Part Nine - A Trek through old Mumbles Village by Stuart Batcup

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As mentioned in Part 9 Thistleboon Farm as we all knew it was created in 1841 by the Beaufort Estate, with about one third of Thistleboon House used to create the farmhouse with an existing farmyard alongside and about 90 acres of farmland all included in the tenancy granted to Evan Williams. The survey for the 1844 Tithe Map was carried out in 1841 so the extent of the buildings and holding generally are accurately depicted there. As will be seen from the 1843 Map already shown the fields were pretty well spread out and interspersed with other holdings.

But farming had been taking place at Thistleboon from medieval times. It is not unreasonable to speculate that at the time of All Saints 1141 Charter bestowing the living and the tithes to Gloucester Abbey the field pattern of what is left today was created to accommodate the feudal system introduced by the Norman Knights.

By the time of Oliver Cromwell’s 1650 Survey there were only five ‘dwellings’ at Thistleboon: Colonel Philip Jones’ ‘Thistleboon House”; Walter Thomas’ ‘The Farm’ (now Craig y Mor); George Robin and John William’s “messuages and lands there” and “quarter of a wear” and  “halfe a wear and a quarter of a wear” respectively; and Thomas Dowl’s “messuage and lands at Ffistleboon”. The rest of the entries related to just let land, variously described as meadow,’arrable’ and pasture land, and the rights of the tenants to “common for all maner of cattle sans number” in the waste grounds including “Mumbles Clifft, west Clifft, Summer Clifft, and Norton burroughes”. As a corollary there was an obligation on the tenants “to grind at the Lord’s mill all the corn that shall grow and be spent upon the customary lands”. The ‘Lord’s Mill’ was of course situated at Blackpill.

His Mill is mentioned again in Gabriel Powell’s ‘Survey of the Lordship of Gower’ 1764, as is an ‘Account of the Inhabitants of Thistleboon that grazed Thistleboon or Mumbles Hill in the year 1761’. This account revealed that no less than 18 separate individuals, with 14 horses and 79 sheep were paying a total of 15s 11d per annum to the Lordship for what I thought were free common rights. On the other hand it also states:

“The tenants have usually gathered and carried away sea weed called kelp, and also sand from the sea side for manuring their lands, without paying any acknowledgement to the Lord for so doing”.

By this time there seem to have been about ten ‘Houses and Land’ at Thistleboon which represents a modest increase since 1650. The lack of mention of cattle suggests that they were not allowed to roam, and were confined to their owners fields.

When I first saw the 1844 Tithe Map depiction of the layout of the Farm, I had in my mind’s eye the photo of the farmyard shown. It was taken in about 1946 and nothing had changed by the nineteen fifties.

• Going down the entrance track to the Farm there was the whitewashed wall on the left, behind which was the kitchen garden coloured yellow on the 1844 Map. That was where all sorts of vegetables were grown for sale: cabbages, lettuce, broad beans, runner beans, carrots and parsnips.

• Stepped back, to the left was a long, whitewashed building with first the threshing room and grain store on the left. In our day the thresher was driven by a belt connected to a fly wheel on the tractor. Alongside that the rest of that building was taken up by the cowshed and milking parlour with its three-legged stools and stainless-steel buckets. No machinery then: milking was all done by hand.

• Beyond that building stretched the public footpath through the Farm taking us on to Bryn Terrace, and the joys of the ‘Hilly Field’ which can be clearly seen on the photo. That footpath is still there and is the one that runs alongside our present Vicarage in Western Close, on the site of what were the pig sties. The Vicar must have some good soil!

• To the left and right of that path were open steel barns with corrugated iron roofs and sides. These were used as haybarns.

• In the middle distance can be seen a Stable with a half door and loft above, and in front a single storey range of stables. They weren’t there in 1841 but were probably added in about 1859 when the Classroom and Dormitory block was constructed next door.

• The Hay Cart in the middle of the farmyard was always there!

1861 to 1904: John and Anne Beynon

Following the death of his father William, John and his wife Anne took over the running of the Farm, and they are both recorded as living there in the census Returns from 1861 to 1891. In 1861 John was farming 90 acres and paying £90 per annum for the holding to the Beaufort estate. The size of the holding had increased by 16 acres to 90 acres, and it is a matter for conjecture at this stage whether the extra acreage had been acquired and included by the landlord, or whether it was the two large meadows at Lewins Hill beyond ‘the Well Field’ shown in 1803 as belonging to Thomas Penrice of Kilvrough which had been bought by the Beynon’s.

