109 Pantygwydr Baptist Church

109 Pantygwydr Baptist Church
This year sees the 125^th anniversary of Pantygwydr Baptist Church, which stands at the corner of Ernald Place and Gwydr Crescent in the Uplands.  The name means “stream of crystal”, taken from the book of Revelation in the Bible.
It was founded in 1892 as Gorse Lane Baptist Church, before the street was re-named King Edward Road following Edward VII’s 1904 visit.  Originally it was a daughter church of Mount Pleasant Baptist, 26 of whose members transferred to the new work.  The corrugated iron chapel was opened in May 1892 by Rev. James Owen, Mount Pleasant’s minister from 1870 to 1907, and a Sunday School was started, which enrolled 62 children on the opening Sunday.  Mount Pleasant Church met the £600 cost of the building, but subsequently Gorse Lane Chapel became self-supporting, building and furnishing a schoolroom the following year at a cost of £225. 
Though generally the Welsh Religious Revival of 1904-05 had less impact on English congregations than among Welsh-speakers, the Gorse Lane congregation soon outgrew their premises.  In September 1905 the name was changed to Pantygwydr Baptist Church, and the need for a new building was agreed.  Ship owner J.C. Richardson’s former mansion Pantygwydr on the corner of Beechwood Street and Pantygwydr Road had been demolished, so land was purchased from the estate.  Pantygwydr Church’s architect was Charles Tamlin Ruthen, who had lived in Gorse Lane when first married.  He also designed the Mond Buildings, the Carlton Cinema (now Waterstone’s bookshop) and the Exchange Buildings; he lived in the mansion Derwen Fawr, now the Bible College of Wales, and was later knighted.  Pantygwydr Church was built of Pennant sandstone and Bath stone, with a Gothic tower and spire.
Mrs William Walters of Ffynone, whose husband gave his name to Walters Road, opened the new building in 1907.  The “tin tabernacle” was dismantled from Gorse Lane and set up next to the church for use as a meeting hall.  This was eventually replaced by the church centre, which opened in April 1994 adjoining the main building. 
From 1901 to 1911 Rev. William Thomas of Gwydr Crescent was church pastor, and when the new building opened there were seven deacons (all men), three of whom had served since 1892.  Among special meetings to mark the opening, two were led by the prolific preacher and author Rev. F.B. Meyer, who at that time was President of the Baptist Union.  The new building cost around £4,750, of which nearly £1,000 was collected in 1906, though the debt was not finally cleared until 1946.
The new premises were soon in use throughout the week for various meetings – on Monday evenings there was Band of Hope (originally a temperance organisation for children under 16) for “training in the principles of sobriety and thrift”; the Women’s Pleasant Hour was on Wednesday afternoons, followed later by a meeting for prayer and praise, described as “An oasis in the desert of the week”.  On Thursdays there was first Junior Endeavour, described as religious instruction for the young, with later Boys’ Brigade - founded in 1883 to combine activities like physical drill, swimming, first aid, and rescue from fire and water, with Christian values.  Along with choir practices, Pantygwydr Church, like many chapels, was well-used in those pre- and inter-war days, before the distractions of television, and when there was less cynicism towards the Christian faith.   
The evangelical ministry of Rev. Phil Hill, who was pastor from 1988 to 1995, built up the congregation, demonstrating the reality and relevance of Christ.  This continues under the present minister, Rev. Pete Orphan, who is from Newport.  He began as Pantygwydr’s youth pastor, and now serves on the University chaplaincy team and as chaplain to Swansea Rugby Club. 
Pantygwydr Church’s 125^th anniversary is being marked on Sunday 9^th July by a service of celebration at 11am, followed by a barbeque to which all are welcome.    

