Until the early 19th century, New Quay consisted of a few thatched cottages surrounded by agricultural land, the natural harbour providing a safe mooring for fishing boats and a few small trading vessels. The New Quay Harbour Act was passed in 1834 and a stone pier was constructed at a cost of £4,700. Trading activity increased and new houses were built as economic migrants arrived. As shipbuilding started up, the town increased in size with the construction of terraced housing up the slopes of the sheltered bay.[3]
By the 1840s, more than three hundred men were employed in building ships in three centres: New Quay itself; Traethgwyn, a bay just to the north; and Cei-bach, a pebble beach further north below a wooded cliff. Here were constructed not only smacks and schooners for sailing along the coast, but also larger vessels for sailing to the Americas and Australia. At that time, as well as shipwrights, New Quay had half a dozen blacksmith shops, three sail makers, three ropeworks and a foundry. Most of the men of the town were mariners or employed in occupations linked with the sea.[4] Several of the old warehouses remain, having been put to new uses. Lengths of chain, metal rings and capstans, and a list of tolls for exports and imports can still be seen outside the harbourmaster's office.[4]
By 1870, shipbuilding had ceased at New Quay but most of the men living there still went to sea. There were navigation schools in the town and many of the last square riggers that sailed the world were captained by New Quay men. Between 1850 and 1927, the Board of Trade issued 1,380 Merchant Master and Mate certificates to New Quay men compared, for example, with 21 certificates to Laugharne men and five to Ferryside men.[5]
In 1907, a local newspaper noted that “New Quay... has more retired sea captains living in it than any other place of its own size in Wales.”[6]
At the 1939 War Register, there were 58 sailors living in New Quay (of whom 30 were master mariners), compared with four living in Laugharne and one in Ferryside.[7]
The New Quay historian, S.C. Passmore, has noted the “zeal for learning” that was present in New Quay. This was reflected in the opening of a Newspaper Reading Room in 1854, later incorporating a Lloyds Lending Library.[8]
One of the first guides for tourists was published in 1885 by the Welsh Press: Guide to New Quay: Being a short description of New Quay as a Watering-place.[9]
Coronation Gardens, at the bottom of the town next to the pier, were created in 1911 to mark the coronation of George V.
A Memorial Hall was built on Towyn Road in 1925 in memory of those killed in the First World War.[11]
Pupils from the London Nautical School were evacuated to New Quay during the 1939-1945 War, and billeted around the town in residents’ homes and hotels.[12] There is an extended online description, with photos, of the School’s time in New Quay in the School magazine.[13]
There were 877 residents in New Quay shown on the Register of Electors in May 1945. Of these, 587 were women and 290 were men, figures that partly reflect the number of New Quay men, most of them sailors, who were killed in the First and Second World Wars.[14]
The post-war history of New Quay is largely that of the emergence of the town as an attractive holiday destination.
Governance
New Quay is the name of the electoral ward which is coterminous with the community. Since 1995 the ward has elected one county councillor to Ceredigion County Council.
At the local level, New Quay Town Council is composed of ten councillors.[15]
Tourism and attractions
Key attractions for holidaymakers include the harbour and sandy beaches, as well as opportunities such as boat trips to see the population of bottlenose dolphins that lives in Cardigan Bay. The town has a heritage centre and marine wildlife centre. The outskirts of the town feature many large holiday parks and caravan sites.
The annual Cardigan Bay Regatta, usually in August, has been conducted since at least the 1870s. Events now include inshore sports (swimming, rowing, etc.) and dinghy and cruiser racing.[16]
There are beach walks and cliff walks along the coastal path, south to Llangrannog and north to Aberaeron.
The National Trust's Llanerchaeron estate is nearby,[17] as is the 18th century Ty Glyn Walled Garden in Ciliau Aeron. Less than an hour's drive away is the neolithic Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber,[18] as well as the Castell Henllys Iron Age Village.[19] Restored steam trains on the Vale of Rheidol Railway leave from nearby Aberystwyth,[20] on the scenic route to Devil’s Bridge.[21]
Local facilities
As well as shops, restaurants and pubs, New Quay has a large primary school, a doctors' surgery, a small branch of the county library service, a fire station and a Memorial Hall.[22] There is also a public park at the top of New Quay next to the tennis court. New Quay Bowling Club is on Francis Street, at the top of the town. New Quay Golf Club first appeared in 1909, but closed in the 1920s.[23] The nearest golf club today is Cardigan Golf Club.
