By the Edwardian era, tourism was flourishing with crowds of day-trippers and holiday makers travelling to Mumbles on the steam trains, motor buses, bicycles and on foot to enjoy the fresh air, wonderful scenery and to enjoy concerts and side shows on the new pier. They could watch the carnivals in June, the August regattas and visit the many restaurants, cafes and shops. The Mumbles Press described the locality as 'a popular and important seaside resort with a mild and equable climate, beneficial to consumptive and pulmonary sufferers and its scenery is celebrated for its natural grandeur, its great variety and its rugged picturesqueness [sic]'. Once the causeway carrying the extension of the Mumbles Railway track to the new pier had been completed during the 1890s and the old Horsepool harbour had been filled in with ballast, some of the extra  new land thus created was earmarked for more entertainment. 

The Kursaal function-cum-skating-cum-cinema centre first opened in 1906 (see Mumbles Times May 2016) and occupied part of the site, with housing at the southern end and a fairground in the middle, which was officially opened on 27 May 1909. 

It comprised a big tent, where entertainments were held and where the children could buy 'teasers', which were tubes filled with water to squirt at one another. Alongside, there was also a 'captive aeroplane', side shows such as coconut shies and penny-a-peep and a 'figure-of-eight', described as 'a 2,000 yard long American Gravity ride, taking one minute and fifteen seconds to negotiate its course. Its track was made of hard sugar maple, its wheels were steel-plated, encased in brass running on oil, making it virtually silent when in motion'.  

Southend youngster, Henry Jenkins worked on it and the Ride operator was Thomas Brown, who had come from Whauphill in Scotland via America, where he had been employed on a similar ride. He went on to settle here, marry a local girl, Elizabeth Latimer and become father to four children.  The Mumbles Weekly Press reported that 'soon men and women of all sorts and sizes are patronising it'.  Henry's young sister, Marjorie enjoyed her visits to the fair and the Kursaal, where she would go skating, having saved her sixpenny piece for the session.