Fisherman's Area and Footpath in front of the Cottages on Nefyn Beach

October 2018

There has been a footpath in front of all the cottages on Nefyn Beach for many years. The footpath prevented people getting their feet wet during the flow phase of the tide, especially the larger spring tides, when the sea-water came right up to the front of the cottages. This occurred frequently since the tidal flow occurred twice in every twenty four hour period. The footpath was used initially by workers as they walked back and forth plying their trade building the wooden ships in the beach corner. They worked between the Penogfa (Herring Place) cottage shown on the left in photo 1 and the area with ships in the right rear of the photo along the headland near the Creigiau Mawr rocks. The photo was taken in the 1870's when ship-building was still a flourishing business on Nefyn beach. The large schooner central to the photo was named the Venus. It's bow and bowsprit reached into the cliff in the open land between the front of Penogfa cottage and the two other attached cottages named Hen Dafarn (Old Tavern) and Refail y Gof (Smithy). The cottages are almost totally obscured by the ship. (The Refail cottage was not named as such, but it will be referred to as the Refail in the remainder of this text). If you look closely at the photo though, you can just see the chimneys of both cottages between the first and second mast of the schooner.

By the 1890's the ship building had come to an end and Nefyn Beach had returned to being populated by fishermen. Photo 2 shows a group of five fishermen with their boats in front of the two cottages, Hen Dafarn on the left and Refail on the right. The boats are pulled up right on the soil or hard sand in front of the cottages and the footpath is now visible to the right of the second fisherman and just above the third. The area to the extreme right is void of wooden ships but is covered with drying poles for the fishermen's nets. There is a slipway leading up from the beach near the large anchor and the area is protected from erosion by the sea with a high, well-constructed, stone wall on the right.

Photo 3 was taken halfway down the the cliff path looking towards the cottages also in the 1890's - note the presence of the same anchor in the sand by the slipway. One boat is pulled up nearly to the door of Hen Dafarn and there are sails or bottom boards drying in the sun by Penogfa. Please also note there are no signs of a path coming down the cliff side behind the cottages.

Photo 4 was taken in the 1920's from the top of the cliffs looking down on the cottages. By now all the cottages had been painted white and two support walls had been attached to the front of Refail which was closer to the sea than Hen Dafarn and therefore more susceptible to erosion. The open area between Penogfa and the other cottages, where the mighty Venus stood fifty years earlier, now contained fishermen's boats and a clothes line belonging to Hen Dafarn (the beginning of encroachment?). A wall was built on the seaward side of that area supporting the footpath which leads to the front of the cottages. The wall would have been right beneath the center of the Venus fifty years earlier. The wall also had a flat top allowing people to walk along the wall past the two cottages if they so desired. Beyond Refail the footpath rose in front of an old building used for smoking herrings and proceeded into the area used for drying nets. A footpath has now been established behind the Hen Dafarn and Refail cottages zig-zagging down the cliff side of the headland emerging into the area with the nets.

Photo 5 was taken of the beach corner halfway down the cliffs in the late 1940's. Significant changes had taken place there since the 1920's and I have no idea on how those changes came about. In 1935 a third cottage named Hafod-y-Mor was built next to Refail on the site of the old smoked herring building. The Hafod-y-Mor property terminated in a white painted stone wall along the edge of the cottage. Focusing just on the issues associated with the fishermen, the footpath leading from Penogfa along the front of the now three cottages and up in front of the sheds into the net drying area is clearly visible. The footpath and the flat wall in front was also extended to the property edge. Sometime during that period stone steps were attached to the outer wall so people in the cottages had direct access to the beach. The footpath that zig-zagged down the cliff emerged beyond the white wall joining with the frontal path into the area where the nets were dried. The path down the cliffs was very much in use and since I was born in 1941, I used it very often. Also during this time sheds appeared between the edge of the cliff and the footpath in the area where the nets were dried. I was told that the sheds belonged to a Nefyn native John Turner who owned the beach cafe at the bottom of Screw Road (Lon Gam) and lived next to the Methodist Chapel on Well Street. His grandfather owned the Sportsman in the 1870's and the grandfather had extensive dealings with leased lands around Nefyn owned by Spencer Bulkley Wynn, Lord Newborough of Glynllifon. John Turner rented sheds to local fishermen, to English summer visitors and he also sold some properties to those visitors. My father, Lawrence Owen started renting one of those sheds from Mr Turner in the early 1950's.

