One beach in south west Wales has dark secrets dating back hundreds of years hiding beneath its eight miles of award-winning golden sand. Cefn Sidan, near Kidwelly, was the first beach in Wales to be selected for the prestigious Blue Flag status awarded for the highest quality of water, safety and environment which, given the coverage of raw sewage dumped in Welsh waters over the last 12 months, is a welcome sight.
It’s also seen its sands draw comparisons to California’s Golden Coast. However, despite its beautiful appearance, beneath the surface lies a treacherous past. This stretch of coastline along Carmarthenshire’s shipping lanes, which trace as far back as Roman times, is said to be the final resting place of more than 300 shipwrecks, with 182 of them dating back at least as far as 1668, when records first began.
One of the most notable remaining wrecks can be found at the western end of the beach. The SV Paul, a large windjammer, left Nova Scotia for St Anne’s Head, Pembrokeshire on October 30, 1925 but ran into severe gales en route. After losing her sails and anchors, she ran aground some 35 miles away on Cefn Sidan beach, along with an expensive cargo of tropical hardwood timber.
The story of the wreck featured on a 2018 episode of Hidden Wales where coastal park ranger Emyr Richards added some further detail. "Luckily nobody lost their lives in the wreck,” he said. “But the cargo - that's a different story altogether. Many of the houses here have got some very expensive tropical hardwood and there were a few garden sheds that were very well-built."
Another wreck from 1828 has links to none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. La Jeune Emma (which translates as ‘the young Emma’) was on its way back to Le Havre, France, from Martinique in the West Indies, before it was badly blown off course. The wooden brig was carrying rum, sugar, spices, coffee, cotton and ginger, as well as 12-year-old Adeline Coquelin, the niece of Josephine Empress of France - then Napoleon’s former wife. Although the boat can’t be seen at the beach, nine out of the 13 people who died that day, including Adeline, were buried at St Illtyd's Church in nearby Pembrey.
For the last time a vessel met its end at the beach, you only need to look as far back as 1996 when an unregistered yacht coming from Morocco to an unknown west Wales destination is said to have blown ashore. On board were many large sealed and watertight packs of cannabis resin, with a street value of £800,000 (now £2 million).
Although many of the ships were ruined by the elements, some saw their demise come at the hands of cold-blooded looters who lured them to the beach, according to Mr Richards. "There would be a gang of looters that would actually try to entice the ships onto the sands using false beacon fires. Your ship gets caught in the sands, and it's wrecked, and they come in and plunder the cargo," he said.
One such group of looters was known as "Gwyr y Bwyelli Bach", the men with the small hatchets, named after the weapons they carried. “The reason the hatchets were special was because they had a claw hammer and little hatchet," said Mr Richards."And the main reason for that was to chop off the fingers of victims to get the rings off and to take what they want, breaking into the casks of brandy and fine wine, quite a savage time."
Although bad weather was to blame for its sinking, reports from the time of the discovery of La Jeune Emma suggest that two of young Adeline Coquelin’s fingers were missing when her body was found, leaving those who sailed these parts in no doubt of the danger posed by the Gwyr y Bwyelli Bach and their peers.
One ship to fall victim to looters with slightly less-bloodthirsty intentions (just pure thirst really) was La Providence, sailing from Bordeaux to Dunkirk in 1818. It was carrying a cargo of juniper berries, wine, brandy and coffee. After the crash, The Cambrian newspaper was said to have reported at the time that: “Looters from Kidwelly and Pwll swarmed like bees round a honeypot to take advantage of its cargo of wine and brandy.
“Exhibiting the most disgraceful scenes, not less than 2,000 people assembled on the shore plundering all they could get out, breaking in the heads of casks and drinking to such a degree, both male and female, they became extremely intoxicated.” Following this, many local people were found on the beach by the authorities, totally inebriated, while one man died due to his severe drunkenness. Incidents like these saw the local press at the time give the thieves another nickname: ‘Lladron Glan y Mor’ or Robbers of the Sea.
Aside from ships and drunken looters, a whole host of things have washed up on this unsuspecting Welsh beach since. From seals, turtles and deadly Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish, to an unexploded WW2 bomb, a grenade and wreckage from the 1986 Air India crash - Cefn Sidan has never failed to turn up a story.
For those who might be thinking about a visit to the beach after reading this - and who wouldn’t? - it is worth noting that all year round Cefn Sidan has dog-friendly areas which can be visited, while there is also access to beach wheelchairs. The beach, described as a “world-class experience” by Carmarthenshire Council, is also signed up to the #2minutebeachclean campaign which encourages visitors to take two minutes out of their visit to help keep the sands free of plastic and other litter. However, beach-goers are advised to stay away from the sand dunes which, following high tides and storms, can be unsafe and at risk of collapse.
More information can be found here.
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