In addition to the hospitality industry, there is still significant employment in sea fishing and fish processing.
New Quay Lifeboat Station, operated by the RNLI, houses two lifeboats: a Mersey class named Frank and Lena Clifford of Stourbridge in dedication to its main benefactors and an inshore inflatable D class.[24] In 2014 the station celebrated 150 years of service, during which period it made 940 callouts.[25][26]
Dylan and Caitlin Thomas lived in New Quay from 4 September 1944 until July 1945,[27] renting a cliff-top bungalow called Majoda - there's a photograph here:
[28]
It stood, said Thomas, “in a really wonderful bit of the bay, with a beach of its own. Terrific.” [29] Made of wood and asbestos, Majoda's facilities were basic: it had no mains electricity, gas or water, and the lavatory and a water tap were both outside.[30] It was, wrote Caitlin, "cheaply primitive,"[31] and they were there during one of the coldest Cardiganshire winters on record. [32]
There were several other families from Swansea living in New Quay, who had come after the bombing of Swansea in February 1941,[33] including the historian and artist, Myra Evans (1883-1972).[34] Thomas' Swansea friend and distant cousin, Vera Killick,[35] lived next to Majoda in Ffynnonfeddyg cottage, whilst her sister, Evelyn Milton, lived further along the cliff-top.[36] Thomas also had a Swansea aunt, and four cousins, in New Quay, who had lived there since the 1920s,[37] as well as a more distant relative, the First World War fighter pilot ace, James Ira Thomas Jones, aka Ira Taffy Jones.[38]
Thomas had previously visited New Quay in the 1930s[39] and then again in 1942–43 when he and Caitlin had lived a few miles away at Plas Gelli, Talsarn.[40] His New Quay pub poem Sooner than you can water milk dates from this period,[41] as does his script for the filming of Cardigan Bay for the final part of Wales - Green Mountain, Black Mountain.[42]
One of Thomas's patrons was Thomas Scott-Ellis, 8th Baron Howard de Walden, whose summer residence was Plas Llanina, an historic manor house perched on the cliffs at Cei Bach, just a short walk away from Majoda. He encouraged Thomas to use the old apple house at the bottom of the manor's walled garden as a quiet place in which to write.[43] It would have been an inspirational setting, and one Dylan Thomas scholar has suggested that the stories about Llanina's drowned houses and cemetery are "the literal truth that inspired the imaginative and poetic truth" of Under Milk Wood.[44] Another important aspect of that literal truth was the 60 acres of cliff-top between Majoda and New Quay that fell into the sea in the early 1940s.[45]
New Quay, said Caitlin, was exactly Thomas's kind of place, "with the ocean in front of him...and a pub where he felt at home in the
evenings” [46] and he was happy there, as his letters reveal.[47] His ten months at Majoda were the most fertile period of his adult life, a second flowering said his first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon, "with a great outpouring of poems."[48] These Majoda poems, including making a start on Fern Hill, provided nearly half the poems of Deaths and Entrances, published in 1946.[49] There were four film scripts as well,[50] and a radio script, Quite Early One Morning, about a walk around New Quay. This radio script has been described by Professor Walford Davies as "a veritable storehouse of phrases, rhythms and details later resurrected or modified for Under Milk Wood."[51] Not since his late teenage years had Thomas written so much. His second biographer, Paul Ferris, concluded that "on the grounds of output, the bungalow deserves a plaque of its own."[52] Thomas’s third biographer, George Tremlett, concurred, describing the time in New Quay as “one of the most creative periods of Thomas’s life.”[53]
New Quay is often cited as an inspiration for the village of Llareggub in Under Milk Wood.[54][55] Walford Davies, for example, has concluded that New Quay "was crucial in supplementing the gallery of characters Thomas had to hand for writing Under Milk Wood."[56]
