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

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Having spent some time exploring the western surrounds of Thistleboon in the eighteen forties and the nineteen fifties, the time has come for us to press on in a southwards  direction towards ‘the Plunch’ and Limeslade Bay.

A cursory glance at our Route map, the 1844 Tithe Map will show that between the Abattoir  opposite Thistleboon House, or the Slaughterhouse  as we used to call it (the footprint of which is still there following its conversion into a cottage; see photo) and ‘The Farm’ there were just fields either side of Plunch Lane: Middle Field, 

Little Meadow and Higher Barn Field to the left and the walled garden of Thistleboon House and Great Meadow to the right. Great Meadow was the largest field farmed by Evan Williams of Thistleboon Farm at that time, and must have been quite impressive. It is now the site of New Villas and Thistleboon Gardens, and by standing in the Service Lane behind these properties you can get a feel for the way it curved in ward on both sides. My photo shows it as it is now, in panorama.

New Villas

It would have taken only a matter of minutes to walk this stretch in the eighteen forties and in the nineteen fifties, but it was more interesting then. Uncle Les and Auntie Court lived at St Ives with their sons John and Jeff. There was a gap in the fence between our houses and virtually every weekday after school I was in there reading these older boys comics. My Beano and Dandy comics paled into insignificance with the Eagle, the Wizard and Hotspur and loads of War comics that were delivered there every week, or collected by me and Auntie Court from Ceatons on the Parade. My Mum used to complain that I spent more time there than at home. Uncle Les was a Master Carpenter with endless patience. creating all sorts of things in his shed. He taught me all I needed to know about using woodworking tools, and bike maintenance as they had a tandem!

From my tiny back bedroom window, I was able to look past St Ives on the corner over the very long back gardens of Nos 1 to 10 New Villas. These houses had been built in the nineteen twenties on long leases from the Beaufort Estate, and were largely owner occupied. Mr and Mrs Hullin an elderly couple lived in No 1 beyond our hedge and used to chat with us through that hedge. Next door at No 2 lived Mr Jones, the Sanitary Inspector and his wife, and next door again at No 3 Frank Gooder, the debt collector/bailiff.

After that another neighbour was Mr Frank ‘Buzzer’ Beese the Latin Master at Bishop Gore School, his wife Elizabeth who taught at Bryn House Adult Learning Centre off Walter Road Swansea and their daughters Sue and Linda, already mentioned. As I had decided to go in for the law when I was 13, I had to pass Latin at GCE “O” level to go on. I hated the subject and despite the best efforts of my Latin Master at Dynevor School, I was hopeless at it so I was sent to ‘Buzzer’ for coaching. The combined efforts of these good folk helped me to scrape a bare 50% Pass to set me on my way. I am of course eternally grateful to them all for helping me on with a most rewarding career: even though I never actually used Latin at all afterwards!

Hector and Hilda Evans lived at No 6 with their son Gerald and their lodger the Curate at All Saints from 1950 to 1955 the Rev Graham Chadwick. Hilda was a ‘Pillar of All Saints Church’ and was responsible for the Church Linen. I can still see the long white Altar cloths and Albs blowing in the wind on her Clothes line. Hector had a lorry, and my Dad used to keep his work car in his large garage giving onto the back lane. As a result of this my Dad and I came into frequent contact with Graham Chadwick. He was wonderfully empathetic towards Dad who was not a well man after his wartime experiences in the Far East, and was from a Baptist family. He also related well to us kids helping out with the 3rd Mumbles Church Wolf Cub Pack, and of course the Church Choir and Sunday School. We always had fond memories of Graham.

The community at Thistleboon was very law abiding, perhaps helped by the fact that we had four Police Officers living there.! As well as Stan Saville, and retired Superintendent Alf Diehl and his wife living at No 12 New Villas we also had Sergeant Mendy Morgan in Thistleboon Gardens, and Sergeant David ‘Iago’ Price living at 5 Higher Lane. Talk about a Policeman’s Ball!

On the other side of the Lane were the entrances to ‘the Camps’, now Thistleboon Drive and Michael’s Field. There was then an open field where horses grazed before you reached the kitchen garden of  Craig y mor and Craig y Mor Cottage where the Wooderson Family lived. Mr Wooderson was the Gardener to Mr Roderick Harris and his family living in Craig y Mor itself. To us that family was a little remote as the two daughters went away to boarding school and never played with us. Mrs Wooderson was the Maid who was frequently summoned over the road by the ringing of a bell that reverberated over what had been the Great Meadow. The Harris family were ‘Posh’, which is not surprising as we will soon see; if ever there were any ‘Squires’ in Thistleboon, they were the owners of ‘Craig y Mor’!

“The Farm” later “Craig y Mor” House

In our extract from the 1844 Tithe Map ‘The Farm’ is shown as having an oblong shape. It was probably a typical 17th Century Welsh Long-House of the sort shown in the attached plan of Middle House, Llanfilo, Powys. As it says in ‘The Historic Architecture of Wales’ by John B Hilling (1975);

The one roomed version was usually divided into two areas – one for living – and one for sleeping – at first by furniture and later by a screen of lath and plaster or simply by a curtain. Where the cottage formed part of a tyddyn (smallholding or croft) it often had a beudy (cow-shed) attached to it at one of the pine (gable) ends…. A development of this type was the ty-hir, or long house, which consisted of a long rectangular building housing both the family and its cattle under the same roof, but divided at the centre by a common access passage serving both parts of the house. This was not only an economic way of building; the cattle also helped to keep the house warm in winter.

