Overview
- Beach Academy reports about 437 old leather shoes excavated from rockpool zones across four beaches, with 293 at Ogmore, 134 at Llantwit Major, nine at Penarth and one at Whitmore Bay.
- Volunteers first uncovered roughly 200 shoes on December 18 at Ogmore-by-Sea, and the tally grew over the following week as additional sites were surveyed.
- Lara Maiklem, a mudlark and author, assessed the footwear as definitely Victorian, pointing to 19th-century styles consistent with adult men’s and children’s shoes.
- Organisers cite a shipwreck off Tusker Rock carrying a cargo of shoes as the leading theory, while a plausible alternative links the items to historic shoemaking waste from Bridgend entering local waterways.
- The restoration effort has logged 15 sessions since September and removed more than 12,000 items of litter, with excavations ongoing and a call for additional volunteers as locals recall similar finds in past years.