Borth


Borth, is a village and seaside resort 7 miles north of Aberystwyth in Ceredigion, Mid Wales, on the Ceredigion Coast Path. The population was 1,399 in 2011. It is an Anglicised village, with over 54 per cent of the residents born in England.

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 petrified forest is visible at low tide along the beach, where stumps of oak, pine, birch, willow and hazel 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. The stumps were exposed for a time by Storm Hannah in 2019.
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. A 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.

Amenities and functions

The town's railway station is served by the Cambrian Line. The station building houses Borth Station Museum, which displays community and railway historical artifacts and temporary exhibitions. The museum is run by volunteers. Borth is also the location of the Borth Animalarium, Borth and Ynyslas Golf Club and was used for many of the scenes in TV series Hinterland.
The Borth inshore lifeboat station was established in 1966 at the southern end of the beach.
The village war memorial above a cliff south of the beach, was struck by lightning on 21 March 1983 and had to be rebuilt.
In 2008 and 2009 Borth hosted The Square Festival.
In 2011 work commenced on the first phase of the £12 million coastal protection scheme along the Borth to Ynyslas coastline, which was finished in 2015. The work was funded by the Welsh Assembly and the EU. An unexpected consequence of the coastal defence was to reveal the petrified forest mentioned earlier.
In 2018 Borth was subject to a media furore over the escape of a wild Lynx from the local zoo.
In 2019 Borth hosted a community street production "Borth Begins".

Governance

An electoral ward of the same name exists. This stretches south-easterly to Geneu'r Glyn. The total population of the ward at the 2011 Census was 2,078. Borth is also the name of a ward of the current Ceredigion County Council, which covers the communities of Borth and Llandre.

Local government history

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 by Tom Raw-Rees, who latterly sat also for Borth on Ceredigion County Council.
Before 1996, the Borth ward for elections to Dyfed County Council covered Borth, Ceulanamaesmawr and Tirymynach.

Welsh language

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

In popular culture