Newcastle Emlyn History Society
Old Library
Market Hall
Market Square
Newcastle Emlyn
SA38 9AQ
Hanes Emlyn
Town Bridge 1790
Market Hall
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The Town
Newcastle Emlyn is a Market Town with a population of around 1,200, sitting on the banks of the River Teify in West Wales. It is mostly in Carmarthenshire but is joined to Adpar in Ceredigion by a bridge over the river.
It has a Town Council and an elected Mayor since 1985. The Council Chamber is in the Market Hall built by Lord Cawdor in 1892 to replace an earlier market hall.
The Castle built around 1240 but rebuilt in later years had an eventful history until blown up by Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War. The Castle consisted of two wards, an inner with Gatehouse and South tower, which is what is seen today and an outer ward which covered most of the promontory on which the Castle stood. The ruins overlook the river Teify on three sides.
The GW Railway arrived in 1895 and was closed to passengers in 1952, the station building was demolished in 1966 and the diesel freight service ended in 1973.
The town had electricity as far back as 1907 when J R Parkington, a Swansea engineer built a generating station in an old corn mill and supplied with water from the Teify, generated enough electricity to light the streets and the houses. The original turbines are still running and supplying the National Grid. Mr Parkington also built the Central Hall, now Emlyn Hall in 1915 and it was extremely popular in the ‘silent film’ era.
Buildings of note in the town are the Old Court House, built in 1868 at a cost of £2,000 which now houses the Branch Library, the Old Grammar School built in 1867 by T T Elias now used by the WI as a meeting room and the Old Workhouse built in 1839 that is now a Cheese Factory.
The town had 33 public houses in 1868 and in fact over 40 can be named. Sadly today we are down to 8 or 9.
We have two annual fairs in May and September (There used to be 10) and the Market or Mart day is on a Friday when livestock is sold. (Thursday at the moment due to F & M restrictions )
The First Printing Press in Wales was established at Adpar in 1719 and the last Duel to take place in Cardiganshire happened in 1814.