Fishguard and its bay

Geography determines history. This view explains something about the area in which I live. I'm not expecting many people to be interested in the fortunes of a small town at the back of Welsh beyond; I'm writing for my own sake because of a recent online discussion I got involved in, about the history of our community.

I'm standing on the valley side west of Fishguard looking east, up the coast. There are really three centres of habitation here, which succeeded each other in importance through the course of time.

The dark distant bay invisible behind the high town promontory was the original nucleus of Abergwaun, the Welsh name meaning mouth of the Gwaun being a literal description of the settlement around the river mouth with an old harbour. It was a small fishing village that flourished as demand grew for its herrings - fresh and salted, sold in barrels. Trade largely depended on coastal shipping but increasingly through the 17th century by road inland. As the major roads were turnpiked (essentially privatised) and improved during the 18th century so goods were able to be transported more speedily - if you could afford the tolls. (Local people rioted against them in the 1840s.)

A decent road into Fishguard from the south meant that the nucleus of the community shifted to the more salubrious upper part of the town where there was room for development and nice locations for the houses of increasingly prosperous merchants, traders and a growing professional/gentry class. At the same time the herring fishery dwindled with the result Fishguard became a more economically and socially diverse small rural/maritime community. The part visible here is largely 20th century development spreading away from the town centre which is out of sight. The road winding up on the right is a recent by-pass that joins the old main road.

Below me where I am standing lies Fishguard's smaller 'twin town', or slightly disreputable cousin, Goodwick. (Both names are Norse, a legacy of Viking adventurers who set up fishing outposts all around Wales.) Goodwick was little more than a scattering of fisherpeoples' cottages at both ends of the bay here. (In between lies a marshy moor where a French landing party was quelled in 1797.) But a huge transformation occurred with the arrival of the railway and the construction of a station and port in the late 19th/early 20th centuries. (The white structure bottom left is a footbridge crossing the train track just before it reaches the end of the line.)

For a while it looked as if Fishguard had a prosperous future as stopover for pleasure cruises and even as a transatlantic destination, with fast trains to carry passengers on to London. But the harbour proved too shallow for ocean-going liners and all that remained of the dream were regular ferry crossings to and from Ireland, now reduced to two a day. The smaller town of Goodwick thrived for a while with employment provided by the transport links, but now, like Fishguard, it's struggling economically with most of its old shops gone. Some hope rests on the possibility of a marina on this side of the breakwater but I suspect that's another castle in the air, or rather a boat park in the bay, that will do little to regenerate the community.

The herrings, the tollgate riots, the French 'invasion', the arrival of the railway and one single visit by the Lusitania is really all there is to write home about from Fishguard and Goodwick. But for me the real history lies in the people: the fishers, farmers, sailors, builders, teachers, shopkeepers, rope makers - women and men whose bodies lie in the graveyards (or at sea) and whose stories rarely come to light.

Here are a few of those stories I've found during the 20 years I've lived here.
Mary Morgan, foster mother
Yorrie George, heroic postman
D.J.Williams, writer and teacher
David Sambrook, fallen soldier
The 1911 railwaymen's strike