Of the five houses at Thistleboon mentioned in the 1650 Survey of Gower for Oliver Cromwell this was probably ‘the messuage and lands at Ffistleboon’ of 9 acres for which Walter Thomas Esq was paying the Lordship 10s 5d per annum rent. Walter Thomas had been Steward to the Marquess of Worcester before his lands were seized, and held numerous properties in the Manor of Oystermouth as investments.

This is probably the same property that is mentioned in Gabriel Powell’s 1764 Survey of the Lordship of Gower for the Duke of Beaufort. It is described as a Copyhold Tenement at ‘Thistleboon’ belonging to Owen Brigstock Esq and occupied by a Mr Hugh Powell.

It is almost certainly included in the property numbered 94 in the 1834 Vestry Minute Book:  said to be occupied by ‘John Nichols & Co’; it had a Rateable Value of £86 15s. This is the highest Rateable Value of any property in the Parish of Oystermouth at the time, the second being Woodlands Castle at Clyne with a Rateable Value of £83 14s 8d, and the third Thistleboon House with a Rateable Value of £63. This high rateable value had to be ascribed to the business going on in the ‘Brewhouse etc’ shown opposite The Farm which was at the heart of the Nichols family’s Brewing empire.

This assertion is borne out by the entries in the Schedule to the 1844 Tithe Map which identifies these parcels as:

·         1110 part of the Glebe of the Parish described as Farm House, Stables and Yard occupied by ‘Nicholls, Johns and Thomas’

·         1107 part of the Glebe of the Parish described as Malt House and Garden also occupied by ‘Nicholls Johns and Thomas’

A close examination of the Schedule to the 1844 Tithe Map shows that all of the fields I have named on the West or right-hand side of Plunch Lane were occupied by Thomas and John Nicholls or Nichols, as well as most of those further along Plunch Lane all the way down to Limeslade. There were 23 Parcels in total. Some of these fields would have been used to produce the barley needed to sustain the Malthouse alongside the ‘Hill House’ Pub on Thistleboon Road (identified in Part 4 of this Trek, and its replacement, also called ‘Hill House’ at No 1 Thistleboon Road) as well as the ‘Brewhouse etc’ opposite The Farm. The rateable value suggests that this was more than a cottage enterprise as I believe the partnership would probably have supplied more than one pub in the Parish.

In Volume 2 of his ‘Swansea and its History’ at Page 1276, Gerald Gabb describes the process they would have used as follows:

“Brewing involved heating several gallons of water in a brass pan and introducing barley as a mash when this had been transferred into a big wooden vat. To the resulting liquid more water, hops and perhaps sugar were added, then yeast. Fermentation in the vat then took several days. Corn drying kilns and malthouses were still common in rural Wales in the 19th Century, and by 1833 130 acres of land was given over to hop growing, (though mainly in mid-Wales), while gathering those growing wild was possible in places. They were originally seen as distinguishing beer from ale.

Setting up a malting concern was expensive, so beer house keepers usually bought malted barley from maltsters to brew with”

Large amounts of water were therefore needed which was probably taken from the Mear Pool, which was a gathering point for water running off the fields, and probably the site of another spring

In the 18th century there were quite a number of viable maltsters in Swansea; and in Gower Samuel Gibbs had a malthouse on the ‘Port Einon’ seafront, and there was one in Bishopston working into the 1870s.

Thanks to the Duke of Wellington’s Beer Act of 1830 removing all beer duty pubs boomed across the country: within a year of the Act, 31,000 new beer licences were issued, and pub-building soared. That, in turn must have caused the Nichols family to expand their Malthouse, and their pubs to make themselves enough money to replace ‘The Farm’ by a Victorian Gentleman’s Residence, about which more later

But who were these Nichols or Nicholls?

There are three graves in All Saints Churchyard to members of the Nichols and/or Nicholls family as well as a fine Brass Plaque in the Church itself on the wall near the ‘Remembrance Corner’ on the north aisle. There is also a White Marble Plaque on the wall of the south aisle to John and Elizabeth Wintle of Newnham Gloucester, and to their granddaughter Elizabeth Nicholl who died aged 5 in 1804. These memorials provide a rich source of information about this family, and I am grateful to Kate Jones for sharing with me her extensive Notes supplemented by Census information.

There are so many of them that it is quite easy to get your head in a spin! Starting with the ages of the deceased and their dates of death, I have been able to scour the 18th Century Parish Christening records, and it seems that none of them were born in the Parish. It will have to be a project for some future time to find out where they came from, but let us for now have a go at what we have. Fortunately, the Glamorgan Family History Society’s Survey of all the legible monumental inscriptions in the Church in 1995, is much easier to read than the originals:

·         The first Chest Tomb that you come across to the left or east of the Drangway is inscribed as follows:

Sacred to the memory of

THOMAS NICHOLS

Of Thistleboon in this Parish who departed this life

 December 24th 1854 aged 79 years

Also of

JOHN NICHOLS

Brother of the above who departed this life

January 29th 1855 aged 90 years

Also in memory of

MARY NICHOLS

Sister of the above who departed this life

July 28th 1861 aged 81 years

The Census Returns for 1851 show that all three of these good souls lived at ‘The Farm’. None of them appear to have been married, and whilst both brothers were described as Farmers, John Nichols is also described elsewhere as an Inn Keeper. Mary was described as a Housekeeper. We have a match! As Mary outlived her brothers it is fair to assume that she inherited their properties.

