page_title: Mumbles (district)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Mumbles (district) / History
caption_attribution_description: Teitl Cymraeg/Welsh title: Y Mwmbwls Ffotograffydd/Photographer: Probably Mary Dillwyn (1816-1906) Dyddiad/Date: 185- Cyfeiriad/Reference: vin00131 (pb02377/077) Rhif cofnod / Record no.: 3590002 Rhagor o wybodaeth am Ffotograffiaeth Gynnar Abertawe yn Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru More information about Early Swansea Photography at the National Library of Wales
context_page_description: Mumbles is a district of Swansea, Wales located on the south east corner of the unitary authority area. It is also a local government community of the same name. At the 2001 census the population was 16,774, reducing slightly to 16,600 at the 2011 Census. The district is named after the headland of Mumbles which is located on the southeast corner of the district.
context_section_description: Archaeological evidence indicates that an ancient submerged forest was located on what is now the foreshore of Mumbles Bay The bones of bears, wolves, hyenas, deer, rhinoceros and mammoth have been discovered there. A bone cave at the western tip of Caswell Bay was excavated in 1832 but has since been destroyed by the sea. Another cave, at the Inner Sound, Mumbles Head, was blown up by quarrymen in 1838 but not before elephant bones had been found. Also scattered around the bays of Mumbles and Gower are the bones of sixteen Ice Age mammals, including a mammoth tooth measuring ten centimetres across, which is on display in Swansea Museum.
  The first human crop growers arrived in the area over 5,000 years ago. However, evidence of human habitation is much older and  possibly dates as far back  as 30,000 years ago—established by the dating of the  famous Paviland skeleton located in a cave some 10–15 miles along the coast from Mumbles Head.  The skeleton is kept in the Oxford Museum of Natural History, having been excavated by Rev William Buckland, who was Professor of Geology at Oxford University at the time. However, Swansea Museum has two well-finished flint axe-heads, one from Newton and one from an allotment on Mumbles Hill. Much of what we know about the first metalworkers, in the Bronze Age, has been learned from their tombs: pieces of pottery, a cairn and remains of a hut were found. The cliffs above the Redcliffe flats at Caswell Bay contain the ridged remnants of a Redley Cliff Iron Age hill-fort.
  There is evidence that the Romans were based in Mumbles in a villa on the site of the present All Saints Church in Oystermouth. When the site was being extended in 1860, workmen removing a bank of earth on the south side of the original building accidentally broke up a Roman tessellated pavement, or mosaic floor. This was previously a pagan site, as were many sites of worship in the UK which subsequently became places of worship at the onset of Christianity. In this area it has been reported that Romano British gentlemen of Roman Wales may have eaten oysters from the oysterbeds off the shore below the site at Oystermouth, or Ystumllwynarth. The Norman Castle at Oystermouth was built during the first half of the 12th century - one of many castles built in Gower as a defense against the native Welsh Princes who sought to re-claim the lands stolen by the Norman invaders. [the Royal Commission on Ancient & Historical Monuments in Wales, Glamorgan, The Early Castles, London, HMSO, 1991]. The architectural merits of the church, castle and other buildings in Oystermouth  are discussed in J.Newman, The Buildings of Wales: Glamorgan, London, Penguin/University of Wales Press, 1995.
  Three of the bells in All Saints Church once belonged to the Jesuit church of La Compañía ("The Company") in Santiago, Chile. They seem to have been brought to Mumbles by Aubrey Vivian after the fire of 1863 burnt down the Jesuit church, killing 2,000 people. The family of industrialist Henry Vivian had business connections with the copper mines of Chile.
  In 1793, the Mumbles Lighthouse was erected on the outer of the two tidal islands of Mumbles Head. In 1806, the Oystermouth Railway was built between Oystermouth and Swansea with the intention of carrying coal to Swansea.  The potential for carrying passengers was soon seen and a horse-drawn railway passenger service was started on 25 March 1807, making it the first such service in the world.  It became enormously popular and was commonly called 'the Mumbles train'. Following the development of the rail service, Mumbles became a popular tourist destination.  To capitalise on this, the Mumbles railway was extended and a pier was constructed and opened in 1898 to serve as the new terminus. An RNLI lifeboat slipway was added to the pier in the summer of 1916 and a boathouse was finally built on it in 1922; these remain in use. [Needs updating as there is a new boathouse].
  On 23 April 1947, the Mumbles lifeboat lost a crew of eight men while attempting to rescue the crew of the Samtampa that had run agroun
caption: Mumbles, 1850s
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