Abermawr’s place in telecommunications history was marked last week, as the 150th anniversary of the laying of the Atlantic telegraph cable was commemorated.

The rural setting of the beach made it an ideal landing point for Isambard Kingdom Brunel’s underwater telegraph cable from Wexford, Ireland in 1862.

Four years after this, on 27 July 1866, the north Pembrokeshire beach became part of a trans-Atlantic communications network, when Brunel’s Great Eastern steamship completed the laying of the fifth, and ultimately successful, telegraph cable under the Atlantic between Valentia in Ireland and Trinity Bay in Newfoundland.

Messages could now be transmitted to New York and via the SWR and GWR’s telegraph wires from Abermawr to London.

A second cable was laid to Abermawr in 1880 and used until 1922 when storm damage to the cables saw the beach abandoned as a telegraph relay station. The former telegraph hut is now a holiday cottage.

Last week a commemorative plaque was unveiled at the former telegraph hut by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) Wales Cymru and the Institution of Engineering & Technology (IET).

“This plaque marks one of the world’s most influential engineers, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and the development of trans-Atlantic communications,” said David Rowlands, Chairman of ICE Wales Cymru.

The celebrations continued in the evening with a link up with Newfoundland and Valentia in Ireland and a live broadcast of a lecture on connectivity between Canada-Ireland by Donard de Cogan and organised by Swansea University.

An exhibition on the Atlantic Telegraph is currently on show at Melin Tregwynt woollen mill and runs until the end of September. The mill’s shop will also be stocking books relating to the subject.