This
morning we were away soon after 8.30 am, joining the workers and students as
they poured first toward Carmarthen, then twenty five or so miles on, Swansea.
I had spent some time last night researching parking options online and decided
we were best to head for the Park’n Ride at Landore a little to the north of
Swansea centre and three miles south of the M4. Here one needs only pay £2.50 for
a full day’s parking and transport in and out of the centre, providing the vehicle’s
occupants do not exceed four.
I don’t normally get too excited about Park’n Ride sites but this
one was obviously set in the ruins of some former great industry, as well as
situated conveniently to a great big stadium.
A little research turned up some interesting facts about Landore;
that the first copper works in the Swansea area was opened here in Landore in
1717, and by 1873 the area had one of the world’s largest steelworks. There was
much more going on in Landore over the intervening years and many of the ruins
have been afforded heritage status.
Swansea, today with a population of over 300,000, has a busy and
vibrant centre albeit a mix of impressive and very ugly buildings. For two
hundred and fifty years the Lower Swansea valley was a major centre for
smelting metals but by the 1960s these industries had moved or closed, leaving
a bare, heavily contaminated landscape.
From 1966 the area has been actively reclaimed for commercial and
leisure use, the clean-up operation stabilising the contamination,
re-vegetating the surface and creating attractive parks for visitors and of
course, for the residents.
However this process was further hampered during the Second World
War when the city was bombed by the Germans; in 1941 thirty thousand bombs
rained down in just three nights. Initial rebuilding left the city disjointed,
patchy and downright ugly.
More recently, probably since European Union monies have poured in
as they have into Cardiff, there has been both the inclination and financial wherewithal
to redevelop some of those less salubrious areas. Amongst the hotchpotch of building styles, some
buildings that would be better demolished, there are several very smart retail
structures, the Quadrant one of these. And down by the river, there are acres
of relatively new apartment buildings. As we walked about the streets looking
for this attraction, then that, we found ourselves in a maze of detoured
pedestrian ways, marked out by corridors of orange plastic barriers; several
major streets are being remodelled. I am sure that if we came back in another
decade, we would find ourselves in a shiny bright modern city.
Stepping down from the bus, we were accompanied for some minutes
by a fellow passenger, a lovely local woman who gave us directions to various
strategic landmarks. Setting off on our own we soon found that the town maps
placed about on street corners incorrectly suggest that the Information Centre
is near the bus station. Actually it was closed a couple of years ago as we
were informed when we wandered into the Grand Theatre. There they did have a
few stands of tourist brochures and a pad of tear-off city maps.
Prior to this wild goose chase, we had found our way to the glass-roofed
markets, apparently Wales’ largest. Inside there was the mix of stalls we have
found all over Britain, and most importantly a little eatery called The Lunch Box which sells food fit for
real men rather than muffins and cupcakes modern ladies prefer. Chris was in
seventh heaven as he worked his way through a great box of the best chips he reckoned
he’d had this year. 
Armed with information and a full belly, we wandered about the
shopping malls, then up past the Castle ruins in search of the Glynn Vivian Art
Gallery. This looked as interesting from the outside as the write up in our
guide book, but alas we soon learned it is closed on Mondays. Had I read the
small print in the guide book, I would have already sussed this out. Here in
the Edwardian Building which seems to have survived the bombing all around, is
a collection of Welsh art including works by Gwen John, her brother Augustus
and others, but it was the Johns’ work I had been particularly interested in.
We walked back down into the centre, pausing to check the castle
and the square of the same name, a little oasis of green in the urban muddle.
The structure that remains today is the third castle on the site, this built by
Bishop Gower in the late 13th century. The first Lord Gower, Henry
de Beaumont, built an earth and timber castle here around 1106.
But even by the mid-17th century, it was in a state of
decay. The following years saw parts of it used as a bottle factory, a town
hall, a workhouse, a post office and a military Drill Room. Part of it was demolished just before the
First World War for the construction of a newspaper office where Swansea golden
son, Dylan Thomas, worked in the very early 1930s.
Speaking of which, it was to the Dylan Thomas Centre we now headed
down toward the river, the River Tawe. This is situated in the former nineteenth
century Guildhall, a fact I only discovered now. The exhibition is very well
done, celebrating the poet and writer’s early years in Swansea, and his
relatively short life in London, Wales and other places where he was called
upon to speak, read or be kowtowed to. He died at the tender age of thirty nine
on one of several such trips to the States; his third child only three. Alcoholic
over-indulgence and a total disregard for his health put paid to a brilliant
though tortured life. My personal knowledge of his work was confined to the
play “Under the Milkwood”, studied at
school which I thought quite marvellous at the time. Maybe next winter if I am
settled in one place with access to a library, I will extend my appreciation of
his work.
From here we wandered along the riverbank, across the Sailbridge,
a curved cable-stayed footbridge, opened in 2003. It has a 142 metres span and
cost £2 million; it always amazes me how much these structures
cost.
The river and dock area has been turned into a marvellous marina
area. We crossed back on a second bridge but had to wait for the opening bridge
across the lock to reopen. There I asked a local man about the pronunciation of
the river’s name, and he drew our attention to the fact that the Welsh name for
the city is Abertawe, which mean “mouth
of the river Tawe”, pronounced tar-wee, by
him anyway.
Everything here, road signs included, is in both Welsh and
English, which means that extra time is required to decipher any directional
sign, as one’s eyes scan the collection of letters to isolate the English.
Apparently 19% of the population can speak Welsh, which I guess is enough to
justify such confusion. I do wonder how Asian tourists manage; surely it is
hard enough for them to make out the English letters!
There are
several museums down on the waterfront and I had decided that the National
Waterfront Museum would best suit our interest. It is free, concise and informative,
the content relating to industry and transport, energy, landscapes and
communities, which you would think would just about cover everything. With the
little knowledge we already have of the area, we were disappointed that there
was little relating to the years before industrialisation and nothing about the
impact of the last war. Perhaps we missed that, because we nearly missed sections
on pirates and modern innovation as we were about to leave.
There is
more to see in Swansea but we felt tired after our modest efforts of
exploration, so walked up into the city once more, passing St Mary’s Church and
one of the many buildings with connections to Dylan Thomas before finding the
right connection at the bus station.
On the way
home we called into Carmarthen, first taken into the dispatch entrance to Tesco
(alas Tomtom frequently does that to us). For now exploration of this smaller
town will have to wait; there is so much to see in the general area and we have
again allowed too few days.
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