The seaside village of Port Eynon takes its name from the Welsh Prince, Einon ap Owain Hywel Dda, who invaded the peninsula in 970 a.d. The village grew extensively through the 19th Century as people flocked to the area to make a living from port Eynon’s rich oyster beds, fishing opportunities and quarrying work.
The Bristol Channel was once famed for having the richest oyster beds in the whole of the U.K. and Port Eynon was one of the industry’s capitals in the 19th Century. This brought a lot of ships into port Eynon and explains the prefix ‘Port’ in the village’s name. The height of this industry at port Eynon was the 1830’s and 1840’s but Oyster dredging continued here until 1879. With the depletion of the oyster beds, however, many families dependant on the industry for a living left the village to move to Mumbles and Oystermouth – where Oyster fishing continued well into the following century.
Today, this picturesque – though very tourist-orientated – village is far quieter – though the hundreds of campers who holiday here each summer disguise the usual calm that settles over the village for the majority of the year.
Things to Explore in Port Eynon
Port Eynon has a few caves which can be explored, given favourable tidal conditions. As well as Port Eynon Point Cave, there is also the enigmatic Culver Hole. Twenty mentres of ancient masonry now front this secretive cave, which was transformed to allow birds to nest within it – their eggs then being removed for human consumption. Very little is known as to when, or who, built this construction but it is believed to have been part of the now lost Port Eynon Castle.
Port Eynon marks the start of what has been called the “wrecker’s coast” – the south-westerly section of the peninsula’s coastline which proved particularly treacherous to sailors of yesteryear. Several memorials to commemorate those local heroes who bravely gave up their own lives working for the village lifeboat crew can be found at St. Cattwg’s Church. The more spectacular of these, sculpted out of white Italian marble, takes the form of a life-sized member of the Port Eynon Lifeboat crew – dressed in early twentieth Century garb and can be found in the churchyard. Inside the church, a further memorial can be seen in the form of a wooden pulpit – erected in honour of the infamous Port Eynon Lifeboat disaster of 1st January, 1916.
Along Port Eynon beach, the ruins of a salthouse can be freely visited. Belonging to the infamous John Lucas, who legend holds fortified the building to further his controversial and unlawful smuggling activities, the salthouse’s legitimate purpose was to extract salt from the sea (the salinity of the Bristol Channel is noted as being particularly high at Port Eynon) at a time when salt was particularly expensive.
Passing the Salthouse, the climb to the summit of Port Eynon Point affords excellent views over the south Gower coastline. A lone granite monument stands here like a sentinel and was erected by The Gower Society in memory of its two early members, Gwent Jones and Stephen Lee. Continuing past this stone, the rugged sandless bay of Overton Mere is soon reached. This place is a mecca for wildlife and the rocky path down to it is a haven for fossil hunters.
Port Eynon, with its large collection of seaside shops, camping sites and large, open beach fringed with rabbit-populated dunes is the ideal holiday location for families. Its olde worlde thatched cottages with rambling rose gardens retains the village’s characteristic pictorial charm and its historic buildings, caves and rich wildlife draws as varied a crowd to the village as any other location on the Gower Peninsula. 
