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Coastal Guns of Mumbles Head >

Today, Mumbles Local Nature Reserve is a largely-deserted peaceful haven, overgrown in places, but beautiful nonetheless. This section of the reserve in the photo overlooks Tutt Head and the present Coastguard Station, which closed in the spring of 2015. The old Coastguard station on the same site played an important part in our story.

We shall explore the wartime gun positions, which had wonderful views over the Bristol Channel, as well as having a glimpse into the life and times of those who served there and on the Lighthouse Island.

Signposts and Interpretation boards have been installed on the site of one of the 6 inch coastal defence gun emplacements and magazines. Mumbles Hill Battery was decommissioned in 1957 and the bunkers and gun emplacements were either removed or covered over. There is now very little visual evidence of the Battery - all that remains is that which is left underground.

The port of Swansea served the heavy industrial area of South Wales and was the nearest of the large Bristol Channel docks to the Atlantic. Because of its importance Swansea had been included in the pre-war list of ports where fixed defences would be essential in the event of war, although there were none in place when war did break out. By the summer of 1940 the need for defence against both sea and air attacks had become critical. 

The defeat and occupation of France in June put Swansea in easy reach from air bases in Normandy and Brittany and there was also a very real fear of a German invasion during that summer or autumn. We now know that, around this time, high altitude reconnaissance photographs were taken by the Luftwaffe of Swansea and its surrounding area.

The railway trucks shown in the collage above, owned by the War Department, would have been used to carry the dismantled guns and drawn by a steam locomotive, to the Pier Station on Mumbles Railway, which was connected to Swansea Docks and the National Railway system.

Special equipment did arrive and getting the guns up the hill to the Fort, from the station at the pier cannot have been easy. 

During that hot summer the two breech-loading, ex-naval guns were installed by August 1940 and mounted in their separate concrete emplacements on steel pedestals on Mumbles Hill above Bracelet Bay overlooking the entrance to Swansea Bay.  

Pictured in the background overlooking the Bristol Channel are Limeslade Bay, along with Somerset House (now Mumbles Hill House and on private land) is on the right of the panorama, It was reported by local residents that Two Decoy ‘guns’ made from telegraph poles, painted to look like big guns were in position on the headland in the centre of the photo.

FIRING AND CONTROLLING THE 6 INCH GUNS

The 6 inch guns’ primary task was to engage and destroy enemy vessels; their secondary role was to support the examination battery on the lighthouse island. The ex naval guns were capable of firing eight 100-pound shells a minute up to a distance of 12 miles (19 km). But 6 miles (9.6 km) was considered to be the limit of their effective range. Firing further than this distance would have been at the discretion of the Battery Commander. They protected the sea from Swansea Docks to Bracelet Bay and the Bristol Channel, a vital shipping route. Contemporary records reveal that a target for one of the guns was near Swansea Guildhall along with a warning that the second gun could not fire at this target without damaging the first gun.

Each watch contained enough officers and men to fire both guns for two minutes. The duty gun crew were to be at readiness, fully equipped and at their respective posts within moments of an alarm. One guard was stationed by the guns during the day, with two at night. The off duty crew, or Reserve Watch, would be kept at a state of readiness at the War Accommodation. When the alarm was sounded, they would man the magazine and keep the gun crew supplied with ammunition. The third crew could be off duty 

The photo above shows two gunners on the lower left, who are ready to pass cordite cartridges [in flash-proof leather carry cases] up to the gun crew as required. Eight gunners were needed to fire each six-inch gun and usually two (mentioned) to supply ammunition for sustained firing.

BATTERY OBSERVATION POST 

The battery observation post (B.O.P.) was in an elevated position behind the guns and housed the depression rangefinder, used to calculate the range and bearing of a target. The information was then passed on to the gun emplacements. From the Post, Alarm gongs could be sounded at the war accommodation, the searchlights, and the engine room. The  battery observation post was aided by a spotter’s post nearby. The Battery Commander had a private direct-line line telephone link to headquarters and with all parts his command, with Battery (B) on Mumbles Island and with the Navy at the Port War Signal Station, who would identify all vessels steaming into Swansea Bay and signal to them with any orders.

