patrolling during the summer months and can be accessed by ten approach routes where notices provide information for visitors. Pembrey Forest, the Saltings nature reserve and Pembrey Country Park are inland from the beach, and RAF Pembrey is also sited here. [4]
The sands were treacherous to sailing ships and a number of vessels were certainly lost around Pembrey, including "La Jeune Emma" bound from the West Indies to France and blown badly off course in 1828. 13 of the 19 on board drowned, including Adeline Coquelin, the 12-year-old niece of Napoleon Bonaparte's divorced wife Josephine de Beauharnais. [5] She is buried at St. Illtyds Church, Pembrey. The last large ship to be lost was the four masted windjammer, the SV Paul, carrying a cargo of timber and grounding in a storm in 1925. [6] Today Cefn Sidan forms part of the Pembrey Country Park leisure and nature complex. [7]
The beach is used by naturists, although this is not encouraged by the local council. [8]
The beach is visually spectacular because of the fine structure of its sand granules – however, this makes it unsuitable for making stable structures beyond simple sand castles. On Sunday 3 August 2008 a 16-year-old boy was trapped when the tunnel he was digging in the sand dunes behind the beach collapsed. Swansea Coastguard said the alarm was raised around 19:10 BST, and a Burry Port coastguard team arrived within 15 minutes. After a helicopter air ambulance transfer to Morriston Hospital in Swansea, doctors pronounced him dead. [9]
Carmarthenshire 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 as the "Garden of Wales" and is also home to the National Botanic Garden of Wales.
Burry Port is a port town and community in Carmarthenshire, Wales, on the Loughor estuary, to the west of Llanelli and south-east of Kidwelly. Its population was recorded at 5,680 in the 2001 census and 6,156 in the 2011 census, and estimated at 5,998 in 2019. The town has a harbour. It is also where Amelia Earhart landed as the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean. Nearby are the Pembrey Burrows sand dune and wetland system, forming a country park, and the Cefn Sidan sands. Its musical heritage includes Burry Port Opera, Male Choir and Burry Port Town Band.
Kidwelly is a town and community in Carmarthenshire, southwest Wales, approximately 7 miles (11 km) northwest of the most populous town in the county, Llanelli. In the 2001 census the community of Kidwelly returned a population of 3,289, increasing to 3,523 at the 2011 Census.
Carmarthen Bay is an inlet of the South Wales coast, including notable beaches such as Pendine Sands and Cefn Sidan sands. Carmarthen Bay is partially within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee list Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries as a Special Area of Conservation.
Pembrey Sands Air Weapons Range is a Ministry of Defence air weapons range located near the village of Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, 3 miles (4.8 km) northwest of Burry Port and 10.3 miles (16.6 km) south of Carmarthen, Wales. Adjacent to the weapons range site is a former Royal Air Force station known as Royal Air Force Pembrey, or more simply RAF Pembrey, which closed in 1957 and of which part is now in civilian use as Pembrey Airport.
Pembrey is a village in Carmarthenshire, Wales, situated between Burry Port and Kidwelly, overlooking Carmarthen Bay, with a population of about 2,154 in 2011. The electoral ward having a population of 4,301. It is in the community of Pembrey and Burry Port Town.
The River Loughor is a river in Wales which marks the border between Carmarthenshire and Swansea. The river is sourced from an underground lake at the Black Mountain emerging at the surface from Llygad Llwchwr which translates from the Welsh as "eye of the Loughor". It flows past Ammanford and Hendy in Carmarthenshire and Pontarddulais in Swansea. The river divides Carmarthenshire from Swansea for much of its course and it separates Hendy from Pontarddulais at the point where the river becomes tidal. The Loughor meets the sea at its estuary near the town of Loughor where it separates the south coast of Carmarthenshire from the north coast of the Gower Peninsula. Among its tributaries is the River Amman and the River Morlais, with the former joining the Loughor near Pantyffynnon. The area of the catchment is some 262 square kilometres (101 sq mi).
Pembrey and Burry Port railway station is a railway station on the West Wales line serving Pembrey and Burry Port, in Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is adjacent to Burry Port's main shopping area. Pembrey is situated 1.2 miles (2 km) to the west. The station is 229 miles 15 chains (368.8 km) from the zero point at London Paddington, measured via Stroud.
The River Gwendraeth is a river in Carmarthenshire in West Wales.
Pembrey Country Park is a country park on the coast of South Wales, located near the village of Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, and the town of Llanelli.
Trimsaran is a community and former mining village which lies on the B4308 between Llanelli and Kidwelly, in the Welsh county of Carmarthenshire.
Carmarthenshire Land Sailing Club, was formed in 2004 in order to allow Landsailing use of Pembrey Sands and Pendine Sands, in South Wales.
The Kidwelly and Llanelly Canal was a canal and tramroad system in Carmarthenshire, Wales, built to carry anthracite coal to the coast for onward transportation by coastal ships. It began life as Kymer's Canal in 1766, which linked pits at Pwll y Llygod to a dock near Kidwelly. Access to the dock gradually became more difficult as the estuary silted up, and an extension to Llanelli was authorised in 1812. Progress was slow, and the new canal was linked to a harbour at Pembrey built by Thomas Gaunt in the 1820s, until the company's own harbour at Burry Port was completed in 1832. Tramways served a number of collieries to the east of Burry Port.
Pembrey and Burry Port Town is a community located in Carmarthenshire, Wales including the town of Burry Port and the village of Pembrey. The community population taken at the 2011 census was 8,547.
Court Farm in Pembrey, Carmarthenshire, Wales, is an ancient and formerly imposing manor house which is now an overgrown ruin, but structurally sound, and capable of repair and restoration. It consists of three buildings: the farmhouse, a complex two-storey house of approximately 99 square metres; an adjacent barn; and a later cowshed.
The SV Paul was a four-masted fore-and-aft rigged windjammer, launched in Seattle in 1919. Originally named Mount Whitney she was sold to new German owners in 1924 and renamed Margaret Sayer, finally in 1925 she was acquired by Flensburg owners and renamed 'Paul'.
St. John Lloyd Catholic Comprehensive School is located in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, Wales. It is a mixed, community comprehensive school of around 500 pupils, catering for all abilities across an age range of 11 to 16 years. It is dedicated to St. John Lloyd, who was executed in Cardiff in 1679 for exercising his priesthood.
The bedrock geology of Carmarthenshire in west Wales consists largely of Palaeozoic age sedimentary rocks. Unconsolidated deposits of Quaternary age in Carmarthenshire include a dissected cover of glacial till, valley floor alluvium and some scattered peat deposits in both upland and lowland settings. There are extensive beach and tidal flat deposits along the Carmarthenshire coast. The exploitation of the county's mineral riches, particularly coal and limestone, was a key part of the local economy through much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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