DO you recognise the people enjoying a ride on the donkeys in this photograph?

The image is part of an exhibition at Ceredigion Museum to mark the Year of the Sea.

Making a Splash takes a peep at bathing, the seaside and the Great British summer holiday, so dip your toes into the museum and see what you might find hidden in the depths.

The museum has been raiding its stores to find those wild and wonderful knitted swimming costumes as well as the bloomers and bikinis that our grandparents and parents wore to soak up the surf and sun.

Staff asked readers to send in images of yourselves on holiday at the coast and some of these have been included in the display too.

The exhibition runs from 14 July to 13 October.

Andrea De Rome, collection access officer at the museum, said: “Ceredigion has attracted visitors from far and wide since it first became known as the Brighton of Wales in the 1790s.”

Looking back at the early history of those who visited Aberystwyth, Andrea found that North Beach, between the pier and the bandstand, was one of the most popular spots for bathing, even before those structures were there.

“By 1807, there were four bathing machines recorded as being situated on North Beach at Aberystwyth,” she said.

“These were wooden structures, like sheds on wheels, from which people could go bathing. By the middle of the 1820s there were 21 of these machines. There were complaints that the public would gaze at those bathing but some had no qualms at being stared at.

"There were reports that some local people, both men and women, were addicted to the sea and would travel from the country to the coast and plunge naked into the waves.”

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