·         The second Chest Tomb alongside the first is inscribed as follows:

Sacred to the memory of 

JOHN NICHOLL

Of Thistleboon who departed this life

March 13th 1846 aged 89 years

Also

MARGARET NICHOLL

Wife of the above who departed this life

April 20th 1832 aged 93 years

Also

HOPKIN NICHOLL

Son of the above

So far, I have been unable to work out where these good folk fit in, but the inscription suggests that this line died with Hopkin. What can be said is that all of those I have already mentioned lived to ripe old age for those days. Must have had something to do with the brew!

·        

It is in fact the only surviving such Vault in our churchyard. On the basis that the Chest records no less than 14 names it is probably a bit crowded if they are all interred in that Vault. Many were children who died in infancy. I won’t repeat all the names, but the following gives a flavour:

As a Tribute of Grateful Remembrance of the Blessings derived from those Beloved Parents

This Stone is raised by their deeply Sorrowing and Affectionate Children

Sacred to the memory of

DAVID NICHOLL GENTLEMAN

Who died June 24th June 1832 Aged 63 years

Also of

MARY NICHOLL

Wife of David Nicholl who died May 31st 1843 aged 73 years

This Vault is a substantial structure measuring about 12 x 18 feet which was surrounded by the iron railings that can be seen in the photo of the Victorian graveyard already shown. These were removed for their metal content during the First World War and the stumps are still there. Access to this Vault was gained from an Entrance near the side door to the Lady Chapel where there is a ‘kick’ in the wall retaining the burial ground. I am told that this was finally sealed by Peter Hartnell during Canon Eddie Hughes’ incumbency in the 1950s. He is said to remember shelves either side of the central passageway with glass topped coffins containing the deceased. Very Gothic! If any of the family’s descendants were able to unseal the Vault, they would be able to ‘see’ their ancestors in more ways than one!

• You will find the Brass Plaque also dedicated to this Family in the Remembrance Corner of the North Aisle beneath the Wall Board recording our clergy since c1231. This has two panels and records the following:

SACRED to the Memory of DAVID NICHOLL born 3rd January 1769 died 23rd June 1832

MARY his Wife born 6th Decr 1772 died 21st May 1845

Also their daughters

MARY born 26 Octr 1806 died 24th June 1872

MARGARET SPENCER born 6th July 1811 died 5 Jany 1882

………..

WILLIAM HENRY MORGAN born 28th May 1806 died 23rd January1873

Also his sons

WILLIAM HENRY born 7th June 1837 died 23rd died 12th July 1850

WINTLE KNOWLES born 22nd June 1835 CHARLES born 31st March 1840

Both drowned at Southerndown 15th June 1852

This all seems rather sad, and a little confusing as the Sarcophagus refers to some, but not all, of the children of David and Mary Nicholl, namely the said Mary and Margaret Spencer, but also DAVID FRYER NICHOLL who died 9th June 1884 aged 82 years and ANNE NICHOLL who died 16th February 1887 aged 86 years. It also ties in their daughter ELIZABETH NICHOLL who was married to the WILLIAM HENRY MORGAN of Bridgend mentioned on the Plaque. She was the mother of the three boys mentioned on the plaque who were 13, 17 and 12 respectively when they died.

William Henry and Elizabeth Morgan also had a fourth son named NICHOLL MORGAN who is not mentioned as he survived and ultimately inherited the Family Estate. We will be coming back to him. For completeness the Sarcophagus records that his mother ELIZABETH MORGAN nee Nicholl who was born on 14th February  1809 died in April 1891, and was probably the last member of the family interred in the Vault as the Churchyard had been officially closed for burials in 1882.

I have included this Plaque as it shows an early tie-in of the connections between these three who died within a very short time of one another, and of the family names associated with this dynasty. The WINTLE’S are all mentioned on the Sarcophagus along with MARTHA wife of MATHEW HALL Gentleman who died Feb 14th 1753 aged 53 years and the said MATHEW HALL who died March 4th 1762, aged 83 years. This Mathew Hall was one of the very well-off Mariners of the Village in the early Eighteenth Century whose name occurs almost annually in the ‘Christenings’ columns of the Parish Registers. The names of his many children who failed to survive infancy can also be seen in the ‘Deaths’ columns.

And where did they live?

David and Mary Nicholl were clearly significant residents of the Parish at the turn of the Eighteenth Century for the family to afford such extravagant memorials, and it does seem that they lived in some style. 

This family was the family that lived at ‘Dilston’, the fine Georgian House on Western Lane looking out over Henry Bath’s ‘Rosehill’, about which I knew nothing when we looked down Western Lane during the early part of this Trek. Dilston as it was at that time is shown in the attached photo recently obtained by the History of Mumbles Website, and the 1920 M A Clare photo shows how it looked then.

