Welsh Journals

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'Pre-war Swansea was seen by some as a snug rather smug town with rigid social norms and complacent middle class attitudes. But a closer look revealed a harsher side of a community hard hit by poverty and unemployment. Yet though their circumstances differed, the people of Swansea shared a deep-seated sense of belonging to a busy intimate community. They tended towards a certain pragmatism, which com- bined with a wry, sometimes sardonic sense of humour, was to stand them in good stead'.10 A look at the town centre, also, dilutes the rosey glow of memory a little. People lived there, and in our terms at least, their living conditions were poor. This was true of Orange Street behind the Market, of Greenfield Street at the back of the gasworks, and of most of the other housing in the area of Wassail Square and Rutland Street. People also lived over and behind the shops the living quarters behind H. & F. Gage, the wholesale tobacconist by the castle, have been described as 'hke something out of Dickens' In 1935, the council decided to clear 186 slum dwellings in the area between the top of High Street and Greenhill but a great deal of poor housing remained.12 In Victorian times, there had been pockets of the richest citizens in the town itself, but now even the ordinary middle class had largely moved west, with Walter Road the nearest exception. When the bombs fell, it was the ordinary people of the town who trecked west to the Mumbles area many of those with money already lived there. The Blitz changed the old street pattern. Goat Street had existed since the 1300s, Fisher Street is mentioned in 1332, and in three nights, after 600 years, they were gone. Waterloo Street the name is a fair clue was far less ancient, but its disappearance was total, from Stead and Simpsons and Edwards the Eagle on the junction with Oxford Street through Tully's fish & game store and a host of other businesses, it was no more. Even the line of Waterloo Street was ignored by the post-war planners, unless one counts an alley-like service road between British Home Stores and Marks & Spencers. Yet, when you think about it, it was mainly names that disappeared. The Kingsway now links College Street to St. Helens Road, replacing Gower Street and Heathfield Street, but the general route has not changed. In the same way, the line of Goat Street and Fisher Street was straightened out in the building of Princess Way, but it still connects Orchard Street to York Street and Quay Parade. Nor were most of the grand buildings which perished very old. Few were of pre- 1850 vintage; perhaps the oldest was the Wesley or Goat Street Chapel of 1847. Most were from the 1890-1914 period. The famous frontage of Ben Evans dated from 1894, David Evans from 1899, the market 1897, the east side of Castle Street 1912, and so on. St. Mary's Church had been completely rebuilt in the 1890s. Some of the small and medium sized shops which were to be bombed were older houses converted, but many had been rebuilt at some time in the nineteenth century as the town grew prouder and wealthier. Swansea has always been bad at preserving its finer buildings. The General Accident building in St. Helens Road replaced a large house called 'Preswylfa' in 1928. Melbourne Place, a part of Heathfield Street, went to make way for the Plaza Cinema in 1930. The fine premises of South Wales Furnishers, which perished in 1941, (where Portland Street joined Heathfield Street) dated only from a complete rebuilding of 1933. Woolworths acquired the Hotel Cameron, on the site of today's Argos, in 1927 this ornate building, though, was adapted, not replaced, only to be gutted in 1941. 13