Mixon Sands photos 

Also called Mixen Sands

YouTube - The waves on the Mixon Sands, Mumbles (also called Mixen Sands).

Among the sighing of the gorse came upon a lift of the wind a faint and solemn tolling of a deep bell from seaward. It was the tolling of the buoy bell moored off the Mumbles, a solemn awful sound, for the bell seemed to be tolling for the souls of those who had gone down at sea, and warning the living of their graves.

                                                                    Rev. Francis Kilvert, 19 April 1872

 There is a place at Mumbles that has been both the scene of rare adventures and much tragedy. That place is the Mixon, a dangerous sandbank, also known as the Mixen, which lies just off the coast at Bracelet Bay and is marked with the large red Mixon Bell.

The Evening Post reported in 1953 that ‘the sands had been free of shipping trouble because of the efficiency of the Mixon Buoy and the unmistakable turbulance at low tide’. But undeniably, modern tools of navigation, powered shipping and the crews of the Mumbles Lifeboat have also played their parts in contributing to the safety record. This had not always been the case as a catalogue of shipwrecks in the vicinity can testify. In the nineteenth century alone, more than ten ships had foundered on the sands with the loss of many lives. Just some of the victims were The Hope Reed, which went down in 1806 with the loss of all hands; three were drowned from the Lively in 1829; the Feronia hit the bank and sank in 1838 and in 1865, a pleasure boat with a party of eight, celebrating the 21st birthday of Robert Smith, sank. The crew of the Grenfell, rescued three’ but sadly Mr. Smith was not among them.