Post-war investigations of the disused observation post revealed a panorama of the whole bay painted on the wall and, nearby, two machine-gun pillboxes.

 Adjacent to each of the guns was an underground ammunition store and repair workshop. Protected by a thick concrete roof were stores of shells (explosive and shrapnel), cordite charges (in silk bags) and cartridges (for firing). An engine house generator provided power for lighting, radios and other equipment. Somerset House (now Mumbles Hill House) on Mumbles Hill was requisitioned by the army as the officers’ mess. ‘War accommodation’ consisting of barracks, kitchen and washhouse was provided on both gun sites for those on duty. Off-duty men from the lighthouse island returned to Nissen huts at Bracelet Bay (where the car park is now) and on Mumbles Hill (now Thistleboon Drive). At both of these sites there was separate accommodation for women serving in the Women’s Royal Naval Service (W.R.N.S) and the Auxiliary Territorial Service (A.T.S). 

LOCAL DEFENCES AND HOME GUARD WEAPONS

To protect against any invading enemy force the 299th Battery was defended by a double line of barbed-wire with trenches and pillboxes to provide cover for a platoon of thirty Home Guard troops armed with Lee Enfield rifles, grenades, Sten guns and mortars.

A Vickers machine gun defended the track up to the battery and the open ground around (near the present-day coastguard aerial). To protect against attack from the west there was a minefield and a 75 mm mobile field gun capable of firing fifteen aimed shells per minute. These mutually supporting defences ensured that in the event of any attack several gun positions could cover all the land between the sea and the top of Mumbles Hill. In addition, decoy ‘guns’ were added to the defences. Local residents remember seeing on the cliffs west of Limeslade Bay two dummy guns made from telegraph poles painted to look like big guns when viewed from a distance.

Decommissioning: used by homeless families

After the end of the war, guns and other equipment were removed from both the Coastal and Anti-Aircraft Batteries. (The examination battery on the lighthouse island had already been disbanded.) Mumbles Head was finally decommissioned in 1957 and the six-inch gun battery bunkers and gun emplacements were either removed or covered over. 

Somerset House, later renamed Mumbles Hill House, used as the Officers Mess and by the two carecaters, (one of whom, Mr Morris wrote about his time in the Army and on the Hill ) was also decommitioned and sold.

Today, only markers and information boards indicate what was once there. The searchlight emplacements and the engine house on the lighthouse island still exist and remains of the concrete causeway going out to the island can be seen at low tide. Nissen huts at both Bracelet Bay and Mumbles Hill were used for a while as temporary accommodation for homeless families, (those at Thistleboon are shown below).

Postwar, a friend of Ronald Studden named Christtancock lived in one of the Nissan huts at Bracelet Bay and noted that in the early 1950s they had prior warnings, which arrived in the post twice a year, 'we were warned that the guns on the hill would fire twice a year for testing, usually January and July  and as a security measure we should tape up our windows.' 

(Acknowledgements: City and County of Swansea; The National Archives; West Glamorgan Archives;  Mumbles Development Trust; Oystermouth Historical Association; John & Carol Powell; Gareth Ellis; Kate Elliott- Jones.)

Contact the Website Editor  Part of this article was published in The Swansea History Journal

Guided walks onto the hill have been held held as a part of the- The Gower Walking Festival >

Mumbles Hill Local Nature Reserve,

Contact: Sean Hathaway 01792 635749 or 07974 760980.

Nature Conservation Team > Environment Department, City and County of Swansea, The Guildhall, Swansea SA1 4PH

This City & County of Swansea project is under the supervision of Glamorgan Gwent Archaeology Trust Ltd., with assistance from Mumbles Development Trust and Oystermouth Historical Association.

Oystermouth Historical Association (OHA) Publications

Many leaflets are available to order including:- Mumbles at War, 623 Heavy Anti-Aircraft Battery and Mumbles at War, Coastal Defences 299th Battery,

Back to:- The GUNS OF MUMBLES HEAD >  Collection