Cob Records in Porthmadog keeps spinning as one of Wales' most legendary record shops

Ask a Welsh music fan to name a record shop worth a pilgrimage and Cob Records in Porthmadog will come up sooner rather than later. The shop has been selling music in the harbour town since 1967, and it has lost none of its pull.

In a feature for Wales.com marking Record Store Day, broadcaster and author Huw Stephens wrote that there are few record shops with as legendary a status. Cob Records, he noted, has sold every format of music since it opened, both in the shop and through its popular mail order service.

The shop has plenty of stories of its own. Huw recalls that a club night was run in the basement in the early 1970s, and that a jukebox of records used to draw music fans in of an afternoon. He once bumped into BBC 6 Music DJ Marc Riley in the shop during Festival No.6 at nearby Portmeirion, lost deep in a crate of vinyl.

Today, he wrote, the walls of used vinyl, CDs and cassettes are breathtaking to see, and there are always treasures to be found. "It's a place full of history, each record with its own story, but the shop itself is a historic temple."

Cob Records also earned a mention this summer when Time Out ranked Porthmadog number 13 in its guide to the UK's best seaside towns for 2026. Describing the town as chilled out, with rugged drama and an alternative spirit, the guide singled out a parade of cool independent businesses, starting with "the legendary vinyl palace Cob Records".

For visitors, the shop sits comfortably alongside the town's other attractions, from the Ffestiniog Railway to the mile-long Cob embankment, which shares its name, and the beaches at Borth-y-Gest and Morfa Bychan.

Huw Stephens' advice for any trip is to make the local record shop the first port of call, studying the posters on the wall to see what is happening locally and listening to recommendations from the staff. In Porthmadog, that advice leads straight to Cob.

Cob Records is in Porthmadog town centre. Visit cobrecords.com to browse stock and order by mail.