 

108 The Colonial Building

The Colonial Building
The Strand in central London is a major thoroughfare that runs for ¾ mile from Trafalgar Square to Temple Bar.  By contrast Swansea’s Strand - the street below and running parallel to Wind Street - is completely different in character.  That area near the old docks used to be given a wide berth by respectable citizens, being the haunt of seamen of diverse nationalities, with pubs and brothels, and the scene of frequent fights and disturbances of the peace.  The mayor in 1852 described Swansea “outside the Strand and its environs” as an orderly town: most of the 199 known prostitutes in 1877 were operating in “the Strand and its environs”.
The Strand ran along the western bank of the original course of the river Tawe, an area subject to flooding, especially before the river was diverted by the New Cut to produce the North Dock in 1852.  Yet at the bottom of the Strand is an impressive grade II listed building formerly known as Colonial Building, which is shown on the 1748 engraving of Swansea Castle and the Strand by the brothers Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, and is the subject of a deed of conveyance from 1806. 
A six-storey building, the Colonial used to be that of Ace Electrical, whose owner Mr Don Ace said the name came from that of a Cardiff firm - though not Home and Colonial!  Originally it was a sail loft and a dwelling-house, then it became a flour warehouse and a tea warehouse, with part used by a sail-maker.
Swansea’s Scandinavian residents worshipped in part of the building before acquiring the Norwegian Church.  Services were led by Pastor Sivertsen (whose son Werner was a later Mayor of Swansea) in the sail-maker's loft at the bottom of the Strand.  As the congregation grew, Pastor Sivertsen, along with ship’s chandler Lars Knutsen, applied to the Seamen's Mission in Norway for Swansea to have a Norwegian Church, as Cardiff and Newport had.  The Newport Mission closed in 1910, whereupon its corrugated iron building was dismantled and brought to Swansea docks, being re-erected off Fabian Way, near New Cut Bridge.  The Mission was open each day, and became the focus for the Norwegian community, being used as both a place of worship and a social club, and remaining open day and night during the last war.  It closed in 1998, and was moved six years later the short distance to its present location near J Shed, beside the former Prince of Wales dock.  It is currently used as a day nursery, with the words Sjǿmanns Kirken on the wall of the foyer entrance.
During the last war the Colonial Building was an annexe for the naval headquarters HMS Lucifer at the Old Guildhall (now the Dylan Thomas Centre).  It was used as a dormitory for seamen on minesweepers or coastal defence vessels.  When interviewed by Jill Forwood of the Evening Post, Don Ace, who had been a second engineer in the Royal Navy, suggested that marks in the beams indicate that the naval men slept in hammocks: each of those beams of Oregon pine came from an entire tree. 
The interior retains the original structure, with brick arched basement vaults supported by inverted T-girders on cross-shaped stanchions.  Likewise cast iron pillars support pitch pine cross-beams under timber floors.  The building’s exposed flank faces east to Quay Parade, and contains an oculus (circular window) to the attic, two windows to the top floor, and three windows to each of the lower floors at that end.  A boarded lift tower breaks the line of the slate roof at the centre.                                   
Amid the night-time exuberance of nearby Wind Street, the Colonial Building stands proud as a reminder of the heyday of Swansea Docks.

