East Aberthaw
| East Aberthaw | |
| Glamorgan | |
|---|---|
 Aberthaw Cement Works | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | ST035667 |
| Location: | 51°23’28"N, 3°23’17"W |
| Data | |
| Post town: | Barry |
| Postcode: | CF62 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Vale of Glamorgan |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Vale of Glamorgan |
East Aberthaw is a small village on the coast of Glamorgan, just west of Rhoose, about five miles west of Barry, on the east side of a little river, the River Thaw, as it enters the Bristol Channel. Beyond the west side of the river is a sister village, West Aberthaw.
The names of East and West Aberthaw are from the Welsh for the mouth of the Thaw.
The village has a 13th-century pub. Once it had a Baptist Chapel and Mission Room, but these have since been converted for other uses.
Here stand the Aberthaw Cement Works and the Aberthaw Lime Works. Across the river is the Aberthaw Power Station, a decommissioned power station that was fed with coal by way of the Vale of Glamorgan Railway.
Geography
Aberthaw is nearly opposite to Minehead in Somerset. East Aberthaw is just a quarter of a mile inland od the sea. The River Thaw meets the sea to the west of the village. A small river, it is tidal for a mile from its mouth filled and emptied by the heavy tides of the Bristol Channel. It was canalised in 1958 to serve the power station. One former distributary now forms an enclosed pond area near the old lime works and is rich in wildlife.[1]
By East Aberthaw, the cliffs are under 100 feet high, and in some places not more than 50 feet. For a short distance east of Pleasant Harbour in East Aberthaw, there are wooded cliffs about 300 yards from the high-water mark of ordinary tides.
The East Aberthaw Coast Conservation Area covers the whole of the village and contains a lagoon on The Leys. Breaksea Point, at the edge of Limpert Bay at Aberthaw, is the southernmost point of Wales, although contested with Rhoose Point.
About the village
The principal building is the popular Grade II* listed Blue Anchor Inn, a long low building with walls and low timber beams dated to 1380, with a thatched roof.[2] There is a pub of the same name on the opposite shore of the channel at Blue Anchor in Somerset. The inn in East Aberthaw was used as a tobacco drying shed during the smuggling days.[3] The inn caught fire in 1922, 2004, and again in 2009, the last fire burning about 30% of the thatched roof.[3]
Close by is the Grade II listed Marsh House, an 18th-century building with a symmetrical front and a slated catslide roof. The house was of major importance to local trade and smuggling operations, used as a storehouse, especially for tobacco. The Granary is a Grade II listed building dated to the early 19th century and includes stables, a hayloft and granary. The building is now used as a private residence. Also listed are 1 and 2 Marsh Cottage and The Haven. Several other unlisted cottages and houses are of note, such as Upper House Farm within the Conservation Area, and several converted barns.
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about East Aberthaw) |
- Set of pictures of the railway and semaphore signals around Aberthaw
- The Blue Anchor public house
- Pictures of Aberthaw and the area on Geograph.co.uk
References
- ↑ Ayton, Richard; Daniell, William (1814). A voyage round Great-Britain, undertaken in the summer of 1813 ... with a series of views ... engraved by William Daniell. Longmann. p. 57. https://books.google.com/books?id=c1VJAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA57.
- ↑ Aird, Alisdair (2009). Good Guide to Dog Friendly Pubs, Hotels and B&Bs, 4th Edition. Random House UK. p. 368. ISBN 978-0-09-192692-2. https://books.google.com/books?id=sZ3dFXRENqEC&pg=PA367.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Historic inn struck by fire again". BBC News. 6 April 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/7985050.stm.