A Complete and Reliable Guide to Swansea and the Mumbles, Gower, and Other Places of Interest

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index.

Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1883. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ...--s----The Peninsula of Gower projects into the sea at the south-western end of Glamorganshire for about twenty miles, with an average breadth of from five to six miles, being separated from the mainland on the North by the estuary of the Loughor River.

Two races inhabit it, beween whom a line of demarcation is still sharply drawn, and is roughly coincident with the low mountain range of Cefn Bryn, which forms a kind of transverse spine, running from sea to sea.

The Welsh appear to have been cooped up in the apex of the peninsula by a colony of Normans and Flemings who occupied its base.

The Norman element would, doubtless, date from the period of the conquest of the district in or about i094.

The arrival of the Flemish contingent is generally considered to have taken place in the reign of Henry I., at the time of the formation of a kindred settlement in Pembrokeshire, but the actual date is matter of conjecture.

Gower, after having been successively held by Mowbrays, De Spencers, and Herberts, passed to the family of Somerset, and the Duke of Beaufort is the present lord paramount of the seigniory.

CHURCH ARCHITECTURE IN GOWER. All the Gower churches may not only be classified as of the same generic type, but have a strong family likeness.

They possess in common many characteristics, the most marked among them being the massive towers, which were evidently designed for military strongholds in the unsettled times in which they were erected, being generally loopholed only and without access from the exterior;--the absence of aisles and small size of the chancels; and the general rude workmanship and absence of decorative features.

Of the twelve towers to Gower churches nine are western; all are without buttresses, and all but one have overhanging embattled parapet...