107 Oystermouth Cemetery

107 Oystermouth Cemetery
The mortal remains of a philanthropist, a gifted musician, members of the crews of three lifeboat tragedies, and Wales’s first VC of the 1914-18 War, are among those buried in Oystermouth cemetery, which covers an area of 28 acres with 14,000 grave spaces.
When the large cemetery opened in 1883 near Callencroft quarry in Mumbles, the cemeteries of All Saints Church in Mumbles, Paraclete Chapel in Newton, and Bethany Chapel in West Cross were closed.  Oystermouth Burial Board had been set up after the 1875 Public Health Act empowered local areas to take charge of burials, along with other responsibilities.  When Oystermouth Urban District Council was disbanded in 1918, the cemetery became the responsibility of Swansea Corporation, with Mumbles becoming a ward of Swansea.
Along the avenue of yew trees is the grave of 55-year-old William Rogers, from the 1883 “Wolverhampton” lifeboat tragedy – the gravestones of the other three crew members who perished are outside All Saints Church.  The next grave is that of James Gammon, aged 51, from the 1903 “James Stevens” lifeboat tragedy; a little further away is the grave of Daniel Roger Claypitt aged 42, also from that disaster.  In the higher part of the cemetery all the crew of “Edward, Prince of Wales”, which sought to help the “Samtampa” at Porthcawl, are buried following the 1947 disaster, whose 70^th anniversary was commemorated last 23^rd April.
From the end of the yew avenue at the north-west corner is the grave of Welsh mezzo-soprano, musician and composer Morfydd Llwyn Owen, first wife of psychoanalyst Dr Ernest Jones of Gowerton.  She died in Thistleboon in 1918 aged 26, through chloroform poisoning after an appendix operation.  The dates on her gravestone are of her birth (incorrect by two years), marriage and death. 
Opposite the end of the yew avenue is the large chest grave of William Walters of Ffynone, after whom Walters Road is named.  The gravestone states that he was ‘taken from us suddenly’ - he died in 1911 aged 71.  His much-enlarged home is now Oakleigh House School.
Several sections are for the ashes of those who have been cremated, and there is a woodland burial ground. 
The Hebrew cemetery is reached through the Plosker Memorial Gates, erected in memory of the six million Jews who perished during the Holocaust 1939-1945.  A Memorial Wall just inside displays plaques from various Jewish historic sites – one being the Ffynone Synagogue, which replaced the Goat Street Synagogue destroyed during the 1941 Three Nights’ Blitz.  A tablet commemorates the consecration of the new cemetery in 1975.  The years given on the uniform gravestones follow the Hebrew not the Gregorian calendar.
Near the entrance from Slade Road is the grave of 27-year-old Private JP Patterson of the Machine Gun Corps, who died on 23 November 1918.  One wonders if his death was from wounds received during the conflict, since he died twelve days after the Armistice which concluded the First World War.
The first person to be buried in Oystermouth cemetery was Alfred Gelderd of Waterloo House in March 1883.  The first cemetery keeper was Henry Harris, a member of Castleton Chapel, who had been farm bailiff for Henry Crawshay’s Langland residence (later part of the Miners’ Convalescent Home).  His weekly salary began at one guinea, less two shillings for accommodation.  After 29 years in charge, he died aged 85 in 1911.  His successor, also named Harris, started at 25 shillings weekly, including accommodation.
On the north side of the higher part of the cemetery, by the gate, is the grave of Wales’s first VC of World War One, Sergeant William Charles Fuller, of the 2nd Battalion the Welsh Regiment.  He died in 1974 aged 90 in Westbury Street. 
The philanthropist Roger Beck, who lived at Rhyddings in Southward Lane, is buried with a typically unostentatious gravestone, on the right of the steep path to the newer part of the upper cemetery.        