The 1834 List of rated properties in the Vestry Minute Book show that at that time the property was occupied by ‘Mrs Nichols, Thistleboon’ with a respectable Rateable Value of £8. She had been the Mary Wintle from Newnham Gloucester who died in 1845, and it seems that it was her only surviving son David Fryer Nicholl, born in 1802 who was living there when he died in 1884.

I also knew nothing about the occupants of that house when I used to scuttle past it in the 1950s. It has now come to light that at that time it was occupied by Grafton Maggs’ parents who retired there when they moved from ‘The Victoria Inn’ in Gloucester Place after the end of WW2! They must have all been pretty healthy to walk up and down Western Lane and all those steps up to the front door. The present owners have the benefit of a lift!

According to the Probate of Wm Henry Morgan who had died on 23rd January 1873, David Fryer Nicholl was living at ‘The Mumbles Farm’ a piece of information that has helped me unravel the history of what is now ‘Craig y Mor’.

David Fryer Nicholl:  1802 to June 1884

The present owners of Craig y Mor kindly allowed Kate and I to look around the property recently as we were having trouble identifying when and how it had been built and extended between 1844 and 1877 (the year of the Ordnance Survey; see extract). The 1877 OS map shows it as it was until some recent extensions. Unfortunately, there are no dates carved on the stonework, but what we have seen suggests that this is possibly what happened:

o  Mary Nichols of the ’brewing Nichols’, who was well off in her own right was probably behind building the first part of the new house shortly after 1841. My photos shows that it was and is a small Regency style detached house with characteristic low ceilings, a delightful iron worked verandah, and small windows (very ‘Jane Austen’). 

o  David Fryer Nicholl probably inherited the estate in the 1850s and was responsible for building the fine high ceilinged Victorian extension to the front before 1877 as he was living there in 1873

o  Whilst these buildings give the impression that they are a Welsh longhouse with a Victorian extension, that is not in fact the case. The old longhouse fronting the road had been converted to a Barn, two Cow Houses and a Tool House. It is difficult to make this out now as the whole of that structure has long been subsumed into a very large garage. There is evidence of a lintel in the stonework onto the road near the Morfydd  Owen Plaque on the outside wall – see photo.

o  Following the death of her husband Wm Henry Morgan in January 1873 Elizabeth Morgan, David Fryer Nicholl’s sister came to live there in 1875 in the year when her son Nicholl Morgan married. He seems to have married Hannah Eliza Walker twice; on 23rd December 1875, and on 6th July 1876! Hannah was only twenty on the second time, so there was probably a doubt to be resolved about the first as she had then been under the legal age of consent.

o  David Fryer Nicholl died at Dilston on 8th June 1884, and by his Will dated 10th July 1883 left an Estate sworn at £19,972 3s 6d, which is worth about £1.6 million at current rates. He was clearly the first of the ‘Squires’ of Craig y Mor. He was also a wealthy bachelor and appointed his nephew Nicholl Morgan a Solicitor with a London address and his sister Elizabeth Morgan who was also living at Dilston to be his Executors

o  The Will is interesting as after first providing for some charitable legacies (including one to purchase ‘food coal meat clothes or bread’ for ‘the poor of the Parish of Oystermouth’), there are lengthy provisions for his Farm Bailiff John Harris and his family. As well as providing lump sums for John’s sons, there are Annuities or pensions for John and his wife, and he gave them ‘the Cottage and Garden known as Lewins Hill Mumbles’ for their respective lives. This is the cottage that became known as the White Lady Cottage, and is also shown on the 1877 OS Map extract.

o  It then goes on to state:

“I devise all my freehold Copyhold and leasehold lands (but as to the said house and garden known as Lewins Hill aforesaid subject to the life interest therein of the said John Harris Senior and Jane his wife) unto my nephew the said Nicholl Morgan in tail general”

In those days land was described as ‘Realty’ (and included land with buildings) and everything else was ‘Personalty’.So as well as inheriting all the land,  Nicholl also inherited one half of John’s personalty, the other half going to his younger brother Thomas Radcliffe Morgan. For practical purpose he inherited both Dilston and Craig y Mor, scooped the pool and became the new Squire: he therefore deserves a Section to himself

Nicholl Morgan: 1847 to 1931

Nicholl was born at Newcastle, high above Bridgend and was baptised there on 2nd July 1847. He was the fourth son of Wm Henry and Elizabeth Morgan whose three older brothers had died in 1850 and 1853 when he was still young. As the brass plaque records both  Wintle and Charles Morgan drowned at Southerndown on 15th June 1852. Southerndown was the nearest bathing beach to Bridgend and the boys were riding their horses in the sea when the tragedy occurred. It was widely reported at the time.

The 1851 Census shows the family living at a house called ‘Brynteg’. Newcastle. His father was described as a ‘Wine Merchant’, and he was living there with his wife Hannah, five children and five servants. By 1861 that year’s Census shows his father to have been a ‘Landed Proprietor’ born in Cardiff, and that at 13 Nicholl was living with his parents, his younger brother Thomas, his older sister Mary and his Aunt Margaret (Nicholl) of Swansea and two servants. By this time Wm Henry Morgan was also Clerk to the Bridgend Railway Company.

