Borth

Features and history

Borth has a sandy beach and is a holiday seaside resort. There is a youth hostel in the village and caravan and camping sites nearby.

An ancient submerged forest is visible at low tide along the beach, where stumps of oak, pine, birch, willow and hazel (preserved by the acid anaerobic conditions in the peat) can be seen. Radiocarbon dating suggests these trees died about 1500 BC. This submerged forest is also associated with the legend of Cantre'r Gwaelod.

Cors Fochno, a raised peat mire, part of the Dyfi Biosphere, the only UNESCO Biosphere reserve in Wales, is located next to the village together with the Dyfi National Nature Reserve and visitors' centre at Ynyslas. The long distance footpath the Dyfi Valley Way passes through the village.

On 4 April 1876 the entire Uppingham School in Rutland, England, consisting of 300 boys, 30 masters and their families, moved to Borth for a period of 14 months, taking over the disused Cambrian Hotel and a large number of boarding houses, to avoid a typhoid epidemic.

The town's main line railway station is served by the Cambrian Line. The station building houses a museum displaying community and railway historical artifacts and temporary exhibitions run by volunteers. Visit [1] for opening hours.

Borth is also the location of the Borth Animalarium and Borth & Ynyslas Golf Club.

The Borth inshore lifeboat (ILB) station was established in 1966 and is located at the southern end of the beach.

The village's war memorial, situated above a cliff south of the beach, was destroyed by lightning on 21 March 1983 and had to be rebuilt.

In 2008 and 2009 Borth hosted the Square Festival.

In 2011 works commenced on the first phase of the £12 million coastal protection scheme along the Borth to Ynyslas coastline, and finished in 2015.

Governance

An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches south-easterly to Geneu'r Glyn The total population of the ward at the 2011 Census was 2,078.

Welsh language

According to both the 1991 and 2001 censuses, 43% of the residents of Borth are Welsh-speakers.

Notable residents

Local government

Borth had a representative on Cardiganshire County Council from its formation in 1889. The first councillor elected was the Rev. Enoch Watkin James, Brynderwen, a Liberal candidate and Calvinistic Methodist minister. Following his election in January 1889, according to a local newspaper, 'flags were generally displayed and after nightfall bonfires lighted, fireworks discharged, houses illuminated and hundreds of people paraded the streets up to a late hour. About six o'clock, the rev gentlemen and friends were drawn in an open carriage through the village and, addressing the assembly, said that the day was rapidly approaching when laws would be made by the people for the people'.

From the 1970s until his death in 2001, Borth was represented on Ceredigion District Council and, latterly, Ceredigion County Council, by Tom Raw-Rees, who also stood as Conservative candidate for Ceredigion and Pembroke North at the 1983 General Election.

Borth is also the name of a ward on the current Ceredigion County Council, which covers the communities of Borth and Llandre. The current County Councillor is Cllr Raymond Quant of the Independent Group.

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