FitzGibbon had come to a similar conclusion, noting that "Llareggub resembles New Quay more closely [than Laugharne] and many of the characters derive from that seaside village in Cardiganshire..."[57] Writing in January 1954, just days before the first BBC broadcast of the play, its producer, Douglas Cleverdon, noted that Thomas "wrote the first half within a few months; then his inspiration seemed to fail him when he left New Quay..."[58] And one of Thomas's closest friends, Ivy Williams of Brown's Hotel, Laugharne, has said "Of course, it wasn't really written in Laugharne at all. It was written in New Quay, most of it."[59] Jack Patrick Evans, landlord of the Black Lion in New Quay, has provided an account of Thomas gathering material for the play in the pub: “...he seemed to do his best writing among us local people – he was always with a pad on his knees...Always busy, making notes of any local characters who came in." [60]
Thomas's sketch of Llareggub is now online at the National Library of Wales.[61] The Dylan Thomas scholar, James Davies, has written that "Thomas's drawing of Llareggub is...based on New Quay."[62] There's been very little disagreement, if any, with this view. A recent analysis[63] of the sketch has revealed that Thomas used the name of an actual New Quay resident, Cherry Jones, for one of the people living in Cockle Street.[64] There’s more on New Quay's Cherry Jones and Llareggub’s Cherry Owen online here:[65]
Thomas also drew upon other New Quay residents, including Mrs Ogmore Davies and Mrs Pritchard-Jones, both of Church Street, whose names when combined produce Llareggub’s Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard.[66]
Jack Lloyd Evans, a New Quay postman and the Town Crier,[67] also lived on Church Street.[68] He provided the character of Llareggub's postman, Willy Nilly, whose practice of opening letters, and spreading the news, reflects Lloyd's role as Town Crier, as Thomas himself noted: "Nobody minds him opening the letters and acting as [a] kind of town-crier. How else could they know the news?" [69] This work sheet note, together with our knowledge that Thomas knew Jack Lloyd ("an old friend"),[70] make the link between Lloyd and Llareggub’s Willy Nilly.
There were also other New Quay people in the play, including Dai Fred Davies, the donkeyman on board the fishing vessel, the Alpha. He appears in the play as Tom-Fred the donkeyman. [71]
There are, too, New Quay people who can be found in the play, but not by name. Fourth Drowned’s question “Buttermilk and whippets?” is a good example: Jack Patrick, landlord of the Black Lion, kept whippets and made buttermilk in his dairy next to the hotel. [72] There’s a photo of Jack with one of his whippets here: [73]
At the beginning of the play, Third Drowned asks: “How’s the tenors in Dowlais?” The question reflects the close relationship that once existed between New Quay and Dowlais, an industrial town in the South Wales valleys. Its workers traditionally came to New Quay for their holidays, and often sang on the pier on summer evenings. Such was the relationship between the two towns that when St Mair’s church in Dowlais was demolished in 1963, its bell was given to New Quay's parish church.[74]
Other names and features from New Quay in the play include Maesgwyn farm, [75] the Sailor's Home Arms,[76] the river Dewi,[77] the quarry,[78] the harbour,[79] Manchester House,[80] the hill of windows[81] and the Downs.[82][83]
Llareggub's occupational profile as a town of seafarers, fishermen, cocklers and farmers has been examined through an analysis of the 1939 War Register, comparing the returns for New Quay with those for Laugharne, Ferryside and Llansteffan. It shows that New Quay and Ferryside provide by far the best fit with Llareggub's occupational profile.[84]
The writer and puppeteer, Walter Wilkinson, visited New Quay in 1947; his essay on the town captures its character and atmosphere as Thomas would have found it two years earlier.[85] There is, too, an online 1959 ITV film of the town and its people during the summer holiday season.[86]
