Aberaeron

Aberaeron, previously anglicised as Aberayron, is a town, community and electoral ward in Ceredigion, Wales. Located on the coast between Aberystwyth and Cardigan, its resident population was 1,274 in the 2021 census. The name of the town is Welsh for "mouth of the Aeron". It is derived from the Middle Welsh aer (slaughter), which gave its name to Aeron, believed by some to have been a Welsh god of war. One of the main Ceredigion County Council office sites is located in Aberaeron. In 1800, there was no significant coastal settlement here. The present town was planned and developed from 1805 by the Rev. Alban Thomas Jones Gwynne. He built a harbour which operated as a port and supported a shipbuilding industry in the 19th century. A group of workmen's houses and a school were built on the harbour's north side, but these were reclaimed by the sea. Steam ships continued to visit the harbour until the 1920s but, in later years, it evolved into a small half-tide harbour for recreational craft. The estuary is also crossed by a wooden pedestrian bridge. Crafts were an important part of village life in the 19th century. Information recorded in trade directories shows that in 1830, although it was not yet fully developed as a port, in Aberaeron there were one woollen manufacturer, one bootmaker, one baker, one corn miller, one blacksmith, one blacksmith and shovel maker, two shipwrights, one carpenter and one hatmaker. In the late 1890s, a hand-powered cable car, the Aeron Express, was built to ferry workers across the harbour when the bridge was demolished by floods. The structure was recreated in 1988 as a tourist attraction that ran until the end of summer 1994, when it was closed under health and safety regulations. The architecture of Aberaeron is unusual for this part of rural Wales, being constructed around a principal square, Alban Square, of Regency style buildings grouped around the harbour. This was the work of Edward Haycock Sr., an architect from Shrewsbury.