It was this John Beynon who had employed as a labourer ‘Rowlands the Miser’ mentioned in Part 2 of this Trek.

John Beynon died and was buried on 2nd June 1897, and his widow Anne aged 80 is shown as living at the Farm in the 1901 Census with three servants named Williams. In the meantime, their daughter Elizabeth born in 1840 and mentioned above had married a Richard Woollacott of Newton on 13th May 1862, taking over the ‘Rock and Fountain’ there and producing six children.

This couple appear to have taken over the Farm after 1901 and passed the tenancy on to their second son Richard Ernest Woollacott (‘Dick’) born on 24th September 1873. I have assumed the change took place in 1904 as Dick had married Jane Williams born in 1875 in that year. As a teenager she had worked in Newton Post Office which belonged to her Williams Uncle and Aunt.

Their son Tom was probably born in the Farm which qualified his name to be entered in the Family Bible in 1905 after his parents moved in on their marriage in 1904.

1904 to 1946: Dick and Jane Woollacott

When I set out on this journey, I assumed that the Woollacott family had lived at Newton and Thistleboon for time immemorial. I can, perhaps be forgiven for that as Oliver Cromwell’s 1650 Survey of Gower recorded not only that an ‘Anne Woolcocke’ but also a ‘William Woolcocke’ each had separate messuages and lands at Newton. However, that assumption was dashed when I read Jaci Gruffudd’s fascinating Article in Gower 71 entitled ‘Come for a day -Stay forever’ published last Autumn. I am indebted to Jaci and her cousins Sue and Andy Thorndyke for not only putting me straight, but for providing me with a copy of the Woollacott Family Tree, and the Beynon Family Bible.

Before looking at Thistleboon, I have to record that the Family Tree does record the birth, on 8th February 1899 of Elizabeth Maud Woollacott, daughter of another John Beynon Woollacott. This good lady died a spinster on 10th April 1982 at age of 83 living in a cottage alongside the old Newton School where she had probably lived all her life. She was of course the ageless Miss Maud Woollacott Mistress of Class J 3A at Oystermouth Junior Mixed School, or the ‘Church School’ as it was still known when I was there between 1949 and 1958. She was a stern disciplinarian who terrified all her pupils. If any of us was guilty of saying “By here” or “By there” instead of “here” and “there” we were guaranteed to be rapped across the knuckles with her sharp ruler. Despite this we all seem to have learned a lot from her as she prepared us to move on to Mr Guest and J 4A for our 11+ year.

 I was reminiscing about her just a few days ago with Jean Buckland (nee Packe) suggesting that ‘Maud’ did not really like girls, but preferred boys, and cited as an example that Roger Tancock as Board Monitor, and myself as Milk Monitor were clearly favoured. Jean reminded me that her task was to go down to Kostromin’s Café on Mumbles Road each day to collect Maud’s lunch on a tray before joining the rest of us for lunch at the Victoria Hall. So too did Gerald Gabb a few years later. Not much child safeguarding in those days!

The highlight of Maud’s year was the annual school production of Dickens’ “Christmas Carol” put on by the third forms in the Church Hall at Castle Avenue. I must have been in J1 when I first saw it and was mesmerised by Alan Clewett’s portrayal of ‘Ebenezer Scrooge’, and Babs Lewis ‘Mrs Fezziwig’. When my turn came I played ‘Old Joe’ the Rag and Bone man, a one line part which was trumped by my sister Sylvia playing ‘Tiny Tim’ the following year.

But back to the other Woollacott’s: here is Jaci’s story:

“At the beginning of the 1800s a young man called John Woollacott from High Bickington, Devon arrived on a boat which had come to Gower to collect lime for the farms in Devon. Whist waiting for the tide to come in, he visited a local pub where he sampled the home brew and took a fancy to the daughter of the landlord. It was probably the Rock and Fountain in Newton. Having had a few too many drinks he accidentally missed the boat home and decided to stay in Newton!

John went on to marry twice, firstly to Amelia with whom he had five children and secondly to Mary with whom he had six children, He lived until 1865 and was therefore in the 1841, 1851 and 1861 censuses being described as a victualler (Rock and Fountain) and farmer of the 40 acres located behind the pub”.

Amelia was a Webborn, and Mary may only have had one child making a total of six. His eldest son Richard was the only son to survive and is the Richard who married Elizabeth Beynon on 13th May 1862 as mentioned above: thus, the link was set up for his son Richard Ernest (Dick), who was born on 24th September 1873, to take over Thistleboon Farm in 1904 when he was 31.

