Postcards and Photos of New Quay

This asbestos bungalow, or shack as Dylan called it, is Majoda. It was the Thomases’ home in New Quay from September 1944 to July 1945. It stood overlooking Traethgwyn beach, and had been built as a summer holiday home. It had no mains electricity or water, and the lavatory was outside. Dylan and family were there during one of the coldest Cardiganshire winters on record.

Despite the cold and privations, Dylan’s nine months at Majoda were the most productive of his adult life. It may be surprising that it was here, above the crashing waves along Traethgwyn, that he found the inspiration to start writing Fern Hill but, as the following five photos show, Majoda was as much in a rural and agricultural setting as a coastal one, set in farmland that ran all the way from Llanina Point to New Quay. The dual nature of Majoda's setting is conveyed in Dylan’s letter of May 21 1945, in which he describes the sounds he can hear around him while writing:

“It is very quiet here; only the hunting noise of the hard-away sea, the throbbing of tractors, the squealing of rats and rabbits in the traps, the surging of seagulls, thrushes, blackbirds, finches, cuckooing of cuckoos, cooing of doves… naying, chucking, quacking, braying, mooing, rabbit-gunning, horse trotting, scraping of magpies on the roof...”

Welsh Blacks in the field next to Majoda, 1950s, with New Quay in the background.

In this next image below, Majoda is clearly visible, the furthest white building, just below the branches of the tree. Today, caravans (which started arriving in the 1960s) occupy almost all of this land between Majoda and New Quay. Click to enlarge.

A 1942 aerial photo below, providing a more comprehensive view of the farmland around Majoda.

A colour postcard from 1963, showing the farmland closer to the New Quay end of the cliffs.

...and a view of the town and its two beaches, Dolau and Traethgwyn.

An aerial view of New Quay taken in 1932. Click to enlarge.

The Black Lion is to the bottom left of the photo, with its gable end and three windows clearly visible, with some white washing hanging on the line. The path leading up to the back door of the pub would have been the final leg of Dylan’s walk across the cliff-top fields from Majoda.

One of the Black Lion’s fields lies to the right of the path, with an animal, probably a cow, in the far corner. The Patricks, who had run the pub since at least the 1840s, were dairy farmers as well as publicans. Jack Patrick, who kept the pub in Dylan’s day, also kept a horse, donkeys and whippets, and ran a dairy next to the Black Lion. Hence Llareggub’s “Buttermilk and whippets”.

To the right of the Black Lion is the dominant roof of Tabernacle chapel. The lane that ran uphill alongside the chapel was called Everlasting Hill, which always makes me think of the “eternal hill” that Eli Jenkins looks at before he begins his morning poem.

Running down from the Black Lion is an area of land above the lifeboat station called the Downs, where Jack Pat and others sometimes grazed their donkeys, bringing to mind Llareggub’s Donkey Down, not to mention its Donkey Street and Donkey Lane. Donkeys, which had long been used for pulling delivery carts in the town, were almost as emblematic of New Quay in Dylan's day as dolphins have become today, so it's hardly surprising that there are many references to them in Under Milk Wood (and see Walter Wilkinson's essay on this site).

To the right of the Downs, and running across to the pier, are Coronation Gardens, created in 1911, a likely inspiration for Llareggub’s Coronation Street. Click to enlarge the image, and you’ll be able to see people sitting on the benches in the Gardens (Coronation Street was in the script of Under Milk Wood given to the BBC in 1950, so it cannot be an allusion to the 1953 coronation).

New Quay, March 1st 1945, from the Radio Times

Bottom of the town by the pier, 1950s, with Coronation Gardens, centre front. On the right of the Gardens is Cnwc y Glap, where the retired sea captains gathered daily to reminisce. It’s a public toilet today.

...and the same shot today.

First Voice: “The windy town is a hill of windows, and from the larrupped waves the lights of the lamps in the windows call back the day and the dead that have run away to sea.”

Below: Llareggub’s hill of windows, New Quay 1900

...as well as a 1999 photo of the windowed hill.

The Thomases' watering holes

The Black Lion, below

The Sailor's Home Arms, 1901, renamed The Commercial and then the Seahorse

The Sailor's Home Arms, 1901, renamed the Commercial Hotel and then the Seahorse. Dylan mentions the Commercial in his letter to Margaret Taylor of August 29 1946. This photo hung in the bar of the pub until at least the late 1990s, when the landlord gave me a copy.

The Sailor’s Home Arms was often referred to as the Sailors’ Arms: see Passmore (2012) p43 and various reports found searching Welsh Newspapers Online. For example: “William Jones was charged by Mary Jones, Sailors’ Arms, New Quay, with having stolen a bottle of whisky.” Cambrian News May 16 1902.

Image acknowledgements and copyright:

Majoda: David Evans

Welsh Blacks: Betty Davis and D. N. Thomas

Majoda farmland: Rod Atrill, https://newquay-westwales.co.uk/history.html

Colour photo of farmland, the view of the two beaches and Welsh blacks: D.N. Thomas

Bottom of the town 1950s and the hill of windows 1900: Roger Bryan and Peter Davies

Hill of windows, 1999: Bruce Cardwell.

The Black Lion, Sailor's Home Arms: Ann Brodie and D.N. Thomas

There's a fine collection of some 120 postcards of New Quay 1930-1960 on the Francis Frith website: https://www.francisfrith.com/new-quay

Some of the best photographs of New Quay are to be found in R. Bryan (2012) New Quay: A History in Pictures, Llanina Books, but see also https://newquay-westwales.co.uk/history.html

. For photos of the Dylan Thomas Trail around the town, see https://www.newquaywales.co.uk/trail.html