The 18th March was the last talk of the 2024/2025 season and the speaker was me! This was the second of my talks about the people who have lived in Portland House. Last season I spoke of Bensha and his daughters:  The first owner Benjamin Evans, who was thrown off his farm tenancy for following his political beliefs The scandal surrounding the move of the post office from Aberaeron House His daughter, Margaret’s fascinating career as a University Matron and house keeper for Lady Llanover The mysterious circumstances surrounding the ‘death’ of her sea captain husband and that of her sister Jane’s. Bensha Bensha's Daughters: Ann, Margaret & Jane. This time, I introduced more of Bensha's descendants, the Howells: Anne, the runaway bride John, JM Howell, a man who did so much in every walk of Aberaeron’s life Fred, a multiple bigamist with wives in Llangrannog, London and Australia.   Bensha's Descendents You can read more about them and other remarkable residents of Portland House in articles on the Heritage page of this website :  -Portland People -Portland House Captains -The barque Glenara -The Aberaeron Post Office Scandal of 1874.

In September 2023, our first talk of the 2023-24 season, was by Michael Freeman, back by popular demand. Michael is the former Curator of Ceredigion Museums and Honorary Research Fellow at the National Museum of Wales. Always informative and entertaining, his topic this time was ‘Anne Evans, Highmead, the best farmer in the County.’ Temporary image until original is recovered. Here is a summary from Michael about her: Anne Evans (1738-1807) kept very detailed records of the produce of the Highmead estate farms (near Llanwenog) from 1778 until her death. After her husband died in 1787, leaving her with seven young children, she ran the farm and estate. She was obsessed with weighing and measuring the farm produce and kept some very detailed descriptions of the work of the maidservants' work in the dairy and brewer Anne recorded some of the costs of building their new house and provided us with an almost unique breakdown of the cost of building cottages for the workers; for repairing and improving mills and the cost and nature of her footman's livery. She kept many records of the volume of the corn sent for grinding and the weight of different grades of flour returned; the quantity of butter and cheese made and its current value and the weight of all the products of the animals that were slaughtered on the farm including the number of candles made from the tallow rendered from those beasts. Her notes provide us with a fascinating and very detailed insight into work at a Cardiganshire estate farm around 1800. Michael Freeman Nov 2023

26th February marks the beginning of eating disorders awareness week. We tend to think of anorexia and other eating disorders as a fairly modern phenomenon. In the 19th century, however, numerous young women, inspired by medieval saints, alleged they were forgoing food and surviving on faith alone. In reality some of them may have had anorexia, others like Dyfed’s own Sarah Jacobs had a more sinister story.   Sarah Jacobs became known far and wide as 'The Welsh Fasting Girl'. She was born at Llethr-neuadd farm, Llanfihangel-ar-arth, Carmarthenshire in 1857. After taking to her bed following an illness she appeared to have not eaten or drunk for nearly two years.    Visitors travelled miles to see her, eminent physicians debated her case and she was the subject of extensive press coverage. Queen Victoria was interested in the case and there were even rumours of a royal visit.   Sarah and the potential visit were certainly the subject of discussion here in Aberaeron and is recorded in Ann Howell’s letter of July 1869, written from Portland House to her son, J M Howell:     “They say that the Queen is coming here next week to see Sarah Jacob.      Ha, Ha!“   Sarah’s tragic death later in 1869 led to a man-slaughter case, the preliminary investigation for which took place in the Wilkes Head, Llandysul.   Sarah’s life and death have been featured in works of Welsh fiction, including  Sarah Arall   by Aled Islwyn and Gwenlyn Parry’s play  Sal . She was also clearly a major inspiration for Emma Donogue’s novel,  The Wonder  and the subsequent film based on the book.    You can read her story in the blog below by historical fiction writer S E Morgan:   https://semorganhistoricalfiction.wordpress.com/2020/11/14/the-tragic-tale-of-the-welsh-fasting-girl-sarah-jacobs-1869/

New Year Newsletter introducing the new CAS website:

Prompted by some photos I sent her of Aberaeron’s Mackerel Fiesta, my friend and historical fiction writer S.E Morgan was inspired to look into this tradition. Her research took her well beyond our own town, as far afield as China in fact. Her fascinating article is available from the link below: https://semorganhistoricalfiction.wordpress.com/2023/08/30/aberaeron-and-its-mackerel-festival/

25th January: Dydd Santes Dwynwen is nearly upon us. Some of us will of course be celebrating this in preference to Valentine’s Day the following month. But who was Dwynwen? Why has she become known as ‘Wales’ St Valentine?’ Who, infact was St Valentine and why do people send their loved-ones cards on these day? The blogs below, by historical fiction writer S E Morgan, give us the answers and also introduce her novel, "The King over the Sea" which features Dwynwen:   The legend of St Dwynwen; the Welsh patron saint of lovers, and Shakespeare’s inspiration? https://semorganhistoricalfiction.wordpress.com/2024/01/22/25th-january-its-the-welsh-valentines-day-st-dwynwens-day-dydd-santes-dwynwen/

Excavations have recently been completed in Pendinas iron age fort. We were fortunate to hear all about this from Ken Murphy of Dyfed Archaeological Trust in our first talk of 2024. Unbelievably this is one of 700 Iron Age forts in Ceredigion alone. Here are articles in English and Welsh from Ken about both the excavations and the Pendinas festival held in September 2024.