Much of the location filming for The Edge of Love, a 2008 film based around Thomas and Caitlin's friendship with Vera Killick, was carried out in and around New Quay. It starred Sienna Miller, Keira Knightley, Matthew Rhys and Cillian Murphy. The film, said the scriptwriter, Sharman Macdonald, was a work of fiction: it was "not true, it's surmise on my part, it's a fiction… I made it up."[87] One incident in the film that Macdonald did not make up was the shooting at Majoda in March 1945, after which Vera's husband, William Killick, was charged with attempted murder and later acquitted.[88]
The Dylan Thomas Trail runs through Ceredigion, in west Wales, with a published walking guide available.[89] It was officially opened by Dylan and Caitlin's daughter, Aeronwy Thomas, in July 2003. The trail is marked by blue plaques, with information boards in New Quay, Lampeter and Aberaeron. Two photographic online guides to the New Quay section of the Trail are available.[90][91] There are also a number of accessible day walks, including the Rev. Eli Jenkins' Pub Walk,[92] which follows the river Dewi to the sea, passing close to the farm of the Cilie poets.[93]
Thomas and his family left New Quay in July 1945. By September, he was writing to Caitlin about finding somewhere to live, telling her he would live in Majoda again.[94] He came back to New Quay at least twice in 1946, the first time in March, a visit he records in his radio broadcast, The Crumbs of One Man’s Year, in which he writes about the “gently swilling retired sea-captains” in the back bar of the Black Lion. Then, in early summer, he was seen in the Commercial pub (formerly the Sailor's Home Arms[95] and now called The Seahorse Inn) with jazz pianist, Dill Jones, whose paternal family came from New Quay.[96] Thomas's letter in August 1946 to his patron, Margaret Taylor, provides a vivid roll-call of some of the New Quay characters that he knew.[97]
Thomas also refers to New Quay in his 1949 broadcast, Living in Wales (“hoofed with seaweed, did a jig on the Llanina sands...”).[98] He was still in touch in 1953 with at least one New Quay friend, Skipper Rymer, who had briefly run the Dolau pub in New Quay.[99]
Florrie Evans, (1884–1967) a local resident and daughter of a New Quay seaman, is reported to have started the 1904 Welsh Christian revival in New Quay. She went on to be a preacher and a missionary to India.[101]
Geraint Bowen, (1915–2011), Welsh language poet, academic and political campaigner.
Ryan Andrews (b. 1981), film director, music video director and production designer.
Plas Llanina
Plas Llanina is a mile or so to the north of New Quay on the cliffs above Traethgwyn and Cei Bach beaches. It is considered a good example of a small-scale, post-medieval gentry house.[103] It has a chequered history, including some interesting owners and various stories associated with them. It belonged to the Musgrave family from around 1630. By the end of the 18th century it had passed into the ownership of the Jones family, the last of whom was Edward Warren Jones. When he died, he left the Llanina Estate to his two godchildren, Mrs Charlotte Lloyd (of Coedmore) and her younger brother, Charles Richard Longcroft.[104] The house remained with the Longcrofts until about 1920, its last owner being Air Vice Marshal Sir Charles Alexander Holcombe Longcroft (1883–1958) who had been born and brought up at Llanina. He is considered a founding father of the Royal Air Force.[105]
Sometime in the late 1930s, the house and grounds were rented by Lord Howard de Walden as a summer residence.[106] In the late 1940s, it was bought by Colonel J. J. Davis and Betty Davis, who later moved to Ty Glyn in Ciliau Aeron.[107] By 1964, Plas Llanina was derelict.[108] It was subsequently bought in 1988 and rebuilt by a London banker.[109]
The house sits next to the church of Saint Ina, with a public footpath to both the church and the beach.
Photographs
R. Atrill (n.d.) A Brief History of New Quay in Photos
R. Atrill (n.d.) Then and Now: How New Quay Has Changed.
R. Atrill (n.d) The Dylan Thomas Trail in New Quay
R. Bryan (2012) New Quay: A History in Pictures, Llanina Books.
Reading
R. Bryan (2012) New Quay: A History in Pictures, Llanina Books.
R. Bryan (2014) The New Quay Lifeboats: 150 Years of Service and Courage, Llanina Books
S. Campbell-Jones (S. C. Passmore) (1974/75) Shipbuilding at New Quay 1779-1878 in Ceredigion, 7, 3/4.
J .A. Davies (2000) Dylan Thomas's Swansea, Gower and Laugharne, University of Wales Press.
