941 words THOUGHTS ON VIEWING MUMBLES PIER 19.3.99
Park the car at Bracelet bay on a clear day, walk past the Apple snack bar and gaze out over the sea. A full panorama of Swansea Bay unfolds across that stretch of blue-grey ocean. There's Nash Point and Porthcawl in the east, then the chimneys of the giant steel plant at Port Talbot that first brought me to the South Wales in 1966. 'You've come to work in the gold mine?', they joked in the bar. Little did we foresee the endless series of recessions that was to hit the area, following the oil crisis of 1974. Closer up those steel plants have a stark, cruel, beauty of their own, a beauty born from design focused on function. But they do not intrude here on our picture postcard view.
The eye continues round the hills opening onto the Neath valley, and the radio topped Kilvey Hill. Then to the Post Office Tower building dominating the centre of Swansea, once much vaunted for its architectural harmony with the castle. Never popular with the people, now encapsulated in reflective glass to show their disgust. There's the new County Hall, built at a time when counties were being amalgamated in the name of efficiency, but Glamorgan was divided into three. Still it's visually satisfying for a modern building, and its redundancy might just have led to Swansea's Guildhall becoming the seat of the Welsh Assembly. The moorings at Mumbles are now almost deserted, resulting from the exodus of yachts across the water to Swansea Marina. But there are still masts in the dinghy park at Knab Rock.
Straight below are the buildings which were once the terminus of the much loved Mumbles Railway. Was it the country's first railroad, or the last horse drawn one, or just a tram? There, pointing out to sea like a broad elegant finger is Mumbles Pier. It frames the bay, dividing it sharply from the white lighthouse beacon on the tip of Mumbles Head, the terrors of the Mixon Sands and the deep sea beyond. It must have been so different in it's heyday. Hundreds of people getting off the train to stroll on this man made promenade, which illustrated the confidence of the age. They thought that even the sea could be easily tamed. Tell that to the brave men who triumphantly defied the elements in the lifeboat, or the widows who had to face the aftermath of the disasters.
In Victorian times the bay must have been a spectacle of activity, small fishing boats, even oyster skiffs from Mumbles. Tall oak ocean going sailing barques and the first iron steamships, plying in and out with cargoes of copper ore from South America. Swansea's wealth was built on metal refining. Briefly it was one of the most important sites in the world. But the tailings turned Swansea Valley into a lunar landscape. Kilvey Hill died. Somewhere on it's slopes are the trees the children planted, thirty years ago, when reclamation started to expunge all traces of the industrial past and turn Swansea into a picture postcard. Soon all our industrial heritage will be a thing of the past, everything pretty and green, a de-industrialised land devoid of metal industry and coal tips, pit heads - and jobs.
Take a closer look at the pier. It's all that's left as a symbol of that bygone age. Walk down the steep, narrow, concrete road which winds down between the cliff and a limestone wall. For a while the vista excites. There is a simple elegance to the yellow cast iron railings. Is that really still a line of gas lamps? But don't go too close, or your senses, like mine, will grate at the trivia, the amusement arcade, the grotesque toys. Those lamp stands are topped with modern tin hats, and opaque, frosted, white glass. The yellow paint is peeling from the cast iron railings, the stanchions supporting the pier are rusting badly. At the pier's centenary, signs proclaimed, 1898 to 1998, and the Pier Hotel advertised itself as a 'football free zone' for banishing the World Cup. Why not go for it, and become a television free zone instead - in keeping with the era. Should the pier be developed as a museum of Victoriana? Should the whole area be resurrected as a theme park? A living monument to a bygone age at play, with telescopes, paddle steamers, bathing machines, bathing hats, giant postcards and 'what the butler saw'.
Certainly the pier should not be left to rot. It could be dismantled and the sea greened like Swansea Valley. But as you grow older you long for the things you ought to have saved; that old steel needled clockwork gramophone with its clockwork motor and giant acoustic horn, old glass bottles and stoppers in fascinating shapes and colours. Large sums of money have been spent on restoration of the Orangery at Margam and resurrection of the Old Swansea Guild Hall as Ty Llen (Literature House) for the 1995 UK Year of Literature. These buildings have been secured for the future generations. In spite of paying the mortgage should we be concerned with the wisdom of the expenditure now we can see the results? They are the things which help preserve a place's culture, give it a unique identity. If fully used they could provide an exciting base for development of a new role. Is the Mumbles pier in the same category? It's an important question because Swansea, struggling with decline like the rest of West Wales, needs to develop its environment and facilities to attract and hold modern high tech. industry, its footloose workers and tourists.
