Welsh Journals

In looking back to Stouthall and the Gower scene as a whole in 1900 I think I remember with particular gratitude the leisure, the blessed serenity, the quiet of those days. Even in holiday-time the peninsula was rarely invaded by sight-seers. There was no motor traffic on the road, no engines howling in the air, no electronic diffusion of noise, little to disturb the tranquility of a country house standing in its own untroubled acres. The scythe was being replaced by the horse-drawn mechanical reaper on the Steele's land (or was this a little later ?) but I can think of no other momentous innovation. There was, of course, the perilous push-bicycle which frightened the elderly and occasionally knocked them down. But you still depended on the horse for all the heavier transport on the roads of West Gower. At intervals the bus from Horton Steven's bus, would pull up at the Stouthall gates and when you needed private conveyance for the start of a railway journey a hansom cab would jingle out from Swansea in the early hours of the morning and then, after the cabman and his horse had refreshed themselves, you were driven to the railway station-a drive of some fourteen miles or so. No-one could than have foreseen the immense progress, the benefits, the catastrophies or the fears which were to alter the face and the mind of the whole social order within the coming decades, the dizzy and equal advance of the arts which improve the general conditions of life and of those which threaten it with total destruction. I hope these random evocations of happiness at Stouthall sixty years ago may have some interest for those who live there now and for all who love Gower. There must obviously be a limit to the powers and the rights of preservation in an expanding economy, though I feel sure that the Gower Society will do every- thing that is possible to preserve the beauty of the past and to oppose the grimmer threats of depredation and encroachment in the future. For the Gower peninsula is unique in its population and its heritage a cherished land whose lovers are many and loyal and rightly vigilant in defence of her pride and her beauty. Gower Special Area Committee. Speaking at the Annual Dinner of the Gower Society, Alderman P. J. Smith, Chairman of the Glamorgan County Council said, It is quite obvious that the impact you (the Gower Society) have made on the urban and rural areas of Gower has been very tremendous indeed-and one vitally necessary in these days of industrial development. No-one will deny the necessity for industrial development to continue, but so far as we are concerned we are determined that it must be done in an ordered way. Industry will not be allowed to spoil any beauty spot in Glamorgan because it may be cheaper that way. For that reason we decided to set up the Special Area Committee in Gower with delegated powers."