The photo of the Farm shown in the Gower 71 Article is in fact Nottage Farm at Newton which was farmed by another branch of the Woollacott family mentioned by Jaci in her Article. This was another ‘Uncle Dick’ who was a tenant of the Grove Hills Estate, and is remembered by Gerald as a ‘stout and dark’ man who regularly drove his cattle up St Peter’s Road and Summerland Lane to their pastures.

Dick and Jane Woollacott continued to run the Farm through two World Wars and had four sons: Tom born in 1905; Richard Reginald ‘Reg’ born in 1906; John Beynon ‘Jack’ born in 1910, and Robert Glyn ‘Glyn’ born in 1919. There was only one daughter who died in infancy.

Of the four boys Reg was the only one to move away from Thistleboon, all the way to Newton!  When Reg and his wife Phyllis married in 1941 they went on to live in Nottage Road Newton, next door to his second-cousin Maud. He was encouraged by his father to set up business as a butcher at a shop in Newton Road on the same side as the Newton Inn. No prizes for guessing where most of his stock was coming from: remember that alongside Thistleboon Farm was Thistleboon Slaughterhouse!

 He had three daughters and a son Roger who was born in 1946, and the family went to live over the shop in 1952. Reg died in January 1986 and his family is still well represented in Newton. 

1946 to 1971: Tom, Dick and Glyn Woollacott

Following the death of Dick in 1946 the Farm continued to be run by his widow Jane, and though later Tom, as the eldest became the tenant of the Beaufort Estate, we local children realised that as long as she was alive Jane was ‘the boss’! In her ‘Thistleboon Childhood’ (on the History of Mumbles Website), Hilary MacKenzie recalls these days:

“ We had no fridge - did anyone? – and so a pleasant little job in the summer was to go over to the farm with a jug and get fresh milk at tea-time. It was frothy and warm from the cow – no worries about pasteurization in those far off days, and it never did us any harm”

When I first read this it immediately resonated with me, for that is a little job I had a few years later when I was 7 or 8. I clearly recall walking down the track to the entrance porch entrusted  with an enamel jug and a few pence to buy a pint of milk. I too remember kind old Mrs Woollacott answering the door and asking me to wait while she went to the dairy to fetch the milk. It was only later when Tom’s wife ‘Auntie Marjorie’ was on duty that I was allowed into the dairy to watch the milk being drawn with a stainless-steel ladle from a huge milk churn; I also remember being fascinated by the pasteurising equipment.

The waiting usually took place in the kitchen alongside the staircase to the upper floor, and which was like something out of ‘Poldark’; stone flagstones and quite dark and gloomy. The whole room was surrounded by wooden wainscotting, and directly ahead there was an archway with a heavy curtain leading to the rest of the house. Alongside this was a large Grandfather Clock and a huge Welsh Dresser loaded with Willow Pattern China and Lustre China Jugs, in front of which was a large scrubbed table; there was a large sash window at the end of the room looking out over the soft fruit garden, and to my right was an armchair, a fire and cooking range, and an uncomfortable oak Settle backing onto the entrance way. I was delighted to find among the OHA Archives the two photos shown, both taken by Jaci’s father Bryn Fox.

I remember being in that kitchen waiting one day when through the gloom I realised that someone who I did not recognise was sitting on the armchair. When Marjorie came back with the milk a few words were exchanged and I realised that it was Tom - without his cap on. With his ruddy red complexion and white bald head he looked completely different!

Not surprisingly the three brothers were a taciturn bunch. They were men of few words, and legend had it that they did not speak to each other. They each had their jobs to do and got on with them. By 1948 Tom and Marjorie (nee Fox) who had married in 1945 were living in the Farm with Jack the bachelor and Glyn who had married Phyllis (Richards) in 1941. Glyn’s sons Ronald Michael (‘Mike’) had come along in 1941and Richard Glyn (‘Dick’) in 1946. In 1947 David had joined Mike and Dick, and Newton had been born to Tom and Marjorie in 1947 too. It was getting a bit crowded, so changes took place.

The Beaufort Estate through the medium of its property company Picton Developments Ltd had started to complete its pre War development opposite, and Glyn and Phyllis and their boys took up residence as tenants of a new semi-detached house at Thistleboon Gardens in 1948, thus freeing up space in the Farmhouse. Newton’s brother Ian was born in the Farm  in 1950; and in 1953 Robert John(‘Johnnie’) and 1955 Colin Jeffrey (‘Jeff’} were born in Thistleboon Gardens. Thistleboon was awash with Woollacotts!