106 Lewis Lewis

First escalator was at city store for customers going up in the world
106 Lewis Lewis
In 1898 Harrods in Knightsbridge installed a “moving staircase” or escalator.  The first Swansea premises to have an escalator was not the large Ben Evans departmental store (where Castle Square now stands), or nearby David Evans in Princess Way, but Lewis Lewis in High Street, not far from the railway station.  This drapery store was established in 1866 by Lewis Lewis of Carmarthenshire, and it traded for more than a century.  
Lewis Lewis was a large family-owned store which specialised in high-class products of all types.  Its many large shop windows faced onto the street, always among the best set out in Swansea.  Inside the store shop assistants were inevitably dressed in black outfits, while the store manager circulated greeting customers and dealing with their queries.  
Born in 1843, Lewis Lewis, who like fellow draper Ben Evans, was from Carmarthenshire, took over no. 27 High Street, at the junction with King Street (now Kings Lane), in 1866.  He sold items at fixed prices, instead of the time-consuming bargaining between seller and customer that was then prevalent, thus creating a more dignified atmosphere in his shops.  For he later opened shops in other South Wales towns like Briton Ferry, Neath and Llanelli, as well as enlarging his High Street premises by taking over numbers 28 and 29 by 1891, and extending behind the High Street frontage.  A delivery service was available to homes and railway stations by horse-drawn vans; at the back of the shop five horses were stabled which he exhibited at the annual Swansea Agricultural Show.  Furthermore errand boys could deliver parcels to homes, or to railway stations in time for train departures.
Shop hours were long – closing time was usually 7.30pm, even later on Saturdays, with half-day closing on Thursdays at 1pm.  Several shop assistants lived on the premises, with a housekeeper in charge, and their responsibilities included putting up the shutters over the windows when the shop closed, and removing them the following morning.  Gerald Gabb’s research shows that the 1891 census lists 36 draper’s assistants, 7 milliner’s assistants, a clerk and a draper’s apprentice, along with a housekeeper and 9 servants, all living “above the shop”.  Most of the staff were Welsh speakers, as well as being fluent in English.  Usually female members of staff were single, though when Tycoch widow Mrs Davies worked there she was required to become “Miss Taylor”.  The staff would enjoy an annual outing paid for by the firm – in 1889 as many as 200 people (friends as well as employees) travelled by train to Carmarthen.
In “Under Milk Wood”, Dylan Thomas has draper Mog Edwards write to Miss Myfanwy Price: “I have come to take you away to my Emporium on the hill, where the change hums on the wires.”  This refers to the means by which purchases were paid for and change delivered at Lewis Lewis and other major stores, via wire cash carriers.  A network of pulleys and metal cups was suspended just below ceiling height, the entire length of the premises.  The money and receipt of a purchase would be placed into a metal container, the shop assistant would pull back and release the handle, and the container would wing its way above the heads of shoppers into the cash desk, whence it would return with the change.
A kindly man, Lewis Lewis would be visited on Fridays by destitute people for financial help.  He died in January 1911 aged 67 at “Corrymore”, which formerly had been the Sketty home of Ben Evans, and he was buried in Oystermouth cemetery.
The department store’s centenary was celebrated in 1966, before the business closed, for the site is now occupied by Iceland. 
Today escalators in shops and underground stations are commonplace – there is even an outdoor one in Rio de Janeiro leading to the statue of Christ the Redeemer.    

105 LifePoint

105 LifePoint
The aerial bombardment in Swansea during the Second World War that destroyed a Jewish place of worship also provided the site for its replacement.  The place of worship was the synagogue in Goat Street - the upper part of present-day Princess Way - which had been opened in September 1859.  After its destruction during the February 1941 Three Nights’ Blitz, various buildings were used temporarily by the Jewish community, such as Cornhill House in Christina Street, the Unitarian Church in High Street, and Henrietta Street Welsh Chapel.  But a large house in Ffynone called “Ashleigh” had also been destroyed, and this was the site on which the new synagogue was built, and opened in April 1955.  A separate synagogue (which closed in 1961) had been in Prince of Wales Road for Jewish immigrants who initially settled in the Greenhill area, but most transferred to the new Ffynone Synagogue after 1955.
“Ashleigh” was one of three adjacent large homes in Ffynone of the proprietors of the building and contracting firm Thomas, Watkins & Jenkins, of Brunswick Street.  “Cilwendig” was the home of William Thomas, “Llwynhelig” the home of David Jenkins, and “Ashleigh” the home of William Watkins.  A justice of the peace and a freemason, Watkins was twice mayor of Swansea, and a deacon of Castle Street Congregational Church.  The firm had built congregational chapels in Walters Road and Ebeneser Street, as well as Swansea’s Albert Hall, the Palace Theatre and the Hospital (where Home Gower now stands).  Mayor in 1899, Watkins died long before “Ashleigh” was destroyed by enemy action.
Swansea’s Hebrew congregation flourished for many decades in the new synagogue, but numbers dwindled at the start of the present century.  The “Jewish Chronicle” of December 2008 reported “Swansea Hebrew congregation is selling its 67-year-old synagogue building to a church group.  The community has fewer than a dozen-and-a-half active members, with an average age of 70.  Others have moved away but retain membership for burial or sentimental reasons.  If the sale to the LifePoint Church is completed, the congregation will be able to rent a small hall in the premises to continue services.”  The negotiations proceeded amicably, and LifePoint took over most of the building and adapted it to their needs.
Traditional Christian denominations such as Anglican, Baptist, and Methodist have been challenged since the 1970s by the “Charismatic Movement”, and Christian groups like New Frontiers, Vineyard and New Covenant have emerged, which seek to proclaim a radical Christian message, relevant to modern society.  In the late 1970s a young couple named John and Carol Reeves were inspired by the teaching of former Swansea Bible College student Bryn Jones at Dales Bible Weeks in Yorkshire, and in “Restoration” magazine articles, to use their Swansea home to worship with others, as did the early followers of Christ in the New Testament.  Their “house church” grew to become New Covenant Church, and for large meetings they would use at different times the former Philadelphia Chapel in Neath Road, and Bishop Gore and Parklands Comprehensive Schools.  But a permanent building was soon required, and before the move to Ffynone, co-pastor Mike Sutton Smith suggested changing the name to LifePoint, which was more relevant and understandable for a contemporary church. 
The LifePoint Centre is a newly-refurbished facility in use seven days a week and available for hire by community and business groups.  The light and spacious main auditorium seats up to 200, with a conference lounge for up to 50, and smaller rooms with fine views across Swansea Bay.  There are facilities for the disabled (including a lift), a garden and patio for warm days, and kitchen facilities.  LifePoint now hosts a food bank and is involved in outreach around Mayhill; co-pastor Mick Walford initiated the Swansea Street Pastors.  LifePoint has activities for all ages like Fitness League and Mumstop, as well as LifeGroups which meet in various homes.