W. Davies and R. Maud, eds.(1995) Under Milk Wood: the Definitive Edition, Everyman.
C. Edwards-Jones (2013) New Quay Wales Remembered, Book Guild Publishing.
P. Ferris (ed.) (2000) The Collected Letters: Dylan Thomas, Dent.
J. G. Jenkins (1982) Maritime Heritage:The Ships and Seamen of Southern Ceredigion, Gomer
W. J. Lewis (1987) New Quay and Llanarth, Aberystwyth.
S. C. Passmore (1986) New Quay at the time of the 1851 Census, Ceredigion, 3, 5.
S. C. Passmore (2012) Farmers and Figureheads: the Port of New Quay and its Hinterland, Grosvenor.
S. C. Passmore (2015) The Streets of New Quay, Lulu Press
S. W. Rhydderch (2015) Ceredigion Coast: Llareggub and the Black Lion in A Dylan Odessey: 15 Literary Tour Maps, ed. S. Edmonds, Literature Wales/Graffeg.
D. N. Thomas (2000) Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren.
D. N. Thomas (2002) Dylan Thomas' New Quay in the New Welsh Review, Summer.
D. N. Thomas (2002) The Dylan Thomas Trail, Y Lolfa.
D. N. Thomas (2004) The Birth of Under Milk Wood in Dylan Remembered vol. 2 1935–1953, Seren.
D. N. Thomas (2014) A Postcard from New Quay in Ellis, H. (ed.) (2014) Dylan Thomas: A Centenary Celebration, Bloomsbury
M. de Walden (1965) Pages from My Life, Sidgewick and Jackson.
^58 sailors active and retired. Data from the 1939 War Register and available online at Findmypast and reproduced at Llareggub and the 1939 War Register
^S.C. Passmore (2012) Farmers and Figureheads: the Port of New Quay and its Hinterland, pp57 and 111, Grosvenor.
^For helpful overviews of New Quay’s three chapels and two churches, see R. Bryan (2012) New Quay: A History in Pictures, pp77-83, Llanina Books and W. J. Lewis (1987) New Quay and Llanarth, pp28-31, Aberystwyth. The three chapels are Bethel, Tabernacle and Towyn; the two churches are Llanllwchaearn Church at the top of the town and St. Ina Church at Llanina on the eastern end of the bay.
^Nautical School website. See also a letter from Dylan Thomas to Donald Taylor, 26 October 1944, in the Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas in which he notes he had been asked to find films for the pupils.
^For photographs of Majoda, see Majoda photos. There is an architect's drawing of the room plan of Majoda made in 1945 in D.N. Thomas (2002) The Dylan Thomas Trail, p98, Y Lolfa
^P. Ferris (ed.) (2000) The Collected Letters: Dylan Thomas, p. 581, and also see pp.582 and 583, Dent.
^There is a more detailed description of Majoda and its facilities in D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, pp97-100, Seren. Thomas also
refers to his "wood-and-asbestos pagoda" in his letter-poem of 1 September 1944 in the Collected Letters.
^C. Thomas (1986) Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas, p.89, Secker and Warburg,
^ D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, p98, Seren.
^Elmira/Myra Evans was the daughter of Captain Thomas and Mary Rees of New Quay. She was a local historian and artist, who had also written a children's operetta. Her portrait of Dylan Thomas can be found in D. N. Thomas (2000) Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow p104, Seren. Her husband, Evan Jenkin Evans (1882-1944), had been professor of physics at Swansea since 1920. For more on Myra and her work, see Myra Evans
^Evelyn lived in Traethina. (Register of Electors, 1945). There is more on Thomas's friendship with Vera at Vera and Dylan. Vera and Evelyn's mother, Margaret Phillips, had been born in Llanarth, the next village to New Quay. See Thomas (2000) pp. 27–28.
^The aunt was Elizabeth Ann Williams née Evans who had married John Williams (1864-1911), the brother of Dylan’s mother, Florence. Elizabeth left Swansea to live in New Quay in the 1920s, together with her daughter, Theodosia (b.1904), who was Dylan's first cousin. Theodosia married a master mariner, Thomas Legg, in 1930. Their three children, Margaret, Anne and George Legg (b. 1932), were brought up in New Quay, in a house called Wendawel, which is today part of the Dylan Thomas Trail around the town. Thomas Legg's parents, Captain George Legg OBE and his wife, Margaret, also lived in New Quay. George and Margaret are to be found in the 1945 Register of Electors for New Quay, as is their daughter-in-law, Theodosia. For more on Dylan Thomas' New Quay relations, see pp. 106–115 of D. N. Thomas (2002) The Dylan Thomas Trail, Y Lolfa..
