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

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A Trek through old Mumbles Village
and Thistleboon by Stuart Batcup

Introduction

The 1904 photograph of Thistleboon House that appeared in last summer’s edition of the All Saints’ Church, Oystermouth, Parish Magazine, stirred all sorts of memories for me as I had been born right opposite, in what was then no. 1 Higher Lane in April 1945, and spent the first twenty two years of my life living in its shadow. Those thoughts were stirred even more at a subsequent meeting of the Men’s Fellowship given by local historian John Powell, who was using an extract from the 1844 Tithe Map showing old Mumbles Village and Thistleboon as his screensaver.

As a result of John’s good offices and those of Rod Cooper, who had prepared the extract in his research of Gower’s Animal Pounds, I was provided with the extract shown as the Frontispiece, which was the inspiration for these musings. You will see that unlike the Parish copy of that Tithe Map on the wall alongside the Font in All Saints’ Church, the various parcels are not shown just by Field or Parcel Numbers, but by Field names which are much more fascinating as many of them exist to this day.

Having spent an idyllic childhood playing and exploring all these places, especially the Mumbles Hill, I thought it would be fun to tap my memories in this piece and retrace some of my childhood steps using the 1844 extract as my route map. Having made this decision my thought was to call it ‘A stroll through old Mumbles Village and Thistleboon’, but as I knew that we would be going up Village Lane and Thistleboon Road, it was clear that this would be no stroll!

Mumbles Village, at that time was contained in the triangle formed by the Parade (as that part of the Mumbles Road was known), Village Lane, and Western Lane. Like the stalk of a pear, Thistleboon Road, took us up the steep hill to the Hamlet of Thistleboon. This is where we will be going.

As Gerald Gabb says in his Story of the Village of Mumbles’(1986).’what is wonderful about the tithe map is that it shows the whole parish in great detail and ties people to places’. Nice for the person or people who received these Tithes, but it was not the Vicar.

According to the late Norman Thomas, in his The Mumbles-Past and Present (1978), the Register of the Abbey of Gloucester states “Maurice de Londres, son of William de Londres, gave the Church of Ostremuwe in Goer” to the Abbey of St Peter there in the year 1141. From that date until 1367, the church was held by the Benedictine Monastery, Gloucester Abbey and its tithes and glebe (land) possessed by the Prior of Ewenny. So our tithes went to Gloucester until good King Henry VIII dissolved the Monasteries in 1534. He cashed in by selling the right to receive the Tithes to people known as Impropriators, which right became their property.

According to the 1834 List of rateable hereditaments in the Vestry Book, the Impropriator at that time was one Thomas Perrot Esq, and his right to receive the tithes (or Tythes as it is spelt there) was given a rateable value of £150, which was nearly twice the rateable value of the two grandest properties in the village at that time and meant that he was paying rates of £15 per annum. The modern equivalent is £17,100 rateable value, and £1,700 per annum rates!

Mr Perrot does not seem to have had any influence over the Parish, unlike St Mary’s in Swansea where until 1890 their Impropriator’s family still claimed ownership of the North aisle where they charged for the use of the pews, and of the Herbert Chapel, (see Gerald Gabb’s Swansea and its History, Vol II (2019)).The Tithe Barn fell out of use after 1844 and has long since disappeared, but its location can be seen in the rather poor copy photo taken circa 1869 and reproduced in Norman Thomas’ 1978 book. The photo seems to have been taken from behind the cottages in Village Lane whose chimneys are in the foreground. It also shows the backs of the larger properties on ‘The Parade’ opposite the site of what are now Southend Gardens, the Roman Catholic Church and Cornwall and Devon Places, and the Horsepool with its beached Oyster Dredgers. There is also a good view of the Victorian Church in the background.

The Site of the Tithe Barn was redeveloped in the latter half of the 19th Century by Matt Smith a local builder, who built what are now nos. 1-4 Hall Bank and shown on that photo. He regularly advertised in the early Parish Magazines from 1899. His brother William Henry Smith’s grandson John Court (now living in South Africa) has recently confirmed this to me, and that the brothers Smith also built most of the houses in Tichbourne Street and Bryn Terrace.

I will now use the 1844 Tithe Map to guide my footsteps, and trigger my own childhood memories, and memories of what I have been told and found out for myself over the years to bring the Trek to life.

Before setting off down the drangway between what was Dick Bartons (now Yallops) and Trams, I’ll first pop along to Rees the Bakers Bakehouse on Hall Bank and offer to sweep up some flour for ‘Uncle’ Haydn Rees or his brother Len, in the hope that I might be given a delicious iced bun to set me on my way. This used to happen occasionally, and it is only in the last twelve months or so that I discovered why. My father Fred spent his teenage years living in Devon Place, and must have been a good friend of Haydn as he was best man at Haydn’s marriage to Iris in August 1940. The Bakery was known as T Rees & Sons, Parade Bakery.

Turning back along The Parade, my tongue would be well coloured by the Gobstopper by the time I reached the bottom of Village Lane to look up its steep hill. Passing the Antelope on my left, and Mr Jones the Milkman on the right, it was hard work for little legs. After passing the entrance to Rock Hill on the left (which is clearly shown on the Map), I might stop for a moment at Hall Bank Terrace to speak to Jimmy Clifford, or watch Ronnie Gammon stripping metal on the bit of land opposite, alongside 1, Village Lane, on which there is now a modern cottage.

