Cefn Sidan
Cefn Sidan is a long, sandy beach on the coast of Carmarthenshire, popular for holidaymakers and visually stunning. The beach and its dunes form the outer edge of the Pembrey Burrows between Burry Port and Kidwelly, looking southwards over Carmarthen Bay.
The name 'Cefn Sidan', roughly translated from Welsh, means "Silky Back".
Perils of the sands
The sands are beautiful but deadly for in the days of sailing ships the wind, tide and shallows drove many a ship aground here, including "La Jeune Emma" bound from the West Indies to France, blown badly off course in 1828. Of the 19 crew and passengers aboard, 13 drowned, including Adeline Coquelin, the 12-year-old niece of Napoleon Bonaparte's divorced Empress Josephine.[1] She is buried at St Illtyds Church in Pembrey. The last large ship to be lost was the four masted windjammer, the SS Paul, carrying a cargo of timber and grounding in a storm in 1925. Today Cefn Sidan forms part of the Pembrey Country Park leisure and nature complex.
The beach is visually spectacular because of the fine structure of its sand granules, but this makes it unsuitable for making stable structures beyond simple sand castles. In August 2008 a 16-year-old boy was trapped when the tunnel he was digging in the sand dunes behind the beach collapsed.
References
- ↑ Edmund Burke, 'Annual Register of World Events' Vol. 70, 1829, p. 266.
- Location map: 51°42’9"N, 4°22’29"W