South of Aberystwyth, the great shallow curve of Cardigan Bay is edged by steep cliffs and low banks of rounded pebble. Before the coming of the railways, there was a strong maritime trade along this coast – but ports for loading and refuge were scarce.
In 1807, Reverend Alban Thomas Jones Gwynne sought to change this – obtaining a special act of parliament to build a harbour at Aberaeron. Previously, the Afon Aeron may have had no navigable opening to seaward, merely pooling behind the pebble beach. Breaching the bank with a pair of stone breakwaters changed everything, and a haven was created that supported several shipyards and substantial trade for many years.
As part of the master plan, the old core of the settlement was expanded, with a variety of typically elegant Georgian buildings worthy of a period drama emerging around the new harbour.
But not everything is perfect. Winter storm surges and high flow in the Afon Aeron flood the quayside area, and plans to further defend this site through engineering projects are evolving. The port environment is not wholly artificial, however.
Across the harbour from the inner basin, built to shelter smaller vessels, a low rock outcrop rises from the water – marked by a warning post. Against it, successive storms have built a bank of pebble and shingle abutting the harbour wall, colonised now with a variety of salt-tolerant plants. Gulls gather in the spring sunshine at the edge of the bank, whose unkempt vegetation offers a variety of potential nest sites.
While the managed turf of the harbourside is limited to clumps of buttercup and the occasional violet, this happily neglected patch of random wilderness sports a wider range of species, including sea beet and red campion.
On the landward side of this accretion, shrubs and small trees have started to emerge. Stands of gorse, attracting pollinating insects with their year-round show of flowers, are increasingly entangled with the ubiquitous bramble stems. Left undisturbed, this dynamic habitat should increasingly form a natural barrier to help soften the impact of the winter storms. Not a solution, but certainly a bonus.
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