Qualla: Cardigan Bay

Cardigan Bay: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit stef yau, CC BY 2.0. There is a legend that the sea here drowned a kingdom. Cantre'r Gwaelod, the Lowland Hundred - sixteen prosperous townships, a wall against the tide, a watchman who drank one night and forgot to close the floodgates, and the next morning church bells were tolling underwater. The Welsh have told the story for a thousand years. Then in February 2014, winter storms tore the sand off the beach at Borth and exposed something that should not exist: the stumps of an oak and pine forest, preserved in peat for 4,500 years, where the bay now is. The legend turned out to be partly true. There had been a forest. There had been land. The sea did take it. Just not in one night.

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Image: stef yau | CC BY 2.0

Cardigan Bay: The Arc

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Finden, Edward Francis, 1791-1857 Batty, (Robert), d. 1848, CC0. Cardigan Bay is the largest bay in Wales - a great west-facing arc of the Irish Sea about 65 miles across from Bardsey Island in the north to Strumble Head in the south. The coast it encloses is some of the most varied in Britain: pastel-painted resorts like Aberaeron and New Qua...

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Image: Finden, Edward Francis, 1791-1857 Batty, (Robert), d. 1848 | CC0

Cardigan Bay: The Big Three

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Llywelyn2000, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walk the Ceredigion Coast Path on a calm day and watch the water for the Big Three. The harbour porpoise breaks the surface in tight, neat puffs of breath. The grey seal hauls itself onto rocks at the headland and watches you watch it. And the bottlenose dolphin - this is the pop...

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Image: Llywelyn2000 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Cardigan Bay: The Drowned Forest

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Adrian Pingstone (Arpingstone), Public domain. The bay sits inside a piece of Welsh mythology. The legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod tells of a drowned kingdom under the central and northern bay - towns, fields, a fortified sea wall, a careless prince. For centuries the story was treated as folklore. Then the storms came. In winter ...

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Image: Adrian Pingstone (Arpingstone) | Public domain

Cardigan Bay: The Range

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hogyn Lleol, CC BY-SA 4.0. Look at an aviation chart of Cardigan Bay and a large red rectangle dominates it. The MoD Aberporth Range covers some 6,500 square kilometres of sea, from sea level to unlimited height - one of the largest air weapons test ranges in Europe. It was established during the Second Wo...

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Image: Hogyn Lleol | CC BY-SA 4.0