Some members of Cymdeithas Aberaeron might be interested in the following event. Jane Austen’s 250th birthday celebration: open days at UWTSD Special Collections We will display a range of volumes associated with Jane Austen. The items on show will include her own copy of Arnaud Berquin’s L’ami de l’adolescence, (with Jane’s signature on the title page). We will display two more copies signed by her sister Cassandra. In addition, we will exhibit a selection of books Jane mentioned in her novels, (for instance Fanny Burney’s Cecilia mentioned in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion and Laurence Sterne’s A sentimental journey mentioned in Mansfield Park). The events will take place on Tuesday 16 December, (the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth) and on Thursday 18 December, (starting at 10 am and 2 pm on both days). Each will consist of a short talk, followed by a chance to look at the items on display. As we expect these to be very busy, it will be necessary to book places in advance. (The afternoon of 16 December is already fully booked.) The three volumes, signed by Jane and Cassandra Austen, will also be on display in UWTSD Lampeter Library on Wednesday 17 December, (10 am to 12 pm, 2 to 4 pm). If you would like to know more or to book a place, please contact Ruth Gooding (r.gooding@uwtsd.ac.uk)

The summer holidays are here and so is our newsletter. Our new season will start in September and you can find the details about all our talks, proposed trips and dining club dates below. Also featured is our developing relationship with the National Trust at Llanerchaeron House.

Out with the old, in with the new. Our email address is changing!! What's happening? Old Father Time has finally caught up with Cymdeithas Aberaeron's old email address so we're sad to announce that post@cymdeithasaberaeron.org  will no longer be supported beyond the end of 2025 . In advance of this deadline we have already migrated to a new email address casaberaeron@gmail.com so the good news is that we have our audience covered, so to speak. Why are we changing? There's some techie stuff ... feel free to skip! Our old email address is hosted on a less feature-rich webmail-only platform with a paid subscription fee to retain the email address. As a charity we endeavour to make the most efficient use of our members' subscriptions; we also need to make it as easy as possible for our trustees to manage email traffic across both mobile and laptop/desktop devices. Hence the decision to move to a Gmail (AKA Googlemail) platform. It's free, installation is a breeze, it's integrated with Windows/Macs and Android/Apple tablets & phones. My mum uses it and she loves it; it just works. What's the timeline? The new email address casaberaeron@gmail.com is live and can be used immediately. The old email address post@cymdeithasaberaeron.org  will remain functional until the end of 2025 so we will still have visibility of email traffic in the interim. Throughout 2025 any emails sent will receive an auto-reply advising the sender to switch to the new email address casaberaeron@gmail.com  as soon as possible. Beyond 2025 the service will expire and any emails sent to this address will not be visible. What do people need to do? It's quite simple. Regardless of whether you are a member, in order to receive a swift response to your emails please use the new address casaberaeron@gmail.com   moving forward. If you don't send emails to Cymdeithas Aberaeron you can just sit back and relax :) What else will change? In order to reflect the email address change our website, membership forms, posters, etc will be updated. We will also communicate this change via social media, our newsletter and emails to members. Thanks in advance for your understanding. Please email us on casaberaeron@gmail.com  if you have any queries or concerns. Best regards, Steve Davies Website Manager

Thankfully not; and it's all thanks to Llanerchaeron. With the Library moving to Penmorfa in the coming months, we have been looking for a new home for our Display Cabinet and for our historic photographs. Llanerchaeron have kindly come to the rescue giving us space in their Billiard Room. This will allow both visitors and locals alike to view our changing displays. At the moment we have recreated the exhibit about Tanyfron surgery and now also our memorial to Dr Helen Herbert who sadly died earlier this year. Many of you have asked us to keep it over the summer so your families can see it when they visit and the medical theme ties in with materials currently displayed in the library of the main house too. Cymdeithas members will be able to visit the Billiard Room (only) for free through the back entrance of the house - a rope stops vehicular access but can be lifted for CAS members. It’s such a pleasure to report that this is just one of many ways in which CAS and Llanerchaeron are working together to develop and strengthen the ties between the town and the National Trust property. Watch this space!

Mewn seremoni arbennig yn Amgueddfa’r Glannau Abertawe derbyniodd Ysgol Gynradd Aberaeron dlws a gwobr ariannol o £600 yn dilyn ei Sioe Nadolig 2024 ‘y Wal’ a oedd yn olrhain hanes yr harbwr yn Aberaeron o’i adeiladu yn 1807 hyd y gwaith diweddar gan gwmni BAM. Dyfarnwyd y wobr gan ‘Fenter Ysgolion y Dreftadaeth Gymreig’ gan roi clod arbennig i allu’r disgyblion i drafod hanes yr harbwr a’r broses o greu sioe a oedd yn cynnwys holl ddisgyblion yr ysgol. Uchafbwynt arall i Hari a Moc a aeth i gynrychioli’r ysgol yn y seremoni oedd gweld ‘Y Morthwyl Mawr’ enwog o Aberaeron sydd bellach i’w weld yn yr amgueddfa. Mair Jones