Newcastle Emlyn (Welsh: Castellnewydd Emlyn) is a town on the River Teifi, straddling the counties of Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire in West Wales. It is also a community entirely within Carmarthenshire, bordered by those of Llangeler and Cenarth, also in Carmarthenshire, and by Llandyfriog in Ceredigion. Adpar is the part of town on the Ceredigion side of the River Teifi. It was formerly called Trefhedyn and was an ancient Welsh borough in its own right. The area including Adpar had a population of 1,883 according to the 2011 census.[2]
History
Newcastle Emlyn, 1804The remains of the Norman castle.
The town takes its name from the cantref of Emlyn, an administrative district in medieval Dyfed.[3]
Newcastle Emlyn was historically part of the ancient parish of Cenarth. When elected parish and district councils were established in 1894, Cenarth was given a parish council and included in the Newcastle Emlyn Rural District. In 1897 part of the parish on Cenarth was converted into an urban district called Newcastle Emlyn.[11] Newcastle Emlyn Urban District was abolished in 1974, with its area becoming a community instead. District-level functions passed to Carmarthen District Council, which was in turn replaced by Carmarthenshire County Council in 1996.[12][13]
Passenger services ceased in 1952, but goods services continued until 1973, due in part to milk train services to the cheese-producing creamery.[14] After the goods service ceased, the lines were removed and the station demolished.[16]
Demography
According to the United Kingdom census 2011 Newcastle Emlyn had a population of 1,883, including Adpar on the Ceredigion side of the River Teifi. A 2017 population estimate put it at 1,888, of whom 52 per cent were female and 48 per cent male, with 379 aged 0–17 years, 979 aged 18–64, and 530 aged over 65.
The 2001 UK census had 69 per cent of the 950 people then living in Newcastle Emlyn speaking fluent Welsh, although the proportion fell in the next decade to 54 per cent, as the town population increased to 1,138 aged 3 or over by 2011.[17] The drop in Welsh usage in Newcastle Emlyn between 2001 and 2011 was among the biggest in Wales, though not uncommon across Ceredigion and Carmarthenshire.
The latest Estyn inspection report in 2012 on the town's English-medium secondary school notes that only 12 per cent of pupils came from homes where Welsh is spoken, with 31 per cent considered fluent in the language. Parents have the option of sending their children to a designated Welsh-medium secondary school, Ysgol Dyffryn Teifi in Llandysul, Ceredigion. Only 64.8 per cent of the town's residents were born in Wales.
The town has a dual-language primary school,[18] and also a pre-school establishment known as Meithrinfa Teifi Tots Nursery.[19]
The entrance to King George's Field in Church Lane, Newcastle Emlyn, Carmarthenshire. Holy Trinity Church is in the background on the right.
A legend of the Wyvern of Newcastle Emlyn (Gwiber Castell Newydd Emlyn) tells how on a fair day when the town was full, a winged wyvern breathing fire and smoke landed on the castle walls, stared threateningly, then settled down to sleep. The general terror gave way to an effort by a few townsfolk to destroy it. A soldier waded the Teifi to a vantage point on the castle side and released a red cloak into the river. The creature, suddenly woken, caught sight of the cloak, fell on it with shrieks and tore it to shreds, but was shot in its vulnerable underparts. The assailant escaped to safety. The dying wyvern turned over and floated down the river, its wound gushing venom that fouled the water and killed all the fish. There was joy at the monster's death.[21]
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