104 Brandy Cove Skeleton

104 Brandy Cove Skeleton
Peninsular Gower has a number of subterranean caves, most of which were explored during the 1950s and 1960s by Maurice Clague Taylor and his sisters Marjorie and Eileen.  Caves like Tooth Cave (the longest) and Stembridge Cave have developed horizontally, though Bovehill Pot descends 100 feet.  Llethrid Swallet is a large limestone cave with a wealth of stalagmites and stalactites; the entrance to this, Gower’s most dangerous cave, is sealed, and entrances to other caves are gated for safety reasons.
 It is one thing for workmen to find the bones of an English King beneath a Leicester car park, or for archaeologists to unearth ancient bones during an excavation, but another thing when more recent human remains are found where they should not be.  This happened on Sunday, 5^th November 1961, when three young cavers, Graham Jones, John Gerke and Chris MacNamara, were exploring an abandoned lead mine in Brandy Cove, just west of Caswell, and made the grisly discovery of a human skull.  They found a dismembered human skeleton, cut into three sections, along with items including a gold wedding ring and an engagement ring.  The Evening Post’s headline was “Skeleton found in a Gower mine-shaft”.
When the police looked through files of missing persons they found a file on 26-year-old Mamie Stuart, who had disappeared 42 years earlier in 1919, and after they had superimposed her photo onto a photograph of the skull the police were fairly certain that the body was hers.
Mamie, who was from Notting Hill in London, had been a chorus girl in pantomimes in Cardiff and Swansea, before during the First World War meeting in Sunderland marine surveyor George Shotton from Penarth.  His work took him to ports around the coast where he sought casual relationships with women while many men were away in the war.  Shotton married Mamie in March 1918 in South Shields registry office, when she was aged 24 and he was 37, allegedly a bachelor.  But their marriage was bigamous, for he had married a woman named May Leader in Newport in September 1905, and they had a child.
In Caswell Bay Shotton rented a house then called Craig Eithin, and brought Mamie there sometime in 1919.  She wrote to her mother that Shotton, besides beating her, “has put me in a great big house and just comes and goes when he likes.  Will write more later.”  Suspicions were aroused when her parents ceased hearing from Mamie, and later Shotton reported her missing.  An unclaimed suitcase was found at Swansea’s Grosvenor Hotel in the Sandfields containing some of Mamie’s possessions, and Shotton was arrested.  Police dug up the gardens of Craig Eithin and another property he had rented, and searched the cliffs, but no body was found.  When Shotton was brought to trial, without a body the charge was not murder but bigamy, for which he was sentenced to 18 months’ hard labour.  His first wife May divorced him, and Shotton later worked as an itinerant mechanic.  A violent man, he served another prison term after threatening his sister with a gun, and during the Second World War worked in a Bristol aircraft factory. 
At the 1962 coroner’s inquest in Gowerton, the three cavers gave evidence, as did 83- year-old retired postman Bill Symons, who recalled seeing Shotton outside the Caswell Bay house, struggling to load a sack into his van: the witness had failed to mention that to anyone at the time.  The house was a few hundred yards from the air shaft of the abandoned mine where the skeleton was found.  The inquest jury decided that the skeleton was that of Mamie Stuart, and took the unusual step of naming George Shotton as the murderer. 
But it was too late to bring him to justice - for Shotton had died aged 78 three years earlier, penniless in a Bristol hospital. 

