Our village wants a new church- All Saint's Church
Ed Note: OUR VILLAGE WANTS A CHURCH was a booklet, written in aid of a subscription for a new Church and published by Pearse and Brown, 21, Wind Street, Swansea in 1859. It describes the condition of All Saints Parish Church prior to its major renovation in the 1860s.
Our village wants a new church, if ever a poor village did. A description of the present church will tell its own tale of discomfort and decay. The steeple or belfry-tower is bold, square, and plain-looking, like an old English church tower which, if it were not portly white-washed, is in good taste and keeping with all around it, especially the castle which is very near; a new fashionable spire would ‘seem but to flout the ruins grey.’
The church is long and narrow, having one aisle about three feet wide, which, as the doors of the pews open into it, is a very confined mode of ingress and egrets, the latter process taking a considerable time. The pulpit is against a very damp wall; the light bestowed on it, one side by a pretty but ruinous small-paned window, and a modern, ugly, square one on the other. The pews near the belfry and those in the chancel are so far from the pulpit, that the sense of seeing is alone required by those who occupy them.
There are two galleries, one having a stairs outside leading to it, the other accessible through the aforesaid narrow aisle. There are several windows of divers shapes and sizes; and the pews, following the example of the windows in this respect, are uniformly narrow; some are boarded, but owing to the dampness of the church, the wood is sufficiently decayed, to cause midnight illuminations, and might, assisted by damp vapour, strengthen the Welsh superstitions about lights or corpse candles as they call them, gleaming through church windows and flitting over graves. The pews not boarded, are of the earth, earthy, and many luxuriate in oystershells and decayed straw.
It is in such a place as this, suffocated by musty smells and chilled by the clinging damps, that the minister has for many years read His word, and preached the doctrine. Here, in bodily suffering and almost at the risk of their lives, do a Christian congregation listen to reading and preaching, well worthy of a better church. The Incumbent has used every exertion to cause the worship of his, and our maker and master, to be celebrated in a house more suitable. Every feeling has been appealed to; yet, still the funds collected are not sufficient, where so much must be done.
It is to gratify the wish of adding a trifle to the good work, that these few pages are written—a very humble exertion for a good purpose, of no more value in itself, than a rough stone is, until it contributes to form a part, however unrecognisable, in a building.
Should they, by giving however faint an idea of the native beauties of the surrounding country, induce others to take an interest in this very lovely spot, and gain a little for the church, my reward will be as rich as it is undeserved.
The View From My House by E.H.
It s an April day of tears and smiles, beams and showers, changeable as human hopes and fears. There is a light mist floating between sky and sea, gleaming like silver beneath the rays of the sun, giving the appearance of white crested billows to a sea calm and bright as a steel shield. Shield-like too in shape is our beautiful Bay, with its soft undulating sweep of hill and valley. Swansea with its pier-head, lighthouse, and rows of houses dotted about on the hills above the town, their windows sparkling like gems on one extremity, and the rocky belt of the Mumbles Hill at the other. Beneath the sparry rocks, above which rises the Mumbles Hill lies the little village. The houses are irregular rows, or groups, not built as they should be in such a scene so bold and yet so fairy-like, though some are pretty and pleasant.
The chief disadvantage of the Mumbles is, its aspect, east and north-east, which at times renders it very cold, and high winds rush pitilessly along, nipping buds and blossoms, and doing rough work on sea and shore. The houses in the Mumbles would be comfortable, if the inhabitants did not persist in building them directly facing the east wind. ‘Of a' the airts the wind can blow’ the worst. The view to the south with the sea and lighthouse, is very beautiful. On an eminence stands the castle, a noble ruin, in bold relief against the sky. Winding on and upwards a road leads to the little village of Newton, and Langland and Caswell Bays.
But I will confine my present description to what I see daily from my cottage home, surrounded by trees, and from which I look down on the backs of some of the scattered groups of houses, which face Her Majesty's high road. There, I see loyal subjects riding, driving, and walking thereon, turning their brick and mortar cold shoulders to my humble home and me. This then is my view, a lawn and shrubs, a green field, a garden, which when the trees are in blossom is very pretty, and the high road on which a busy and endless scene of life's toils, pleasures, cares, and vanities is enacted. On it daily, and almost nightly, run the Mumbles omnibuses with their strange medley of travellers, crushed together, for these are not the days of classic drapery's graceful folds; human creatures in such close contact for an hour, often to meet no more in life; old friends and neighbours chatting together; strangers, some enchanted with the scenery, others who seem to have no idea that there is a sky or sea, or how good and beautiful God has made them ; women, care-worn and industrious, with their baskets ; ladies with their flounces, flowers and veils, at enmity with the said baskets; hardy seamen, usually the kindliest mannered of the passengers. Who, in a word, for miles round, does not often join the motley group in our omnibuses, and what a study for grave or gay do they present ?
On they roll with their varied load, and after them dashes by an elegant carriage, gigs and phaetons without number, and looming in the distance come, their bags piled one on the other—a tremendous load, not telling a kind tale of the drivers, for ‘ the merciful man is merciful to his beast.’ the oyster carts and drays; it is their last month, the alphabet resumes its ‘r’ until September, when our skiffs and boats will again dot the blue and occasionally brown sea.
Beyond this well and ill-used road, with one or two houses just breaking the straight line, the sea! Like bright chased silver, or blended with the sky and opposite coast, by a soft floating mist, faintly touched with gold by the half-veiled sun. Though sometimes very dark, covered with little curves of white, denoting the wind's roughness and the waves' resentment, and over all a gloomy sympathetic sky — yet the very change has a charm, and with every transient gleam through the storm. Swansea peeps out, and the Mumbles Head boldly defines the bay with its dark rocks.
An 1850s walk on Mumbles Hill
How very pretty the walk up to and over the Mumble [sic] Hill. You ascend a narrow, steep, road, commencing in the middle of the village, turn round a rocky, rough, sharp corner, and following a fence, separating some fields from the down, skirt round the brow of the hill, look forth! on your left Swansea Bay with Swansea in the distance meets your gaze; on the right you see Langland and Caswell, and before you Bracelet Bay, the very name is pretty. They are a circlet of bays—‘Each adds to each a double charm.’ Descending a little lower you come to the lime slade or slide, a narrow bay or gully, divided by a rocky mound from beautiful, sheltered, Bracelet Bay, at the extremity of which stand two bold detached rocks. On the last is placed the lighthouse, there is a cave beneath it through which you can pass at low water.
I sit here on the sunny hill side, when sky and sea seem to breathe of hope and happiness, watching the vessels as they emerge from Swansea Bay, gliding behind the lighthouse, passing Bracelet Bay, and steadily moving on, leaving a long line of blue in the shining water, while my imagination pictures the different objects and fate of each, the prosperous voyage and happy return, or the fate of those who will return no more.
From Our village wants a new Church, 1859