Centenary Serendipity

By the time you read this, Terroir will have posted 100 blogs on landscape, townscape and environmental matters.

Why do we love to celebrate anniversaries which end in zero?  To anyone born into a metric system of measurement, based on the magic number ‘10’, it may seem obvious.  But there are many of us who still understand UK imperial measurements.  Yet, in our pre-decimal school tests we aimed at getting ’10 out of 10’ or, in exams, as near as we possibly could to 100%.   There are 10 years to the decade and 100 years to the century.  Presumably the Romans did do something for us after all.

The British Imperial system seems to love the number four (16 ounces to the pound, 12 inches to the foot, 4 quarts to a gallon) but is delightfully inconsistent (3 feet to the yard!)  It does, however, probably reflect our post Roman history.   Take the furlong for example (combination of furrow and long according to https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/furlong ).  Now standardised as 22 yards long, it once delineated a rather variable agricultural acre which, we were always told, was the area that an ox team could plough in a day (no doubt influenced by soil, topography, latitude, breed of ox, skill of driver and many other factors relating to Terroir).

So, we are celebrating a Roman 100 but we should point out that it is also divisible by 4.

The ‘serendipity’ angle is a feature of Terroir which we know appeals to many of you.  In the last 15 months we have visited, and blogged about, France, Albania and Kyrgyzstan.  We have been to Wales many times and Scotland twice.  In England we have frequently featured Surrey and London but also looked at the terroir of the Cotswolds, the Peak District, Offa’s Dyke and the South Downs Way.  We have offered you Sussex, Shropshire, Yorkshire, Northumberland, Wiltshire and Cornwall. 

You have probably noticed us beating the sustainability and climate change drum, but we have also looked at habitat conservation, protected species, rural architecture, hedges, wheelie bins, walls as habitat and walls as art, signal boxes, orchards, vineyards, landscape paintings, the impact of mining, the passing of the seasons, and support for Ukraine.

But to finish this 100th blog we will take you on a short trip to South Wales, now in a northern suburb of Swansea but which was once an industrial village in rural Glamorgan.  The location is a new one for Terroir, but the topic is the third in an accidental series on workers’ villages.  We’ve been to Saltaire and to Swindon, so now it’s the turn of Swansea or, to be more accurate but lacking alliteration, the little known village of Morriston, about three miles to the north of Swansea centre.  

The Lower Swansea Valley was once one of the most heavily industrialised places on the planet.  (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morriston#).  In the 18th century, copper and tinplate industries were established close to the River Tawe, and the Swansea Canal was constructed in the late 1790s to carry coal, limestone, tin and copper, amongst other goods, down to Swansea Port.  Life was, inevitably, tough for the working population and, in the early part of the 19th century, Sir John Morris Bt laid out an industrial village to house the workers.  It was called Morris Town in English and Treforys in Welsh (tre = town and forys = morris), but the English speakers quickly shortened it to Morriston.

Morriston was designed by one William Edwards, a stonemason, architect, bridge engineer – and Methodist Minister.  Unsurprisingly he adopted a grid pattern layout, which you can still see today.  The 19th century maps below illustrate the basic grid, laid out very close to the industrial works, the River Tawe, the canal and the railway.

Above: Morriston in 1876/7. Below Morriston in 1897.

Both images reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland'  https://maps.nls.uk/index.html

Today, there are perhaps four or five key landmarks which make Moriston an interesting place for a visit.

Here’s a sample of the early 19th century workers cottages, now struggling with cars and parking on their neary straight grid pattern streets.

But the really big thing about Morriston, both literally and metaphorically, are its churches and chapels. The one below, known unsurprisingly as the ‘church in the middle of the road’ as it stands on a roundabout (you can see it’s location on the maps above) is now closed (love those slate roofs) …

… but the real stunner is the Grade 1 listed Tabernacle Chapel, described as the ‘non-conformist Cathedral of Wales’ or, by Anthony Jones in his 1996 book ‘Welsh Chapels’, as ‘The largest, grandest and most expensive chapel built in Wales". Its size makes it pretty hard to photograph.

Number 4 landmark is Danbert House, built in the 1880’s as a magnificent, ‘statement’, town house by Daniel Edwards, a steel and tinplate magnate, but now a spooky, Dickensian ruin. Grade II* listed but on the ‘at risk’ register, and no one seems willing to take it on.

Our final landmarks are associated with satisfying the inner blogger. The Crown has long since stopped serving but the Rane Bengal, further down the street, gave us an excellent Indian meal - just buy your alcohol at the convenince store next door.

Here’s to the next 100 blogs.