New Quay (Welsh: Cei Newydd) is a seaside town, community and electoral ward in Ceredigion, Wales; it had a resident population of 1,045 at the 2021 census.

It remains a popular seaside resort and traditional fishing town,[2] with strong family and literary associations with the poet Dylan Thomas and his play, Under Milk Wood.

Until the early 19th century, New Quay consisted of a few thatched cottages surrounded by agricultural land, the natural harbour providing a safe mooring for fishing boats and a few small trading vessels.

At that time, as well as shipwrights, New Quay had half a dozen blacksmith shops, three sail makers, three ropeworks and a foundry.

[11] Pupils from the London Nautical School were evacuated to New Quay during the 1939-1945 War, and billeted around the town in residents’ homes and hotels.

[20][21] Key attractions for holidaymakers include the harbour and sandy beaches, as well as opportunities such as boat trips to see the population of bottlenose dolphins that lives in Cardigan Bay.

The National Trust's Llanerchaeron estate is nearby,[23] as is the 18th century Ty Glyn Walled Garden in Ciliau Aeron.

Less than an hour's drive away is the neolithic Pentre Ifan Burial Chamber,[24] as well as the Castell Henllys Iron Age Village.

[25] Restored steam trains on the Vale of Rheidol Railway leave from nearby Aberystwyth,[26] on the scenic route to Devil’s Bridge.

[27] As well as shops, restaurants and pubs, New Quay has a large primary school, a doctors' surgery, a small branch of the county library service, a fire station and a Memorial Hall.

[50] Another important aspect of that literal truth was the 60 acres of cliff-top between Majoda and New Quay that fell into the sea in the early 1940s.

[51] New Quay, said Caitlin, was exactly Thomas's kind of place, "with the ocean in front of him...and a pub where he felt at home in the evenings” [52] and he was happy there, as his letters reveal.

[53] His ten months at Majoda were the most fertile period of his adult life, a second flowering said his first biographer, Constantine FitzGibbon, "with a great outpouring of poems.

This radio script has been described by Professor Walford Davies as "a veritable storehouse of phrases, rhythms and details later resurrected or modified for Under Milk Wood.

[60][61] Walford Davies, for example, has concluded that New Quay "was crucial in supplementing the gallery of characters Thomas had to hand for writing Under Milk Wood.

A recent analysis[69] of the sketch has revealed that Thomas used the name of an actual New Quay resident, Cherry Jones, for one of the people living in Cockle Street.

There were also other New Quay people in the play, including Dai Fred Davies, the donkeyman on board the fishing vessel, the Alpha.

[80] Other names and features from New Quay in the play include Maesgwyn farm, [81] the Sailor's Home Arms,[82] the river Dewi,[83] the quarry,[84] the harbour,[85] Manchester House,[86] the hill of windows[87] and the Downs.

[88] [89] Llareggub's occupational profile as a town of seafarers, fishermen, cocklers and farmers has been examined through an analysis of the 1939 War Register, comparing the returns for New Quay with those for Laugharne, Ferryside and Llansteffan.

[90] The writer and puppeteer, Walter Wilkinson, visited New Quay in 1947; his essay on the town captures its character and atmosphere as Thomas would have found it two years earlier.

"[93] One incident in the film that Macdonald did not make up was the shooting at Majoda in March 1945, after which Vera's husband, William Killick, was charged with attempted murder and later acquitted.

Eli Jenkins' Pub Walk,[98] which follows the river Dewi to the sea, passing close to the farm of the Cilie poets.

Then, in early summer, he was seen in the Commercial pub (formerly the Sailor's Home Arms[101] and now called The Seahorse Inn) with jazz pianist, Dill Jones, whose paternal family came from New Quay.

[102] Thomas's letter in August 1946 to his patron, Margaret Taylor, provides a vivid roll-call of some of the New Quay characters that he knew.

[103] Thomas also refers to New Quay in his 1949 broadcast, Living in Wales (“hoofed with seaweed, did a jig on the Llanina sands...”).

When he died, he left the Llanina Estate to his two godchildren, Mrs Charlotte Lloyd (of Coedmore) and her younger brother, Charles Richard Longcroft.