The ruins of 12th. C. Neath Abbey can be reached by taking the A4320 through Skewen and then turning right into Monastery road just after the Hope and Anchor pub. There's plenty of free parking space and no charge for visiting the ruins.
It is not hard to imagine how a Cistercian monk of the period looked.
The abbey was dissolved in 1539 after which the site was aquired by a local landowner, Sir John Herbert, who made the monks' lodgings the core of his own mansion.
Morris Castle can be seen from much of Swansea. Finding it is not so easy.
Only two of the four towers remain. It was built in 1770s to house the workers of Sir John Morris after whom Morriston is named (from Morris Town). It was castellated with a quadrangle and housed 24 families. They were accomodated in 24 flats in 3 storey blocks linked by the 4 storey corner towers. The workers were all colliers except for one tailor and one shoemaker.
The castle was seen from Morris's mansion at Clasemont and was probably designed to enhance the landscape as was the castellated Ivy Tower banquetting house on the Gnoll Castle estate in Neath for the Mackworth family (see 'A Stroll in the Gnoll').
The castle remained a 'residential high rise' for the workers for 100 years until quarrying made it unsafe.
A portion of one of the towers came down in the 1987 gales. Hey! Don't lean too hard!
Perhaps the easiest way to the castle is to start in Llewellyn Park, which is off Trewyddfa road, and continue along the path to the left.
There are some steps up to the craig (rock) but they may be a little overgrown.
There is another trail up from Landore. Maybe someone knows it?
There is another trail up from Landore. Maybe someone knows it?
4 comments:
Hi Tim,
Most interested in the information about the Morris family. Do you know where Clasemont was situated? I always assumed somewhere on Clase Esate, but perhaps not???
Clasemont Road heads up towards Clase estate (and the DVLA) - perhaps 'Clasemont' derives from French, 'Mount Clase' in reference to the steepness, since the road itself is very much uphill.
Barry,
Clasemont (often spelled "Clasmont" on old maps) was situated at
N 51:40:14 (51.670612)
W 03:56:10 (-3.935998)
OS Grid Ref. SS662986
That's just between the very north end of today's Morriston Park and Clasemont Road. The nearest publicly accessible spot to where the house actually stood is, as far as I can tell, the modern road called Cân-yr-Eos ("Song of the Nightingale").
Oops: look (harder) before you leap..! The map references I gave in my last message were for what appears to be a later house (also now demolished) of the same name.
The map I was looking at was from 1876 -- but the original Clasemont was pulled down 55 years earlier than that, in 1821-22. From a text description I found in a local history book today, I now believe that the correct site is about 400 metres WSW of there: at
N 51:40:10 (51.669328)
W 3:56:23 (-3.939674)
OS Grid Ref. SS659985
-- more or less the junction of Mount Crescent and Pen-yr-Yrfa (*).
I'll try to check it out at Swansea Central Library over the weekend.
(* I wonder if the name Pen-yr-Yrfa was intended to be a translation of "top of the drive" since the road IS situated ...at the top of the drive which once led to Clasemont, though "gyrfa" properly means a drive more in the sense of a whist-drive than a carriage-drive!)
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