Evidence for Cantre’r Gwaelod?

The legend of Cantre’r Gwaelod, the lost lands submerged by Cardigan Bay, is a long established one in Wales. 

It has been partly explained as a folk memory of gradual coastal erosion and submersion along the coast, or as an explanation of the discovery on the shore of the remains of trees from long-submerged ancient woodlands. I wrote about this in 2020 in The legend - and reality - of Cantre’r Gwaelod

Evidence of an historic or record nature has, by contrast,  been lacking until a possible breakthrough involving the Gough Map in the Bodleian Library. Although its date remains in part open to scholarly debate as is set out in the Wikipedia account at Gough Map it does demonstrate a remarkable mastery of detail about the geography of the country in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

The BBC News site reports that academics have taken note that the Gough Map shows two islands in Cardigan Bay that are not there now. Could these be part of the lost lands of Cardigan Bay which disappeared due to coastal changes?

This reminded me of the argument that until the thirteenth century - the same time period - there was a chain of several small islands off the Lincolnshire coast and across the mouth of The Wash which then disappeared as sea levels changed. This period was to be remembered in the Netherlands as a time of serious, catastrophic inundations by the North Sea. Maybe rising sea levels did indeed sweep away low lying off shore islands on both sides of Britain.

The report also highlights how Harlech Castle once stood above the sea and could be provisioned fron ships moored at the base of the rock on which it stands. Today however it is well inland. I do not know when the coastline changed there but think that may be much later - the way in which Harlech withstood attempts to capture it in the 1410s and 1460s suggests it could then still be so provisioned as originally intended.

The article can be seen at Map may show evidence of Wales' Atlantis off Ceredigion