An Early Waggonway in the Lower Swansea Valley Paul Reynolds

RAILWAY AND CANAL HISTORICAL SOCIETY EARLY RAILWAY GROUP Occasional Paper 22 4 An early waggonway in the lower Swansea valley Paul Reynolds Documentary evidence has been found for the existence of a waggonway in the lower Swansea valley in the early eighteenth century, over thirty years earlier than Chauncey Townsend's waggonway of the early 1750s, hitherto the first railway known to have existed in the district. Among the archives preserved by the Neath Antiquarian Society and now administered by West Glamorgan Archive Service there is a large single sheet (NAS Gn/I 9/ 3) headed 'An Abstract of all Accounts relating to the Coalworks in Gower and Lands in Logher & of all moneys received and paid by K.M. on account thereof to ye 1 st of Decem: 1720'. 'K.M.' is Kingsmill Mackworth, the second son of Sir Humphry Mackworth of Neath. His abstract summarises income and expenditure for each of the family's collieries at Logher [i.e. Loughor], Penclawdd and in the fee of Trewyddfa between July 1719 and November 1720. [The fee of Trewyddfa is an area of land of about 800 acres on the western side of the valley, the minerals under which were claimed by the dukes of Beaufort as seigniorial lords of Gower.] The existence of this waggonway is demonstrated by a single item of expenditure made to an unnamed contractor which is listed under the fee of Trewyddfa. By ye bargain for filling up ye waggon way formerly laid & laying ye rest down to ye River 4:0:0. Quite what is meant by 'filling up ye waggon way' is not clear. Given the second part of the bargain it is perhaps most likely to mean completing a waggonway that had been left unfinished by an earlier contractor, although it could simply mean filling in potholes and carrying out similar repair work. It would appear that some time prior to 1719 the Mackworths had ordered the construction of a waggonway down to the river Tawe which had been partially carried out by the original contractor who had then defaulted. A second contractor was then called in to complete the task although it does not appear that a great deal of work was required. Even in 1720 £4 would not build very much waggonway. Sir Humphry Mackworth acquired the Gnoll estate at Neath in 1686 through his marriage to the heiress, Mary Evans. He developed the resources of the estate, notably the coal mines at Melincryddan, and introduced copper smelting at Neath in 1695. In 1698 he revitalised the Company of Mine Adventurers of England which was engaged in extracting and smelting lead, silver, and copper in Cardiganshire. He extended his coal-mining operations to Loughor, north Gower and the lower Swansea valley where he took a lease of coal under the fee of Trewyddfa from the Badminton estate in 1708. In 1720 he assigned the profits of the Swansea and Gower collieries to his sons, Herbert and Kingsmill and handed over their management to them. The waggonway would clearly have been built to carry coal from the Trewyddfa collieries to the river for shipping. Since Mackworth is known to have introduced workmen from Shropshire it is very likely that his waggonway was built on the principles that were current in that part of the world with smaller waggons on smaller wheels than were found in the north- east of England. The exact location of Mackworth's colliery is not known although it was in Treboeth and 700 yards distant from the Llangyvelach copperworks (started 1717). The record of a dispute in 1719 with a local landowner, Thomas Popkin, shows that it adjoined a parcel of land known as Ynyshowell which lay on either side of what is now Cwm Level Road. These two clues suggest a location for the colliery at the lower end of Cwmgelli which lay just within the fee of Trewyddfa. This in turn makes it possible to suggest in general terms the course of the waggonway. It most likely ran down Nant Rhydyfilais, i.e. roughly along the line of Cwm Level Road and down to the riverside at Landore near the present stadium. There is however another possibility. In 1719 Mackworth took a lease of a coal bank on the Strand in the town of Swansea. This raises the possibility that 'down to ye River' means down to this coal bank, much more of an undertaking. The existence of this waggonway is hardly surprising since Humphry Mackworth had been using waggonways in connection with his collieries at Neath since 1697 ( Lewis, Early Wooden Railways (1970), 247-51) , and one might well have expected him to have done the same at Swansea. What is surprising is that the evidence has only now come to light. June 2013 Grid squares approx. 950 yards square 2 .

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