Former Lloyd’s Wharf, Cardigan
The main quay at the foot of Quay Street was known as Lloyd’s Wharf, beside the mouth of the river Mwldan. The slipway you can see today was built where the Mwldan flowed (the river’s now culverted under the car park). On the left of the slipway is the old quay wall, made of locally quarried slate slabs. The steps led down to the Mwldan.
Imports could be landed at Lloyd’s Wharf without the customs officers being notified beforehand (as at the town’s other quays) but the officers had to be informed once the cargo had arrived. One of the main officers in the first half of the 19th century was Thomas Lloyd. He was Port Collector in 1814, and Comptroller and Landing Surveyor in 1830.
Lloyd’s Wharf boasted the biggest warehouse in the region, where you now see a single-storey building. It also had c.45 metres of river frontage, stables, sheds, a weighbridge (where cargoes in carts were weighed), a crane and offices.
A wide variety of goods was landed there, including coal, flour and animal feed, some of which came from as far away as South America. The poster shown here, courtesy of the National Library of Wales, advertised to farmers the arrival in Cardigan of a cargo of early seed potatoes from the Lower Seine, France, in January 1852.
One night in 1890 he jumped into the river to rescue Captain David Thomas, of the smack Christiana, who had fallen off Lloyd’s Wharf at 1..30pm. Carpenter Thomas Owen, who lived at the adjacent Cambrian Quay, dashed into the water and rescued the captain. For this, he received the Royal Humane Society’s bronze medal, which was presented by the 1st Volunteer Battalion of the Welsh Regiment, where he was a volunteer.
The Christiana had been badly damaged by fire in 1878 while moored at Lloyd’s Wharf with a cargo of bricks. In 1892 it ran aground in a storm downstream of Cardigan while carrying manure from Caernarfon. The Cardigan lifeboat rescued the crew of two.
Ships were built on the opposite shore of the Mwldan, west of Lloyd’s Wharf. The town’s gasworks opened in that area in 1864. Coal, unloaded at a jetty, was burned to create gas for lighting the town. Fire broke out in the gasworks one afternoon in 1908, causing great alarm. The fire brigade stopped the flames reaching the gasometer (large storage container) and causing an explosion.
With thanks to Amgueddfa Genedlathol Cymru – the National Library of Wales
Postcode: SA43 1HR View Location Map
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