^He and his wife Olive lived in Tylegwyn, New Quay, for much of the 1939-1945 war. (Register of Electors, 1945). There’s an interview with Olive in D. N. Thomas (2004) p. 100 Dylan Remembered 1935-1953, vol. 2, Seren. For the family tree linking Dylan and Ira, see Ira and Dylan family tree For more on Dylan and Ira Jones in New Quay, see the index of D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren. See also Dylan’s comment on Ira Jones in his letter about New Quay to Margaret Taylor, 29 August 1946 in Collected Letters
^D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren pp. 45–49
^Plas Gelli is a Grade II listed building. The house was built in the 1680s, with a four-room cross-wing added in the late 18th century. Dylan and Caitlin lived in Plas Gelli with Vera Killick, Evelyn Milton and their mother, Margaret Phillips. For more on this, see D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren pp. 51–77, 79–80. See also Thomas' two letters from Gelli, August 1942, in the Collected Letters.
^Sooner than... is reproduced on p. 189 of D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm etc. It can also be found on p618 of Dylan Thomas' Collected Letters in a letter of 28 May 1945 to T. W. Earp, where Note 1 confirms the dating of the poem to 1943.
^See D. N. Thomas (2000) p57 on Plas Gelli and the film crew at Gelli in August 1942. The film comes to an end with a panoramic sweep of Cardigan Bay from Pengraig cliff above New Quay, followed by a shot of Carreg Walltog rock on the shore below. You can view the film here: Green Mountain etc
^D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm etc. pp. 45–51 and M. de Walden (1965) Pages from My Life, Sidgewick and Jackson.
^Passmore (2012), p. 26 and Passmore (2015) p. 470, who gives a date of 1940.
^C. Thomas (1986) Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas, p92 Secker and Warburg. The pub was the Black Lion
^see, for example, his letter to Vernon Watkins, 28 November 1944 in The Collected Letters ed. Paul Ferris, 2000, Dent
^C. FitzGibbon (1963) The Life of Dylan Thomas, pp266-67, Little Brown.
^Started writing Fern Hill in New Quay: see (1) C. FitzGibbon (1965) The Life of Dylan Thomas, p.266, Little-Brown. (2) C. Thomas (1986) Caitlin: Life with Dylan Thomas, p92, Secker and Warburg. (3) P. Ferris (1999) Dylan Thomas: The Biography, p.4, J. M. Dent. Further work was done on Fern Hill in July and August 1945 at Blaencwm, the family cottage in Carmarthenshire, Wales. A draft of the poem was sent to David Tennant on 28 August 1945: see P. Ferris ed. (2000) The Collected Letters of Dylan Thomas, p. 629, J. M. Dent. Fern Hill received its first publication in Horizon magazine in October 1945.
^Our Country, Suffer Little Children, Twenty Years A-Growing and The Unconquerable People.
^Walford Davies, in W. Davies and R. Maud eds. (1995), Under Milk Wood: the Definitive Edition, p. xviii , Everyman. For example, the “done-by-hand water colours” of Quite Early One Morning appear later as First Voice's “watercolours done by hand” in Under Milk Wood.
^P. Ferris (1997) Dylan Thomas: The Biography, p. 4, Dent.
^G. Tremlett (1993) Dylan Thomas: In the Mercy of his Means, p. 95, Constable
^D. N. Thomas (2004) Dylan Remembered 1935-53, vol 2, pp. 285–313, Seren
^S. W. Rhydderch (2015) Ceredigion Coast: Llareggub and the Black Lion in A Dylan Odessey: 15 Literary Tour Maps, ed. S. Edmonds, Literature Wales/Graffeg.
^W. Davies and R. Maud, eds.(1995) p. xvii, Under Milk Wood: the Definitive Edition, Everyman.
