Mumbles Oyster Trade Disappears
by Mumbles News, 1976 

1580

It is impossible to say how far back the Mumbles oyster-trade goes. We know that in 1580 a cargo of 20,000 oysters from Port Eynon was shipped out of Tenby. And in 1684, when the Duke of Beaufort made a "grand tour" through the country, his diary records that he had visited Oystermouth, "which was said to be the best bed of oysters in Great Britain." It is certainly true that for hundreds of years the oyster bed between Port Eynon and Mumbles yielded to none in the country for high output. Time and time again it would seem to fall off, only to recover again with astonishing powers of recuperation.

1860

In the 1860's the number of oyster-boats plying at Mumbles varied between 90 and 140. These were mostly decked sailing crafts from 8 to 10 tons. They cost about £150 each and most of them employed three men each for crew.

How did they work? The boats would pass up and down the coast, keeping quite close in to the shore, dredging for the oysters. Once a sufficient "catch" was made, the boats and their tired crew would make for home. Baskets heavy with the day's oysters would be carried over the shingle. There they would be laid along the shore, each fisherman having a small area of the foreshore where he could lay out his oysters in rows on the sand. These were called "perches," and the space between one man's "perch" and his neighbour's was always marked by a line of stones.

THE PERCHES

These "perches" were absolutely exclusive. They were the property of each individual fisherman. To secure his "perch," the fisherman would have to pay a small weekly rent to the Duke of Beaufort, who owned the foreshore. If he liked, and if trade wasn't going too well for him, the oyster-man was still free to share his "perch" with a group of his fellows. This was done more often during the decline at the end of the century.

Here the oysters were left, row upon row of them. Each tide washed them and fed them. Oysters feed on a minute water-alga. On this they fatten and grow to full maturity. At last experience told the oyster-men that they were ready for market. Those oysters considered still not of market size this they could tell almost by a sixth sense were laid out in what were called "plantations," some distance from the "perches." These were just under the sea, and they were so arranged that they would be uncovered only at extreme low water. Then, when the experts were sure they had grown to market size, they were promoted to the "perches."

In these pleasant years the harvest was rich. But there were signs that the boom would not last much longer, and the wise old men who had left the boats shook their heads and said the beds had been overworked. Even so, by 1871 there were fully 180 boats dredging the bays and a wonderful sight they must have been.

JERSEY

By now they were joined by a dozen crafts from Colchester and Jersey. There were fishermen from Jersey also at work in Caernarvon Bay. These newcomers had a crew of six for they were somewhat larger than our own boats. There were now 40 men working on the "perches" and on the "plantations." Ten men were employed between September and April on the hauliers' carts carrying the oysters in baskets to the markets at Swansea and elsewhere.

THE TWENTIES

By 1920, Mumbles oysters showed signs of making another of their astonishing recoveries. A haul totalling 1,256,000 was brought in during that year. But the old "lay-up," the natural 'Horsepool Harbour' where the Village Lane slipway is today and which was once the scene of great excitement as the dredging-boats came in with the day's haul, was now completely covered in as the railway chugged on to the Head. The loss of this natural harbour was a severe blow to the Mumbles oyster trade but that wasn't the death blow.

Perhaps the trade could have survived the loss of its harbour to the railway, the Great War and the charity given to the Thames oystermen, had it not been for the "oyster-disease." This mysterious blight which struck the oyster-beds of Britain and Europe alike in the early '20's was felt keenly in Mumbles. The year 1924 saw only 10,000 oysters laid out on the foreshore. This was indeed humiliating after the millions hauled in the late nineteenth century, and many believed that the trade would never recover.

As to the origin of the name HORSEPOOL, no one knows for sure. One suggestion was 'Hawse Pole' i.e. a river marker or 'Hoecepol' the point of entry from where taxes could be levied. Another was a 'pool for horses'- very unlikely in this case, as for 100s of years it was a salt-water harbour.

DISEASE!

The cause of the disease? For years no one could fathom it, but it seems likely now that the overworking of the oyster-beds and the methods of breeding them contributed to the decay of both quality and quantity. At Milford Haven, as elsewhere in the country, the same mortal blows were sustained and all over Wales, despite experiments in breeding which were attempted in Colwyn Fay, the age-old oyster-industry never recovered. Only on the East Coast has it thrived since.

In 1930, the last of the picturesque sailing-skiffs, the "Emmeline," left Mumbles for the last time; and by 1934 only two motor-boats were left plying sadly to and fro where nearly 200 dredging-boats had worked sixty years before. Gone were the days of "perches" lined in the sun along the foreshore, of the "Seven Sisters" gaily- coloured sweaters of her crew, of the heavily-laden carts carrying their tasty burden to Swansea.

Is there any chance that the trade may recover its former glory? For 20 years the Mumbles oyster yield has been almost negligible. Never before has it sunk quite so low. The value of the East Coast oysters has recently risen slightly. But all over the country the declining trade is suffering now for such experiments as the trial- breeding grounds in the Menai Straits in the late 19th century.

In those fateful years, modern methods were applied to the thousand-year-old trade, with the result that oysters were recovered far more quickly and on a scale never known before. We know that oyster colonies can "move" rapidly they can disappear from one area almost overnight and turn up magically in another place. This is because the oyster can lay hundreds of thousands of eggs, and when these eggs are hatched, the new-born oysters often swim far out to sea. There they settle on the bed of the ocean and fresh colonies may be started, but only if the conditions are favourable, and usually they are not. If it survives, this new colony is often carried in with the tides to settle again close in to the shore or at the mouth of rivers and estuaries. But more often than not it does not survive, and the movement is doomed to failure.

This explains why when the oyster-beds were overworked, there came a time when no new oysters were left to take the place of the old, since every successfully hatched oyster swims out to sea. In the boom years when the seasons were in full swing and in the summer the oysters seemed to be breeding no less than usual, no one dreamed that in a matter of sixty years the spring would have run dry. For that is what happened. From tens of millions they dropped to tens of thousands and finally dwindled to almost nothing.

SCIENCE

Would modern scientific methods have saved the Mumbles oyster? Indeed, we might know the answer one day. Perhaps with new breeding grounds and a fresh "blue-print" approach to the problem, the ancient oyster trade might yet be revived. And again perhaps it will remain only a memory.

Previously Published in The Mumbles News in 1976