103 Vernon Watkins in Pennard

103 Vernon Watkins in Pennard
8^th October will be the fiftieth anniversary of the death of poet Vernon Watkins, who died aged 61 at Seattle’s University of Washington, where he was the visiting professor of literature.  Having retired in 1966 from Lloyds Bank in St Helen’s Road, he was then being considered, along with others, for poet laureate following the death of John Masefield. 
Vernon lived most of his life in Pennard, where from the National Trust car park one can look across the Bristol Channel to the North Devon cliffs.  To the right overlooking Foxhole Bay is the much-enlarged Heatherslade Residential Home.  Outside this a plaque states: “Vernon Watkins lived here from 1924 - 45.  He and Dylan Thomas wrote many poems in this house”.  The plaque was unveiled by his widow Gwen Watkins on National Poetry Day in November 2009.  Heatherslade was rented by Vernon’s father after he retired from managing Lloyds Bank in Wind Street (now the Revolution Bar).  The family moved from Redcliffe, a large house in Caswell (replaced by the Redcliffe apartments), and Vernon’s mother soon became prominent in Pennard community activities.  Vernon would scramble down the cliffs, and enjoyed swimming, beachcombing, catching prawns and lobsters. 
Just before the roundabout and car park in Pennard, opposite the garage is Windy Ridge, formerly the home of Mr Emlyn Lewis.  His son Wyn Lewis recalled Vernon bursting in excitedly after work in March 1935, with the news that he had just met a genius - that was after his first meeting with Dylan.
Vernon spent many hours at Heatherslade with Dylan discussing and reading poetry, and they would play croquet in the garden.  When Dylan brought his fiancée Caitlin over she also tried to come to terms with this strange game.  Dylan described his friend as “the most profound and greatly accomplished Welshman writing poems in English”.                                                                    
From the bus stop by present-day Pennard Stores, Vernon would each morning catch the Swan bus (later the United Welsh no. 64) into Swansea, to alight at Hospital Square, outside the old Swansea Infirmary, now Home Gower.  He worked at the St Helen’s Road branch of Lloyds Bank (now the premises of William Hill).  In October 2014 Gwen Watkins unveiled a blue plaque stating that her husband had worked there for 38 years.  
On the outbreak of war Vernon was in a reserved occupation, until called up in 1941 to join the RAF police.  Being fluent in German and with his numerical expertise he was transferred to the government’s code-breaking centre at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, where he met his future wife.  After the war he returned to Swansea, living for a year in Glanmor Road in the Uplands, before Vernon and Gwen Watkins moved into a wooden bungalow called “The Garth” on Pennard’s Westcliff, overlooking Heatherslade Bay.  The poem “Man in a field” concerns the death there of their former landlord and neighbour, the cellist Alfred Tomlinson. 
Visitors to “The Garth”, who included poets Philip Larkin and Dylan Thomas, composer Dan Jones and Dunvant-born painter Ceri Richards, often had difficulty keeping up with a fit Vernon whenever he suggested a walk down to the beach!
From Pennard car park the road to the left called Eastcliff ends at his favourite bay, pebble-covered Pwll Du.  The cliff-top path passes a spot above Hunts Bay where Vernon would sit looking across to Oxwich Bay seeking inspiration for his poetry.  Just below that cliff-top is a discreet memorial to the Poet of Gower, with words carved by sculptor Ronald Cour, whose widow Glenys recently exhibited at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery.  The words are from the poem “Taliesin in Gower”:
“I have been taught the script of the stones,
and I know the tongue of the wave.”

On Sundays Vernon would cycle to the morning service in Pennard Church, where his memorial states: 

“Death cannot steal the light

which love has kindled

nor the years change it.”