Penclawdd Canal

John Vivian……acquired the copper smelting works built by Cheadle & Co in late 1790’s.He also acquired the small copper works at Loughor…. He used the small docks at Maesygwaelod, Penclawdd for the importation of copper from his native . These two works proving the foundation of the copper smelting empire which John Vivian established in east some ten years later.

…..Another industrialist of this early period of development of the Swansea area, was William Leyson, who, already owning the Ystrad Isaf estate in the Waunarlywdd district, saw the possibility of distributing the coal being mind at his Ystrad Isaf Collery near Llewitha Bridge still further afield and constructed a canal for this purpose. A comparatively new method of transport at the time, the canal system had become popular throughout the Principality. When the Swansea Valley canal to Ystradgynlais was opened for use in 1794 it enabled the coal mined in the collieries along its length to be moved quickly and cheaply to Swansea Dock the eventual export from there totalling 40,000 tons per annum. Additional collieries were then sunk near to the junction by Charles Smith & Co and these added to the totals.

Charles Smith constructed a tramway towards Llansamlet from his collieries. It is not known why this tramway was eventually converted into a canal in 1803. Known as Smith’s Canal it served his collieries and those nearby owned by Lockwood, Morris & Co. When this firm joined with William Leyson to develop his new colliery at Ystrad Isaf they planned the immediate construction of a canal to transport the coal westward to the Maesgwaelod docks at Penclawdd.

The chosen route was through Garngoch down to the northern part of the hamlet of Ffosfelin, over the field which were later to form part of the sites of the Fairwood Tinworks and the Elba Steelworks, to Pontycob Farm where after taking a right angled turn it would pass near to Llwynmawr and on to Maesygwaelod, the docks which lay midway between Berthlwyd and Penclawdd village. Edward Morton, engineer, Morriston, and David Davies, Llandinam, were engaged to survey the canal route in 1811. David Davies later achieved fame when with George Overton, a qualified colliery engineer who designed the Penydarren tramroad for Richard Trevithick, were selected to carry out the survey of the first railroad to be built in this country from Stockton to Darlington in 1824.

A private Act of Parliament, obtained on 21 May 1811 authorised the construction of the canal with a capital of £20,000 and by 13 July 1814 it had been completed with lock gates near to the Trafle Mill and on the site of the later Elba Steelworks enabling coal to be conveyed from Ystrad Isaf to Maesygwaelod. Total cost was £7000 which included a spur length northwards to the present day Kingsbridge. Although no record remains of the size of barges used on the canal, it is known that a new dock above the copper works in Penclawdd and measuring some 600 by 130 feet was built to receive them. At Ystad Isaf, a tramroad connected the colliery at Mynydd Bach y Glo with the head of the canal. The canal was also intended to distribute the limestone, brought in ballast to Penclawdd Docks by the small boats which plied from there to Swansea from Oxwich and other South Gower ports to the lime burning kilns located along its path at Berthlwyd, Llwynmawr, Pontycob and Ystrad Isaf. The small coal from Llewitha was used at the kilns and the lime produced shipped back to the Gower farmers. The late Frank V Emery in his interesting article on the Penclawdd canal attributes the swift closure [of the canal] to the closure of the copper works at Penclawdd and the exhaustion of the workable coal at Llewitha in 1825. The canal was finally abandoned.

Extending their railway from the Gower Road Station through Penclawdd to Llanmorlais in 1870 the London and North Western Railway Co used part of the old canal route in a cutting between Cefnstylle and Berthlwyd. The canal turning point at Pontycob was later used as the farm pond and the cutting across the site of the Elba Steelworks was filled in during the construction of the works in 1872 and the lock gates buried.

Talking about by J Hywel Rees published 1992 by Gowerton Council pages 12 – 14

PMM