^C. Fitzgibbon (1963) The Life of Dylan Thomas, p. 237, Little Brown.
^D. N. Thomas (2004) Dylan Remembered 1935–1953, vol. 2, p. 187, Seren. Ivy’s husband, Ebie, also recalls visiting New Quay on several occasions, staying in the Black Lion (p. 187).
^D. N. Thomas (2004) Dylan Remembered 1935–1953, pp. 99–100, Seren.
^J.A. Davies (2000) Dylan Thomas's Swansea, Gower and Laugharne, University of Wales Press. pp. 103–104.
^Analysis of Llareggub sketch, Google Sites. First published on Discover Dylan Thomas: the official Dylan Thomas website, September 2021.
^In 1933, Dan Jones, a general builder in New Quay, married Phyllis Cherry, the daughter of Walter and Edith Cherry of Margaret Street, New Quay (see Free BMD, June quarter). Dan, Phyllis and her parents are all in the 1945 Register of Electors for New Quay. Walter Cherry was a town councillor, magistrate and a Black Lion regular. Following the marriage, Dan became known as both Dan Cherry and as Cherry Jones - see D. N. Thomas (2000), Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren, p. 218.
^Annie Davies was the wife of Thomas Ogmore Davies whose drapery shop, Bon Marché, stood at the top of Church Street, next to the Queens Hotel. There's a period photograph of Bon Marché here: Bon Marche
Eluned Pritchard-Jones was the wife of Barclays bank manager, Richard Pritchard-Jones, Bank House, Church Street. (1945 Register of Electors.) There's more on her household fastidiousness in the Wikipedia entry for Under Milk Wood, which draws on an account of Mrs Pritchard-Jones provided by her daughter: C. Edwards-Jones (2013), New Quay Wales Remembered, pp. 60-61, Book Guild Publishing.
^The New Quay historian, S.C. Passmore, has noted that the “tradition of a town-crier persisted down to the 1950s, the last crier being Jack Lloyd.” Farmers and Figureheads, (2012) p75. In her book on New Quay, former resident, Catrin Edwards-Jones, gives examples of the local news that Jack Lloyd would cry out e.g. forthcoming local events such as a concert or a meeting in the Memorial Hall (New Quay Wales Remembered (2013), Book Guild Publishing, pp. 28–29).
^He lived at Noddfa (now Trenova) at the top end of Church Street, opposite the Queens Hotel. See S. Passmore (2015)The Streets of New Quay, p. 199, Lulu Press, and the Register of Electors 1945.
^See Davies, W. and Maud, R. eds. (1995) Under Milk Wood: the Definitive Edition, p.xxxvi, Everyman.
^"Jack the Post is an old friend...” Letter to Margaret Taylor of 29 August 1946, in the Collected Letters.
^ Dai Fred was in charge of the donkey engine, an auxiliary engine used for work such as lifting and pumping. He is mentioned in Thomas' letter to Margaret Taylor of 29 August 1946 (Collected Letters). For more on Dai Fred see Thomas, D. N. (2000), Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren, pp. 219–220.
^The information about Jack Patrick’s dairy came from his niece, Ann Brodie, and from a New Quay resident, Eleanor Lister. For a good deal more on Jack Patrick, consult the Index of D.N. Thomas (2000) Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren
^D.N. Thomas (2000) Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, p.82, Seren
^ For more on the special relationship between New Quay and Dowlais, see D. N. Thomas (2002) The Dylan Thomas Trail, p.73, Y Lolfa.
^"Fourth Drowned: Who milks the cows in Maesgwyn?" Maesgwyn's fields were on the cliff-top between Majoda and New Quay. See S. Passmore (2012) Farmers and Figureheads: the Port of New Quay and its Hinterland p. 26, Grosvenor and S. Passmore (2015) The Streets of New Quay, p. 470, Lulu Press, with a photo of Maesgwyn on p. 468. There's also another photo of Maesgwyn on p. 213 of D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, Seren.
^Always known as the Sailor's Arms locally, and in newspaper reports and in some census returns. See Sailor's Arms See also D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow pp. 212-213, Seren, for more on the Sailor's Arms.
