Penparcau / United Kingdom

Penparcau is a village in Ceredigion, Wales situated to the south of Aberystwyth. It is the largest village in Ceredigion and is also an electoral ward. The village has the largest number of Welsh language speakers in the Aberystwyth town area, covering an area from the sea to the river Rheidol.The original village was a small hamlet, one mile east of Aberystwyth town centre, but the building of extensive Art Deco style semi-detached social housing from the 1920s on transformed it. It lies in the shadow of the Celtic Iron Age hill fort of Pen Dinas, and between the sea at Tan Y Bwlch beach, the River Ystwyth and the River Rheidol. Penparcau has the only UNESCO Biosphere reserve in the Dyfi Biosphere. A section of the Wales Coast Path runs over Tan y Bwlch beach. There is an Anglican church named after the Saint Anne, a Roman Catholic church named after the Welsh Martyrs, which is noted in "Architecture of Wales, Carmarthenshire and Ceredigion" and is home to a Lampedusa Cross, as well as two Methodist chapels and a Quaker meeting house. The recently closed Tollgate pub was named after the original tollgate that stood on the old toll road at the top of Penparcau and is now in St Fagans National History Museum near Cardiff. Penparcau has its own woodland, Coed Geufron run by the Woodland Trust and its own police station. Other amenities include a post office, two small supermarkets, a garage, holiday park and hotel and until recently two fish and chip shops, one of which has a reputation as one of the best in the area. Until late 2007, it also had its own travel agent. In 2008, Penparcau played a part in the transition town movement in Wales when it hosted the "Alternative Energy and Transport Festival" in Neuadd Goffa, attended by the local MP and mayor. At the bottom of the valley, just below Penparcau, is a Welsh Government office building, designed to house more than 550 staff.