I might also have stopped to watch the electric tramcars of the Mumbles Railway on their way to and from the Pier: as you could hear the clickety clack of the wheels and the humming of the cables well before they put in an appearance passing alongside the Village Lane Slipway. The Storm Water sewage disposal pipe from which we paddled, picked periwinkles and swam is still there.

I had three Great Aunts living in Devon Place, and one had a Summer House in her back garden. My sister, myself and various second cousins used this as a base for these explorations, and the greater adventure of following the ebb tide well out into the Bay through the thick smelly mud to gather cockles. The Railway track was not fenced off, so, by putting a halfpenny on the track before a train came along you could turn it into a very thin penny.

As Norman Thomas said in his Story of Swansea and its Villages written in about 1970 at the top Village Lane meets Western Lane by Number 21 Village Lane. This was known as ‘Rose Cottage’ part of what was once called ‘Glovers Row’. It then displayed ‘a striking red and white painted bird house and behind it a wall mass of red, rambling roses in full bloom brightening the spot during the summer months.’ That Row is also clearly shown on the Map.

The Map shows a large house on the site of the St Anne’s Apartments. At that time this was the home of Mr Henry Bath a wealthy and prominent member of the Swansea ‘merchant aristocracy’ of that time. The house is shown in the 1834 Vestry Minute Book as ‘Rosehill’ occupied by ‘H Bath Esq’ with a rateable value of £14.16 shillings (£1687 in present money). In 1822 Henry Bath had taken a Lease from the Swansea Corporation for a term of 60 years at a yearly rent of £40 of a large plot of land alongside the River Tawe, more or less where Sainsbury’s loading yard stands today, in connection with his business as a copper trader. He was obviously very successful and passed the business on through two further generations. The plot became known as ‘Bath’s Yard’, and it was bounded on the West ‘by the Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad’. Bath Lane still exists in this location. I wonder whether he used the horse drawn Mumbles Train to get to and from work? In those days the Turnpike Road to Swansea had not yet been constructed, and the fare was only a shilling return!

How do I know that the fare was a shilling? Because it is there in the Churchwardens Accounts contained in the Vestry Minute Book. As early as April 1st 1834 there is an entry: ”To Swansea to sign the 1st Rate 2s Paid Atwood 2s 6d total 4s 6d”. These entries appeared every year thereafter. Thomas Attwood was a Solicitor who was also Clerk to the Justices for the Petty Sessional Divisions of the Borough of Swansea, and of the Hundred of Swansea, which covered Oystermouth at the time. He was also the founder of the Law Practice of which I became a partner in 1972. The Rate had to be lodged in the Court to become legally enforceable, and the 2 shilling entry was for the Churchwardens return fares on the Mumbles Train, and the 2 shillings and 6 pence (or half a crown) was for Mr Attwood’s fee.

When Henry Bath died in May 1908. The Cambrian described him as ‘Henry Bath JP DL, Head of Bath & Sons metal and copper ore merchants of Swansea, London, and Liverpool who was very closely identified with the early commerce of the Port of Swansea.’

My memories of the house in the nineteen fifties was of a substantial Georgian House which had become a Convent School for girls known as St Anne’s. The entrance was not where it is now but opposite the end of Overland Road. We never trespassed beyond the gate for fear of the nuns in their black habits! It subsequently became a hotel managed for a time by Canon Geoffrey Thomas’s son Simon.

Western Lane was never a hive of activity, but there must have been a frisson of excitement for the locals when they read the Cambrian Evening Express on 29 October 1894.

This was the story:

He was a Farm Labourer and Leaves Nearly £1500

There has just died at the Mumbles a farm labourer, named Rowlands, who during his lifetime was regarded as a miser of the most pronounced type. Deceased, who was employed by Mr John Beynon, Thistleboon Farm, lived in a little cottage in Western Lane, Mumbles, and was most niggardly in his habits, and so saving a disposition that it is stated that, after his death, it was found that he had accumulated about £1,500, which will go to his brother who resides in Swansea. This large sum was saved out of his wages as a farm labourer, although a fair portion of it represents interest. In 1869 Rowlands ordered a pair of trousers from a Mumbles tailor, which he wore continually up to the time of his death, the garment being almost as good as when it was bought.

In today’s money that £1,500 would be worth £183,000, so it was quite a story.

The story also bears out the old ditty about Mumbles;

Mumbles is a funny place,

A church without a steeple,

Houses made of old ships wrecked

And most peculiar people

The journey has brought us conveniently to No 1 Thistleboon Road, which in my day was Mr Jones’ shop. He always wore a brown coat like Ronnie Barker’s Arkwright, and inside was not unlike Arkwright’s shop too. When I was old enough to be sent to Jones’ shop on an errand, I was fascinated by his old fashioned Bacon Slicer, Wooden Butter pats, and large jars of tea, sugar and flour all of which was weighed on an archaic set of scales and put into folded greaseproof paper and paper bags.

Mr Jones didn’t have much time for us children, but when his Assistant Thelma John (from Thistleboon ‘Orphanage’ Flats) was on duty I might at least come away with a broken Marie biscuit. In 1844 this was one of the Taverns or Ale Houses in the village owned by John and Thomas Nicholl who had the large farm at Thistleboon, shown on the Map as ‘The Farm’, but more about this next time while we imagine enjoying a well-earned pint or two.

The property is now known as ‘Yr Hen dy Cwrw’ a name which accurately reflects its heritage.

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