^Ffynnon Ddewi (Dewi’s Well), supplied the town’s water until the 1930s. The river Dewi itself flows into the sea nearby. See W. J. Lewis (1987) New Quay and Llanarth p. 35 Aberystwyth
^Frondolau quarry at the end of Rock Street and Neuadd quarry on the headland above. As with Llareggub's Mr Waldo and Mrs Beattie Morris up in the quarry, New Quay’s Frondolau quarry had long been a favourite spot for couples, as the New Quay Chronicle had once reported: “Should Cupid pierce the tender hearts of the lovely maidens and brave young men, the quarry and the lonely cliffs form an unapproachable fortress to guard their faltering confessions.” August 1902.
^New Quay's harbour and pier date from the early 19th century. See chapter 2 of S. C. Passmore (2012) Farmers and Figureheads: the Port of New Quay and its Hinterland, Grosvenor. They are both still in use today (2022).
Laugharne's harbour had vanished under saltmarsh and silt long before Thomas' time. Ever since the 17th century, “…the incremental growth of the salt marsh deprived the town of both beach and harbour and landlocked its castle.” See S. Read et. al. (2021), The geomorphology of the Taf Estuary at Laugharne harbour lost to salt marsh See also Laugharne harbour history
^Manchester House on Margaret Street in New Quay was a draper and milliner’s shop, as it is in Llareggub but not in Laugharne, where it was a general store. Thomas mentions New Quay’s Manchester House in his broadcast, Quite Early One Morning.
^ First Voice: “The windy town is a hill of windows…..” See W. Davies and R. Maud, eds (1995), Under Milk Wood: the Definitive Edition, p59, Everyman. For two photos of New Quay as a "hill of windows", see hill of windows with another photo in D. N. Thomas (2000) A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, p. 206, Seren.
^Llareggub had Donkey Down (as well as Donkey Street and Donkey Lane). In New Quay, the Downs was an area of steep grassland that stretched down from the Black Lion to the lifeboat station. It was used for grazing donkeys, including Maisie, the Black Lion’s donkey. Thomas refers to the braying of donkeys in a letter from Majoda of 21 May 1945. For more on New Quay’s donkeys, see Thomas, D. N. (2000), op.cit. p. 212, with a photo of a typical New Quay donkey cart on p. 53 of R. Bryan (2012), New Quay: A History in Pictures, Llanina Books. Walter Wilkinson also mentions the town’s donkeys in his account of a visit to New Quay in 1947. Puppets in Wales (1948), Bles, p. 131.
^For more on New Quay names in the play, see Thomas, D. N. (2000), op. cit. pp. 206–216, and online at New Quay names
^D. N. Thomas, (2019) Llareggub and the 1939 War Register, first published in 2019 on Discover Dylan Thomas, the official Dylan Thomas website. It's also online at Llareggub/1939 War Register
^He was spotted in the pub by the author Jon Meirion Jones. For more on this, see D. N. Thomas (2002) The Dylan Thomas Trail, p. 102, Y Lolfa. For more on Dill Jones’ family and New Quay, see Thomas, D. N. (2002) Striding Dill Jones – Jazz with Black Hwyl, Planet, June/July.
^29 August 1946, in the Collected Letters. The people mentioned in the letter include Jack Patrick Evans, landlord of the Black Lion; David Frederick Davies, in charge of the donkey engine on board the Alpha; Dewi “Ianthe” Evans, an electrician in Aberaeron; Evan Joshua James, manager of New Quay’s quarry; Norman Evans, shopkeeper, London House; John (Jack) Lloyd Evans, postman and Town Crier; James Ira Thomas Jones, a retired fighter pilot; Alastair Hugh Graham, a reclusive aristocrat. For more on these, see Under Milk Wood.
^R. Maud (1991) On the Air with Dylan Thomas: The Broadcasts, p201, New Directions.
^The Dylan Thomas Archive in the University of Texas at Austin has a list written by Thomas in June 1953 of people, including Rymer, to whom he intended to write. Capt. Walter Rymer's family lived in Sunnydale on Brongwyn Lane in New Quay (Register of Electors, 1945). He captained trawlers for Neale and West, fish merchants of Cardiff. For more on him, see Thomas, D. N. (2002) p. 49.