I don’t know where Nicholl was educated, but it could have been at John R D Colston’s Thistleboon House Academy as a day boy as his extended family lived at Thistleboon. Indeed, Nicholl’s younger brother Thomas married John Colston’s daughter Annie in 1886. She was 23 living in a Coalbrook House, and he was 36 living at Dilston.

The Law Society records show that Nicholl was admitted as a Solicitor in 1870, aged 23 with a London Address. He seems to have kept a London practising address from then until he died in 1931, but he is also recorded as practising in South Wales at different periods. In particular:

·         1872 to 1875 at Bridgend and Maesteg

·         1875 to 1881 at Swansea as a partner in George Davies and Co

·         1884 to 1898 at Swansea as a sole practitioner

·         1886 to 1897 at Mumbles as a sole practitioner

On 3rd May 1878 his wife Hannah gave birth to a baby daughter at the Laurels, East Molesey, and on 5th December 1879 to a baby son at the same place. This was Wm H N Morgan who was also admitted a Solicitor in 1912

By 1884, having inherited it, Nicholl and Hannah were living at Craig y Mor; they had a daughter born there on 29th May 1885, a still born daughter on 11th October 1886, and a further daughter born there on 22nd February 1888, a still born son on 17th May 1889, and a further son born on 14th March 1890. The 1891 Census reveals that at that time as well as Nicholl and Hannah there were seven children and three servants living there. Two more daughters were born to them in 1895 and 1896, the first having died at 2 months.

The family lived there until they moved to London permanently in 1898/1899 when Nicholl put the whole estate up for sale, lotting up the farm land as Building Plots.

Nicholl was certainly a controversial character during his time living at Craig y Mor, and deserves a separate account. Perhaps the following will give a flavour:

o  He set himself up as a Solicitor practising from 7 Cambrian Place Swansea in 1884.

o  He seems to have had a respectable Practice with Sir John Jones Jenkins MP (1835 – 1915) as a major client. Sir John lived first at 2 Overland Road Mumbles and later at the Grange at West Cross.

We don’t have a photo of Nicholl but we do have two of Sir John (later Lord Glantawe) who was a great benefactor of All Saints. The first is from a sketch of him in ‘Vanity Fair’, and the second is from his Memorial Stained-Glass Window in the Church. Yes, it is his face from a photo that is central to the Window. He and his wife are buried in a grand well-tended grave near the Slade Road entrance to Oystermouth cemetery. Canon Robert Jones’ wife Chris is related to that family on the distaff side, which means ‘no wealth’!

o   Sir John was a wealthy industrialist with interests in Collieries, two Tinplate work (Cwmfelin and Beaufort), Harbours and Railways, in particular the Swansea & Mumbles Railway Ltd and the Mumbles Railway and Pier Company. The extension of the railway required the construction of a new embankment from Blackpill to the proposed new pier at Mumbles. Both constructions needed private Acts of Parliament and Nicholl represented both Companies in the House of Lords consideration of the Bill. He also represented the Railway Company in the Inquest into the death of James Orrin in September 1893

o   In April 1885 Nicholl seems to have been elected a member of the Oystermouth Local Board. By October 1888 he was Chairman of that Board during the year that it was creating ‘the Cutting’ at Mumbles Head to give access to Bracelet Bay to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. He was also Election Agent for the Conservative MP for Swansea Mr J T Dillwyn Llewelyn in 1888.  By this time, he had, however crossed swords with Graham Vivian of Clyne, his brother Henry Hussey Vivian of Singleton Abbey and the Duke of Beaufort because of his plans to extend the new road from Bracelet on to Limeslade, and then onward as a cliff road to Langland

o  There was a very public airing of the dispute in the Cambrian newspaper in December 1888 when it was suggested that Nicholl was using public money to give him the private gain of opening up access to his land at Limeslade. This  led  to the Duke being persuaded to issue a statement saying;

“His Grace will consent to no road but the Plunch road”.

o  Nicholl backed off and the road was terminated at Bracelet Bay. Nicholl seems to have redeemed himself by April 1891 when the following ‘jotting’ was printed in the Cambrian after he had been re-elected to the Oystermouth Local Board;

“However, the ratepayers of Mumbles ought to feel more at ease now that Mr Morgan is back on the Board. What would become of the business were he to hand over the reins to anyone else, I shudder to think. He has every item, from the drainage of a house to the great and unsolved water problem, at his finger’s ends. He has saved the ratepayers hundreds of pounds in legal expenses, while I feel sure I am not exaggerating when I say that he has worked harder than any of his colleagues.”

o  As to the road, the following appeared in the Cambrian on 10th July 1896:

“MUMBLES CLIFF ROAD EXTENSION

Mr Nicholl Morgan has commenced the extension of the Cliff-road from Bracelet up to Plunch Lane. By this means one continuous drive will be completed from Mumbles around to Langland. The work will cost several hundred pounds and Mr Morgan, who was at one time chairman of the Mumbles Local Board, when he inaugurated the Cliff-road scheme, is to be commended for his enterprise. This desirable extension will open up some very valuable building property; and there is no doubt that Mr Morgan will be rewarded for his present sacrifice. It would be not only in the interests of the landlords concerned, were they to go to the cost of widening the lane from Mr Nicholl Morgan’s property to Langland; and by that means a fine drive would be made commanding magnificent views of the Bristol Channel”

The two photos reproduced above, show Limeslade before this work started.