Photo 6 shows the view from the top of the headland and in the opposite direction at around the same time. The boats in front of Penogfa and the path to the front of the cottages are clearly visible. The LaCasina cafe in the left forefront of photo 5 had also been built on the path leading to the beach corner. By this time the three cottages Hen Dafarn, Refail and Hafod-y-Mor were owned by the Wilfrid Spencer family of Romley, Cheshire. The elder Spencer passed away in 1935 and left the cottages to his three children: Dorothy Spencer owned Hen Dafarn, Harold Spencer owned Refail and Geoffery Spencer owned Hafod-y-Mor. Penogfa, earlier owned by the Wales family, had sold the property to the Seth family who were prominent members of the Golf Club in Porthdinllaen. Two of the Wales daughters were owners of the LaCasina cafe as well as the La Casina cottage on Tyn Pwll lane.

The Hen Dafarn cottage by now has some additional structures as shown on the left side of photo 5. A boat shed had been added on the cottage side which encroached into what was believed to be the fishermen's area between it and Penogfa. Two other small buildings had been erected on the cliff side just behind the cottage. Dorothy Spencer often spent the summer living in one of those small structures while renting the Hen Dafarn cottage to other English visitors. Legal or not, the fishermen were sufficiently concerned about those encroachments to form a fishermen's committee to protect their rights. They included Dick Jones, Dick Pant, Gwilym Shop Newydd, Meirion Hughes, Wil Jones Stryd y Llan (later Tai'r Lon), John Roberts, Wil Evans Jones, Captain Dick Lloyd and my father Lawrence Owen. They were a formidable group of men who were determined keep the rights of the local fishermen protected. They took deliberate action to defend those rights by continually using the areas on the side of Penogfa and between Penogfa and Hen Dafarn to pull up their boats. They also made their families use the path in front of the cottages. I remember feeling a little awkward walking through those seated English people on more than one occasion in the summer but there was no alternative when the tide was up to the edge of the wall. On other occasions when the tide was out, I avoided going that way altogether. In the presence of my father though it was always straight through irrespective of the stage of the tide. Nobody including the owners of the cottages objected or complained at all.

Photo 7 shows a view of the cottages from the front of Penogfa. It shows old Dick Jones repairing his nets in the area between Penogfa and Hen Dafarn where he always kept most of his boats. The footpath leading to the front of the cottages is again visible at the back of the boat. The photo also shows Mr Parry, Michael Parry's uncle and part owner of the Red Garage, after a chat with Dick, walking along the top of the wall towards the net drying area on the far side of the cottages. This photograph also shows the build up of seaweed that often occurred in front of the wall with an easterly wind and high tides. It was not pleasant to walk through the seaweed with your shoes on. Creigiau Bach in those days was very porous and a sand build up did not occur in front of the cottages as it does these days with the breakwater.

On that point and just for the record, my father always warned us children not to play on the sand in front of the cottages. There was an old boat keel buried in the sand a few yards from the wall where I could catch small crabs. He told me to stay away. He believed that sewerage from the cottages was leached into that area where it percolated to the surface to be carried away by the tide. I am not sure if records clearly show how the sewerage from any of the cottages was handled. But if they dig up the sand and carry it away in lorries as I believe the practice is nowadays, I would not let children play in the area immediately after the digging is completed.

The fishermen's committee were succesful in their endeavours to keep things in check. They have all passed away now. They were also very adamant in keeping the Nefyn Council out of their business on the beach unless it involved legal business (ownership etc). They viewed the Council as a bunch of old farmers ignorant of any fishing knowledge and who rarely ventured on to the beach (sorry Gruffydd Williams!). That surprised me since the ancestors of most of the Nefyn population were seamen, sea captains, or men who worked in that beach corner during the ship-building years. I hardly saw any of my school friends on the beach or even walking along the cliffs.

I last visited Nefyn in May 2018 and I was shocked to see that the path along the front of the cottages had been essentially closed as shown in photo 8 taken at the same spot as the Dick Jones photo 7. Paving stones had been placed in front of the Hen Dafarn boat shed and they extended over the old footpath. Furthermore the sandy areas between the front doors of Hen Dafarn, Refail and the wall had also been paved over.

The fishermen's committee have all passed away and a new, smaller group of fishermen now use the beach corner. There were documents in the records of the committee indicating the land between Penogfa and Hen Dafarn had been left in perpetuity to the Nefyn fishermen. Perhaps the same documents indicate the footpath in front of the cottages should also remain open as a public footpath – after all it is the only means of reaching the net drying area and the breakwater on the other side when the tide is at full flow, as shown in a more recent photo 9. Strong arguments can be presented in that regard from these and other photographs. If the arguments made are legally valid, the fishermen should combine their efforts with Gruffydd Williams and Arfon Hughes of the Nefyn Council to open the footpath and maybe also dedicate the area where the schooner Venus was built as a Nefyn historic site. It could contain some seats and a glass showcase with a photograph of the Venus as shown in photo 1. That would be a fitting tribute to the efforts of the old fishermen, to the local seafaring families, and to the workers of Nefyn and surrounding areas who toiled there during those tough ship-building years.

Dr. Brian Owen
Emmaus, PA, USA