Glyn Cerrig House - a Mumbles landmark by Wendy Cope
At the beginning of February 2014, demolition work began on Glyn Cerrig (or Glyncerrig) one of Mumbles' well-known landmark houses.
This article charts its history over some 160 years, for over a century occupied by the Lloyd-Jones family.
Until February 2014, the large imposing Victorian house stood on the corner of Newton Road opposite Oystermouth School and across the road from the Baptist church.
Little is known of its early days, although a building is marked on the 1843 Tithe Map within the area covered by this house and garden, but that looks to be a little further from Newton Road than the present house.
Glyn Cerrig is believed to have first belonged to a woman and could have been built in the 1850s. with its water supply emanating from a well 22 feet down under the house.
At some time between 1866 and 1870, it became the home of the Clerk to the Justices of Swansea, George Bowen and his family. However, when he died in December 1875 the family had already moved to Walter’s Terrace in Swansea.
The house was then taken by the Rev. E. Griffiths who set up a school for boys. He is first mentioned in the Cambrian in April 1877 when his school was at 47 George's Terrace, Swansea, but in October his advertisement showed that he had transferred to Glyn Cerrig. We can assume that the school was not very successful as it only lasted a short time, the last advertisement appearing in May 1880. In the summer of 1880, house and school were advertised as available to let at Michaelmas.
In the spring of 1881, John Walters Williams, a retired civil servant, was the occupier, along with his wife and three adult children. He had been employed as Distributor of Stamps for Glamorgan. Both his sons were employed as clerks, but the younger one, Robert W. Moyse Williams, died on 22nd July that year, aged only 20. At the beginning of July, Mrs Williams started to place a weekly advertisement in The Cambrian offering board and lodging at the house. She hosted the Misses Rowland from London at the beginning of August, Mr A. Bradshaw from Somerset in the middle of the month and at the end, Mr & Mrs Bailey from Birmingham and Mr, Mrs & Miss Stephens from Maindee, Newport. The advertisements ceased in October. In October J. W. Williams was invited to attend the ball given as part of the celebrations when the Prince of Wales opened the new docks in Swansea but by 1888, this family had gone and the house was for sale, with just a caretaker in residence.
In 1891, the census shows that the occupier was Dr. John J. Bevan, general practitioner and surgeon. He was also Medical Officer of Health for The Oystermouth Urban District Council and had an assistant, Dr. William B. Evans to help with his practice. As a G.P. he probably held consultations at his house and thus would have started Glyn Cerrig's long medical association. In March 1895 the house, still occupied by Dr. Bevan, was to let or for sale, but whether he continued to live there is not known. When he died in 1900 the district Council looked for another Medical Officer of Health and chose Dr. Arthur Lloyd-Jones, who had been practising in the area from about 1892, was known to be a good speaker and also had a Diploma of Public health, which none of the other candidates possessed.
The following year, Dr. Arthur Lloyd-Jones moved his family and his practice to Glyn-Cerrig from Rotherslade House. In 1896, he had joined the Territorials in Medical Reserve of Officers and was made Surgeon–Lieutenant of the 3rd Voluntary Battalion of the Welsh Regiment, a post he held through the First World War. In 1903, he was a member of the local committee who planned the Medical Association Congress in Swansea.
This view of Underhill Park, includes Newton Road, Mumbles Baptist Church, Oystermouth Castle and Glyn Cerrig
Dr. Arthur was succeeded by his son Dr. Fred Lloyd–Jones, who moved into Glyn-Cerrig in 1933 after the death of his father. He was in his turn, followed by his son, Dr. Peter Lloyd-Jones, who took over the practice in 1961. He had been working with his father since the summer of 1958 after completing two years service with the 7th Field Ambulance, R.A.M.C. at Osnabruck in Germany.
Before the days of the National Health Service, this practice served people who belonged to a local medical friendly society. Families paid a small amount each week, about six pence for a man and less for women and children. The money was collected by a man who visited the houses of contributors. The waiting room for these people was in a wooden building attached to the house and furnished with benches, while private patients waited in the right hand front room of the house itself.
Changes in medical practices brought a number of doctors together in the late 1960s and a new demountable surgery was built in the garden of Glyn-Cerrig in about 1971 to serve the enlarged practice. This building remained in use until the early 1990s, when the practice moved to the new clinic at Norton, and it was later removed. Although the surgery moved away, the Lloyd-Jones family continued to live in the house and were its owners for over a century.
After the death of Peter Lloyd Jones, his widow, Betty, lived at Glyn Cerrig for a few years but eventually sold the house to move nearer to her daughter. The new owner cut down the wood that was in the garden ready to build on the land, but in 2012 that development was still on hold and the house stood empty and forlorn, until February 2014 when its demolition began and now a new future waits.
Glyn-Cerrig, early 1980s
Timeline
By 1870 - George Bowen and his family
By 1877 Rev. E. Griffiths had set up school for boys
Spring 1881 - John Walters Williams and family
July 1881 – Mrs Williams was offering lodgings
By 1891 - Dr. John J. Bevan, general practitioner and surgeon
1893 - Dr. Arthur Lloyd Jones, practice and family
1933 - Dr. Fred Lloyd–Jones, his son
1961 - Dr. Peter Lloyd-Jones, his son
2014 – House demolished
Demolition in progress
Glyncerrig, Feb 2014
Going, Going, Gone!
Acknowledgment
This article was previously published in Newton Parish Magazine
1844 OS Map, West Glamorgan Archive
Postcard: Underhill Park view
Other photos John Powell
Glyncerrig, Feb 2014