The road was completed and dedicated as a public highway, and Nicholl seems to have been further redeemed. In January 1895 the Cambrian reported that a Dinner had been held at the Langland Bay Hotel presided over by two local worthies, Mr Roger Beck and Mr T T Pascoe. Nicholl was the guest of honour and he was presented with a silver salver bearing the following inscription:

“Presented to Nicholl Morgan Esq, by the members of the Oystermouth Local Board and many friends as a mark of respect upon his retirement from the Board after nearly ten years’ service, both as an ordinary member and for many years Chairman, the Board having been dissolved on the creation of the Oystermouth Urban District Council, 31st December 1894”

Nicholl tried to cash in by offering the estate for sale in lots in 1899. Perhaps because the country was still tied up with the Boer War, he was unsuccessful in selling the House and Estate. However he did let out the House on Lease to another Swansea Solicitor Mr T W James who appears to have lived there until the beginning of the First World War.

During the First World War the House was occupied, again on Lease by Thomas and Ann Jones of Gowerton. Thomas was a self-taught colliery engineer who went on to establish himself as a successful businessman, becoming Accountant and Company Secretary at the Elba Steelworks at Gowerton. Their first child Ernest Jones, born at Gowerton on 1st July 1879 went on to become the London Welsh psychoanalyst, famously associated with Sigmund Freud. He seems to have lived a somewhat Bohemian life in London where he met the promising Composer, Pianist and Singer Morfydd Owen who had been born in Pontypridd in 1891.

After a whirlwind romance they married on 1st July 1917. In September 1918 they came to Mumbles to spend a holiday with Ernest’s father who had recently lost his wife. Regrettably Morfydd suffered a bout of acute appendicitis which necessitated an urgent operation which was performed by a local surgeon at Craig y Mor. Unfortunately, he used Chlorophorm to anaesthetize her which resulted in her contracting chlorophorm poisoning, from which she died there on 7th September 1918 aged only 26. Kate and I felt a little uncomfortable when we saw the room where this ‘medical accident’ had occurred over 100 years before.

She is buried at Oystermouth Cemetery, and it was to her memory that the Gower Society erected the Blue Plaque already referred to in September 2018

The photo of the bungalows either side of Plunch Lane, with only one large house on what is now Cleveland Avenue and marked ‘1877’ was clearly incorrectly marked. It was more likely to have been taken between 1900 and 1914, and reflects the fact that Nicholl’s land was not being used for the building of ‘fine villas’ but of a rag-tag of timber holiday bungalows! The later ‘Limeslade Bungalows’ photo taken in 1920 shows them quite graphically, including a number of round ‘Pixie Houses’.

The 1919 Auction must have been more successful, and it seems that Nicholl’s connection with Mumbles ended when Craig y Mor and Craig y Mor Cottage were sold to the Harris family in the early nineteen twenties. As I have already mentioned Mr Roderick Harris lived there until the early nineteen seventies, and a warm tribute was paid to him and his wife in the Parish Magazine by the then Vicar Canon J E C (Eddie) Hughes for throwing the grounds open for Parish Garden Parties throughout his incumbency.

Nicholl Morgan does not seem to have had a close connection with the Church when he was in residence, apart from the christenings of his many children!

The modern day ‘Nicholl Court’ on the site of the Malthouse is well named, but whether it is to commemorate John Fryer Nicholl or Nicholl Morgan doesn’t really matter!

‘Craig y Mor’ to ‘Mare’s Pool’

The powers that be have ensured that the section of Plunch Lane from Craig y Mor to Plunch has been preserved as ‘Old Plunch Lane’, and it is much the same now as it was in 1841; narrow with stone walls either side and tree lined. It is a few moments’ walk to what is shown on the 1844 Tithe Map extract as ‘Mear Pool’. I have already commented on the name and the fact that this was probably used as a source of water for the Malthouse. What I have not said is that it was also the source of a constant run-off of water down Plunch Lane, which led to the lane being so named, plwnch being Welsh for a watery place.

It is easy to see from the scene of rural bliss depicted in the attached photo why it became renamed Marepool or Mare’s Pool, and the Cottage behind Marepool Cottage. A copy of this photo now hangs in the Mumbles Cricket Clubhouse alongside stating that it was taken in 1877. The original was in fact taken in 1952, and hung on the wall in David and Joyce William’s house at Cleveland Avenue until Joyce died recently. It shows Archie Webborn watering his horse as he had a smallholding nearby. The scene was probably exactly the same in 1877 as it was in 1952.

Needless to say, Mare’s Pool was a huge attraction to us children of the 1950s as it was the source of many a jam jar of frogspawn and newts in early Spring. Big Harry had an old tin bath in his back garden where we were able to watch nature at work as the frogs and newts grew. They had a greater chance of survival with us than at Mare’s Pool as the frogs in particular always seem to have hopped onto the road to be promptly squashed flat by the passing traffic.

The occupiers of Mare’s Pool Cottage at that time were Mrs Dulcie Bevan JP, her husband and her daughter Dulcie Jones and her husband where they kept ponies; the ponies were used all the year round for riding lessons by local children, including my sisters, and at Rotherslade and Langland beaches for rides in the Summer. As a JP Mrs Bevan was ‘important’ (you went to her to get your passport photos signed) and it was her that caused the Pool to be filled in by 1960 which meant the end of squashed frogs. It also meant the end of children like me and Big Harry falling in and coming home covered in mud to face yet more hidings!