The status of the Farm in 1948 is beautifully summarised in an Essay written for School by Alan Prosser in 1948 after Glyn and his family had moved, which I have reproduced in full at the end of this chapter. With 100 acres, 41 sheep and a ram, 32 dairy cows and a bull, 3 carthorses, a few pigs, 100 chickens, 8 geese and a few ducks it had become a substantial undertaking providing a reasonable, but hard living for the extended family which was getting bigger in the Post War baby boom. The future looked rosy for them all.

1948 also brought into force the first Town and Country Planning Act 1947, designed to help meet the huge Post War demand for new Housing, and the Agricultural Holdings Act 1947 which was designed to regulate agricultural tenancies, and to make it easier for landowners to retrieve agricultural land for development. These heralded the death knell of the Farm with its fields on either side of Higher Lane offering ‘attractive development opportunities’.

The Gower Society had been formed in 1947 and existed to enhance and protect the natural beauty of the area of the old Lordship of Gower about which we have learned so much. The officers of the Society were active in the negotiations that took place with the County of Glamorgan and the County Borough of Swansea to fix the boundary of the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty that was to be declared in 1956. I am told that there was quite a battle to fix that boundary in Mumbles, and to define the areas that would be available for building houses in the local Development Plan approved in 1963.

In essence the boundary of the Gower AONB here allowed for the development of Beaufort Avenue, and the land to the South of Higher Lane from Langland Corner to Thistleboon Farm as they were outside the boundary. Nearly all of that land belonged to the Somerset Trust which had legal ownership of the Duke of Beaufort’s ‘Lordship of Gower’. It is not surprising therefore to recall that the main roads on the present estates are known as Somerset Road, Beaufort Avenue, Worcester Drive and Cambridge Road to reflect the titles of Henry Somerset, 10th Duke of Beaufort and Marquess of Worcester (1900 – 1924 – 1984) and of one of the Trustees George Francis Hugh Cambridge, 2nd Marquess of Cambridge (1891 – 1981).

House building went on apace during the 1950s and 1960s, including my own house on the part of Lewins Hill (called Lowans Hill on the 1950 Map), where I used to go with my father early in the morning in my Wellington Boots to collect the most wonderful field mushrooms that popped up in the night. Three or four mushrooms were all that were needed with some Bacon and Eggs from the Farm to make a veritable feast.

As more land went for development the Farm became less and less viable so that by 1971 the Woollacott’s had to surrender their tenancy and left. Tom and Marjorie, and Jack retired to cottages which they both owned in Newton, and Glyn got himself a job with Swansea Council’s Parks Dept as a gardener and ended up as main guardian of Oystermouth Castle. Phyllis had predeceased him and Glyn at Thistleboon Gardens in 1990. The older boys had long since flown the nest, but Jeffrey, his youngest son stayed on there for a few years before moving to West Cross. Thus, Jeff was the last of the Woollacott’s to live in Thistleboon.

I am grateful to Frank Rott a dear friend in childhood of No 8 ( now 144) Higher Lane for the photos I have shown of the bulldozer moving into the Meadow in 1972 to clear the site for what is now Heatherslade Road. When compared with the 1926 photo of the chickens on that meadow, the coming demise of the Chicken Shed has something of ‘The Chicken Run’ about it!

But the connection was not finally severed until a few years later. The remaining fields to the south of Higher Lane were let to Peter Griffin who also farmed at Scurlage. Peter had strong connections with Mumbles as his family had been Corn Merchants for many years operating out of their shop in Newton Road. Although the business had closed (the shop being let to ‘Bryn Lewis – Gents Outfitters’ and is now the ‘Wales Air Ambulance’ Charity Shop) he and his wife continued to live in the maisonette above. During Peter’s time working those fields Tom Woollacott would be seen most days until his death in 2003 walking the Cliff path up to the Ram’s Tor to ensure that the two large meadows he owned behind the ‘Well Field’ had not disappeared in the night!

I shall finish this Section on a nostalgic note with a few verses from a poem written by Cyril Gwynne ‘The Bard of Gower’ over fifty years ago:

“When Mumbles was ‘The Mumbles’ ‘tis not so long ago,

Since I was but a nipper going to school,

When fishing craft and dredger would anchor in a row

And the boy who couldn’t swim was dubbed a fool.

Then Mumbles was The Mumbles, especially Southend,

   Where the smallest kid could holler “Ship Ahoy!”

