New Three Mariners
The New Three Mariners is the oldest remaining pub in Laugharne and built on the site of the old Town Gate - the
house across Market St is Old Gate House and if you look at the section on Stoneyway, you can see what the gatehouse might have looked like.
The landlord in 1835 was Joshua Davies, and the restaurant area (to the left) was once his stables.
Laugharne has known many writers, and Kingsley Amis was a regular during the period he wrote his Booker-winning satire on
the Dylan Thomas Estate: The Old Devils. Originally a two-room bar, the pub was altered in the 2000s to create a larger space.
Dylan Thomas wrote about the Mariners in a letter to his girlfriend in 1934, and the quote is painted on a board outside.
The Mariners in 1955
Mariners and Victoria St c.1900
(pic courtesy of Simon Ratty)
Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson (who features elsewhere) caused some controversy in 2013 for painting a parody
of the Cerne Abbas Giant on the smoking area wall during the Laugharne Weekend. On the Monday following the Laugharne Weekend, Ronnie Roderick,
legendary cellar-man to the Mariners hosed it off with a power washer.
This area, opposite the pub, has a sign saying 'Old Three Mariners'. However this is fanciful. This area was once a workshop, and the landlord in 1874,
James Richards, was also the township's undertaker.
Indeed, in an advert for the Mariners in the Western Mail in 1912 he pronounced himself 'Publican. Coffin-maker.'
So where he made the coffins is now the smoking area, opposite the pub. Smoking - coughing - coffin? You can make up your own puns...
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