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.