My particular memory of this narrow stretch of lane was of the time I first negotiated it in the 1947 Bedford Coach ‘Amos’ that I brought home with me when I left University in June 1966. It had been  bought for the ‘Drams’ tour of Austria in the summer of 1965, and I was passing it on to the 1st Mumbles Scout Group for general use. I was only just able to negotiate the lane before taking it up onto Mumbles Hill behind Michael’s Field to park it where the small Car Park to the Nature Reserve now exists. Having neatly parked it I was just locking it up when who should come onto me but Tom Pickard, a well-known local ‘grump’. He was about to lay into me when who should appear from the house behind him but his lovely wife, who had a completely different attitude. When she said ‘of course we’ll look after it for you’ he melted, and became the best of friends! It was there for about three years before it died of old age. 

Alongside the Mare’s Pool ran Sheep or Sheepy Lane, which still runs behind the Cricket Club. It led out onto the Ram’s Tor and the cliff paths, and you can do no better to find out what it was like down there in 1844 than by consulting Gerald Gabb’s Article  Limeslade to Rotherslade: a Few Surprises in Gower Volume 48 for 1997, where he also used the 1844 Tithe Map as his guide. He notes that Sir John Morris of Sketty Park owned ‘Mear Pool House’ at that time, and that David Rees lived there.

My memory of Sheep Lane was that it was wide enough to take a tractor and trailer all the way along the straight section to the sharp left-hand turn. This was the route that the Woollacotts’ preferred to use to get to their larger fields, particularly during hay harvest time in the Summer (it avoided the steep section of Higher Lane). Tom Woollacott would be first out of the Farm with his two carthorses and contraptions for reaping and raking the hay into lines. We would all then wait with bated breath for Jack to come up the Farm Track on the Tractor with that Trailer we have already seen in the photos. Jack’s usual means of communication was a grunt, but he had a good heart: when he slowed the tractor down to walking pace nodded and grunted then we knew we could get on board the trailer; the farm boys had pride of place behind Jack on the Tractor itself; and off we all went pleased as punch. It was a bumpy ride past New Villas to Mare’s Pool and on along Sheep Lane, but it was always an adventure and a high point of our summers. 

Mare’s Pool to the Plunch

The uncoloured extract from the 1844 Tithe Map now produced shows that at that time the next and last property down the lane was ‘Plunch’ or later ‘Plunch Cottage’ where Solomon Howell lived. Before reaching that you would have passed on your right three long thin strips of land known as ‘Silly Verland’, being the sites of the Langcliffe Chalet Park, the Allotments and Rossers Field. Of these Gerald says:

“These three absurdly long narrow plots are explained by the old field system – in 1844 they were arable fields worked by Solomon Howells, Rees Bennet and the Nicholls, perhaps created at some time to give three men a fair share of land here, in the style of a medieval open field. The field hedges largely still exist – untended hawthorn and blackthorn, hazel, elm and willow and the fields were called Silly Verland. Just above the Langland end of what we call Overland Road was about seven acres named Overlands. Possibly our three strips were jointly held with these, had lost their ‘O’ over the years, and were ‘silly’ because so widely separated. Or perhaps the ‘silly’ just has to do with the shape”

These plots are also referred to as ‘landshares’. In his seminal work  The Parish of Llangyfelach: Landed Estates , Farms and Families 2019, Jeff Childs, when dealing with the fragmentation of fields states:

“A factor which accounted for the relatively large incidence of fragmentation was the tendency for farmers to hold landshares in several common meadows. The most notable example was Waun Garwen in Parcel Mawr Lower where ten farms for that hamlet sub – division held one or more landshares along with seven farms from Parcel Mawr Higher.”

As sometime Solicitor to the Penllergare Estate I often had to refer to the deeds of these properties, and others near the village of Velindre, and was intrigued to see parcels coloured like a patchwork quilt; although the positions of the main field boundaries were fixed by the hedges, within those fields the individually coloured plots had no boundaries. This enabled the actual working of the fields to be shared, but as each of the farmers had title to their individual ‘strips’ or ‘landshares’ they also had something to gamble with when they ran out of cash!

Although Silly Verland had its hedges, I suspect that those three strips, and the long thin strips that became the sites of Lewins Hill Cottage and the Blossoms were also landshares, and susceptible to being used as gambling currency. I have a vision of the rather shady Hill House pub being run by the Innkeeper John Nichols as an alcohol fuelled den of gambling. When a punter had gambled away his gold sovereigns, his silver crowns, his half crowns, his florins his sixpenny and thruppenny coins what would he have had left?

Perhaps its no coincidence that John Fryer Nicholl owned the strip of land on which Lewins Hill Cottage stood. Had it been won by his forebear John Nichols in a bet?

In 1844 Solomon Howell was living there at the end of the very wet road from Mumbles, and looked out over fields. The two fields actually called Limeslade were opposite, with the six to seven acres (parcel 1208) of ‘Greater Limeslade’ curving from there down to the bay. Remembering that ‘slade’ has been defined as;

…a low flat valley, a dell or dingle, a breath of greensward or of boggy land….