Park the car at Bracelet bay on a clear day, walk past the Apple snack bar and gaze out over the sea. A full panorama of Swansea Bay unfolds across that stretch of blue-grey ocean. There's Nash Point and Porthcawl in the east, then the chimneys of the giant steel plant at Port Talbot that first brought me to the South Wales in 1966. 'You've come to work in the gold mine?', they joked in the bar. Little did we foresee the endless series of recessions that was to hit the area, following the oil crisis of 1974. Closer up those steel plants have a stark, cruel, beauty of their own, a beauty born from design focused on function. But they do not intrude here on our picture postcard view.
The eye continues round the hills opening onto the Neath valley, and the radio topped Kilvey Hill. Then to the Post Office Tower building dominating the centre of Swansea, once much vaunted for its architectural harmony with the castle. Never popular with the people, now encapsulated in reflective glass to show their disgust. There's the new County Hall, built at a time when counties were being amalgamated in the name of efficiency, but Glamorgan was divided into three. Still it's visually satisfying for a modern building, and its redundancy might just have led to Swansea's Guildhall becoming the seat of the Welsh Assembly. The moorings at Mumbles are now almost deserted, resulting from the exodus of yachts across the water to Swansea Marina. But there are still masts in the dinghy park at Knab Rock.
Straight below are the buildings which were once the terminus of the much loved Mumbles Railway. Was it the country's first railroad, or the last horse drawn one, or just a tram? There, pointing out to sea like a broad elegant finger is Mumbles Pier. It frames the bay, dividing it sharply from the white lighthouse beacon on the tip of Mumbles Head, the terrors of the Mixon Sands and the deep sea beyond. It must have been so different in it's heyday. Hundreds of people getting off the train to stroll on this man made promenade, which illustrated the confidence of the age. They thought that even the sea could be easily tamed. Tell that to the brave men who triumphantly defied the elements in the lifeboat, or the widows who had to face the aftermath of the disasters.
In Victorian times the bay must have been a spectacle of activity, small fishing boats, even oyster skiffs from Mumbles. Tall oak ocean going sailing barques and the first iron steamships, plying in and out with cargoes of copper ore from South America. Swansea's wealth was built on metal refining. Briefly it was one of the most important sites in the world. But the tailings turned Swansea Valley into a lunar landscape. Kilvey Hill died. Somewhere on it's slopes are the trees the children planted, thirty years ago, when reclamation started to expunge all traces of the industrial past and turn Swansea into a picture postcard. Soon all our industrial heritage will be a thing of the past, everything pretty and green, a de-industrialised land devoid of metal industry and coal tips, pit heads - and jobs.
Take a closer look at the pier. It's all that's left as a symbol of that bygone age. Walk down the steep, narrow, concrete road which winds down between the cliff and a limestone wall. For a while the vista excites. There is a simple elegance to the yellow cast iron railings. Is that really still a line of gas lamps? But don't go too close, or your senses, like mine, will grate at the trivia, the amusement arcade, the grotesque toys. Those lamp stands are topped with modern tin hats, and opaque, frosted, white glass. The yellow paint is peeling from the cast iron railings, the stanchions supporting the pier are rusting badly. At the pier's centenary, signs proclaimed, 1898 to 1998, and the Pier Hotel advertised itself as a 'football free zone' for banishing the World Cup. Why not go for it, and become a television free zone instead - in keeping with the era. Should the pier be developed as a museum of Victoriana? Should the whole area be resurrected as a theme park? A living monument to a bygone age at play, with telescopes, paddle steamers, bathing machines, bathing hats, giant postcards and 'what the butler saw'.
Certainly the pier should not be left to rot. It could be dismantled and the sea greened like Swansea Valley. But as you grow older you long for the things you ought to have saved; that old steel needled clockwork gramophone with its clockwork motor and giant acoustic horn, old glass bottles and stoppers in fascinating shapes and colours. Large sums of money have been spent on restoration of the Orangery at Margam and resurrection of the Old Swansea Guild Hall as Ty Llen (Literature House) for the 1995 UK Year of Literature. These buildings have been secured for the future generations. In spite of paying the mortgage should we be concerned with the wisdom of the expenditure now we can see the results? They are the things which help preserve a place's culture, give it a unique identity. If fully used they could provide an exciting base for development of a new role. Is the Mumbles pier in the same category? It's an important question because Swansea, struggling with decline like the rest of West Wales, needs to develop its environment and facilities to attract and hold modern high tech. industry, its footloose workers and tourists.
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