And knew the cut of every craft that sailed around the Head,

  For the sea was a Mumbles fellow’s joy.

When ‘Jasper’ on the lighthouse all passing vessels warned

To shape their course away from Mixen Sands,

When Mr Clough held classes where Mumbles laddies learned

To fit themselves for posts in many lands,

Then Bracelet and Limeslade were backed by living green

Where wild things lived and never came to harm.

Corn grew in the dingles where dwellings now are seen

‘Twixt Limeslade and Langland lay a farm”

 Thistleboon Farm – Mumbles:  1948

Geography

by Alan Rosser

Thistleboon Farm, situated on Mumbles Hill, is run by a Mrs Woolacott and her three sons, Tom, Jack and Glyn. Tom, the senior of the trio, is married and lives at the farmhouse; Jack still a bachelor also lives at the farmhouse; Glyn, however, a married man, lives in one of the fairly new houses close to the farmhouse. There is another son, Reg, who has nothing to do with the running of the farm but has a butcher’s shop in Newton Village, a few miles from the farmhouse.

Late owner of the farm and father of the Woolacott brothers was Mr Richard Woolacott,  known to all as Dick. This man’s father-in-law was the previous owner.

No account of the farm could be written without mention of a genial old character, Sam Davies, who is a casual labourer. Perhaps “casual” is not the best way to describe him, for, though over 70, he spends most of his time working hard at the farm. Having worked for 50 years at Swansea Docks, he retired, but found that inactivity failed to agree with him, so now we find him working for his friends the Woolacotts for no wage, but only for the love of working. Extra casual labour is employed when necessary, usually at harvest time.

It is interesting to note that the building adjoined to the farmhouse, now flats, was previously an Orphanage and before that, a ‘School for Young Gentlemen’.

The farm has a fair number of animals and the farm property covers an area of about 100 acres

Cattle

There are 32 ‘Shorthorn’ Dairy cows and one bull on the farm, and they are checked twice a year for T.B.

Sheep

The farm owns 41 sheep (crossbreds) and one ram. Once a year after having been washed and sheared, they are ‘dipped’. ‘Sheep dip’, bought in powder form, consists mostly of arsenic and has to be diluted in water; a packet about the size of a brick to 40 gallons of water. ‘Sheep dip’ is reported to ‘eradicate keds, control lice and ticks, and is especially effective against the Maggot Fly’.

Horses

There are three cart-horses of which two are mares.

During May, June and July, the cattle, sheep and horses obtain the main part of their food from pastures, but the yield falls drastically about October; and from October to May a great deal of the stock is hand fed.

There are a few pigs, 100 Rhode Island Red Chickens, 8 geese and a few ducks.

Crops

Wheat, barley, oats, potatoes, swede, mangles, turnips and hay are the important crops. Mangles and swede are used mainly as cattle food and the potatoes are sold locally. Large quantities of seeds are bought by the farm each year, but they do use some from previous crops providing they were good crops. Hereditary seeds are reputed to be best, but they have to be carefully looked after and should be sown in the season following that in which the crop is harvested.

Wheat is cut before it gets dead ripe, ie. while the straw is slightly green. It must be allowed to become dead ripe before it is carted, and usually takes about 3 weeks to ripen in the ‘stook’. When it has ripened, the operation of carting can be carried on.

Barley is not cut until it is dead ripe, and can be carted immediately.

 Oats are usually cut before they are dead ripe and left about 3 weeks in the sheaves before carting.

Barley and oats should be dry before being put in the rick, and the operation of cutting can be stopped by rain.

 Corn carted from the fields about the end of August is stored until the threshing machine comes around about a month from the time of carting.

Manure

A great deal of artificial manure is bought each year by this farm, but a large quantity of farmyard manure is also used. A ton of good farmhouse manure will contain approximately  as much nitrogen as ¾ cwt of sulphate of ammonia , as much phosphoric acid as 1 cwt of high grade super-phosphate and as much potash as 14lbs of sulphate of potash. The main trouble with farmyard manure is its bulk.

 Lime, used quite extensively by the Woolacotts, is not strictly speaking a fertilizer, none the less it is of considerable importance to the cultivator because it neutralizes acids that are constantly being formed in the soil.

Machinery

Apart from the smaller farm implements, the Woolacott’s own a reaper and binder, a tractor and a plough. The threshing machine used by this farm is owned by a Mr Jones of Llanrhidian, who hires it in turn to the various farmers in the district