Limeslade must have been a perfect example, with the ‘Lime’ bit of the name being derived from the stone worked all around it, and the boggy land being that supplied by Mare’s Pool.

 By the nineteen fifties Limeslade was still a ‘mish-mash’ of mainly timber holiday bungalows as shown in the 1920 photo when it was known as Limeslade Bungalow Colony. There were only a few bungalows of brick- built construction; one of these was known as ‘Kenilworth’ where Tom and Kate Jackson lived. On the evening of 4th February 1929 her neighbour Betty Dimmock met Kate outside and said goodnight as she walked off towards Kenilworth. Betty had barely closed the door behind her when she heard a scream. Bravely she rushed out and there lying unconscious and bleeding on the ground just outside her back-door was Kate Jackson. After Kate died of her injuries on Sunday 10th February all sorts of strange things began to emerge about Kate including the fact that she had been the mysterious Madame X who had been involved in a sensational embezzlement case that had been heard in London in 1927. On 23rd February her husband Tom was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife.

The Madame X Murder became a cause celebre, and brought Limeslade to the attention of anyone who read the sensational reports in the National and Local Press when the trial started at the Glamorgan Assizes on 1st July 1929. The story deserves a separate piece in the Parish Magazine, and I will keep you, gentle reader in suspense as to the outcome until I conclude these musings!

Needless to say, this scandal did nothing to enhance the generally poor perception of Limeslade which continued after WW 2 when all the bungalows and chalets were occupied by the many who had been rendered homeless by the Three Nights Blitz of Swansea in February 1941. Many of the occupiers had to wait for the Council to  put up ‘pre-fabs’ and build new Council Housing at West Cross and beyond before they left during the 1950s

Somerset House or Le Boulangers’on Mumbles Hill

Although life for Solomon Howell at the Plunch in 1844 was pretty peaceful (well before the days of Foggy Jasper) all that was to change because of the activities of David Pugh the owner of the Mumbles Hill Iron Mine. It is difficult now to comprehend the extent of this undertaking, and the noise it must have generated, but Nicholl Morgan’s 1919 Map shows quite clearly the extent of the ‘Cut’ created by the mining of iron ore from the Nab through the hill to Limeslade between about 1830 and 1900. It was not underground mining as in the coal industry, but open mining and blasting that created a chasm or gorge. Indeed, in The Cambrian for 3rd March 1847 a lady was already complaining of her walking being sadly inconvenienced and demanded a bridge across the chasm. This was not to happen.

But what was about to happen was that in 1849, David Pugh, (who was also the victualler of the pub known as ‘The Ship Aground’ below the Hill in Southend) built ‘Somerset House’. This was, and still is clearly visible from Plunch Cottage, and in 1849 was licensed as a pub. No doubt the beer was provided by the Nichols brothers.

On 14th December 1849 the Cambrian advertised the grand opening as a House-Warming Dinner on Thurs 20th December at 2pm for which tickets cost 1s 6d. It was not a great success as a pub; perhaps it was too far for folk to go for a drink…and too far to get home again afterwards. David Pugh was living there when it was advertised for letting in 1851, and in the Autumn of 1852 when it was advertised for sale by auction.

David’s son John seems to have taken over the licence that year, but by July 1853 ‘A Wayfarer’ finding it uninhabited wrote a poem about it as ‘A pub with no beer’!

As Brian Davies says in the second edition of his Mumbles and Gower Pubs 2018:

“The beerhouse was apparently in business by the 1860s when the licensee was Tom Lloyd better known as Tom the Fiddler. He did well in summer and organised dances on the lawn no doubt playing his farmyard fiddle. Tommy was convicted for selling beer on Sundays and had to give up the pub after five years. He was a notorious Mumbles character and appeared at the police courts for drunkenness no less than fifty times!”

Tom continued to live in Thistleboon; in 1881 at Hill Cottage, next door to the second  Hill House pub and died in August 1891 leaving a fascinating obituary in the Cambrian.

Between 1865 and 1911 the House was used as a private house, for serving teas to Sunday School parties and a market garden, but it then became the home of Francis le Boulanger a ship owner, ship broker and coal agent.

During WW 2 Somerset House and the surrounding land was requisitioned to provide the Defences on Mumbles Headland; See ‘Defences on Mumbles Headland during the Second World War’ by John Powell and Kate Elliott Jones in the Swansea History Journal 21 2013-14 for the details. Somerset House was used as the Officer’s Mess where my Aunt had enjoyed jitterbugging during the War.

Some of my memories  of what I was told about these times have already been shared. The House was not in fact fully decommissioned until 1963, and although it remained empty for years we never tried to get in. We had much more fun getting into the rather large, but empty galvanised Water Tank that stood on brick piers in the grounds. It made the most amazing Den where we were able to hide with impunity. It has never dawned on me until now, that we were completely oblivious to the fact that we had the most amazing outlook that you could imagine: to the West we could see Langland Point Pwll-Du Point, Oxwich Point and Lundy Island; to the South the North Coasts of Somerset and Devon; and to the East across Swansea Bay to Porthcawl, Nash Point across the expanse of the Bristol Channel.

You can take it that I do appreciate it all now, and feel blessed that my Trek concludes in this amazing location in our unique Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

June 2021

Stuart Batcup

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