Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
There was monstrous thick grass that made us spring-heeled, and we laughed and bounced on it,
scaring the sheep who ran up and down the battered sides like goats. Even on this calmest day a
wind blew along the Worm. At the end of the humped and serpentine body, more gulls than I had
ever seen before cried over their new dead and the droppings of ages.
Dylan Thomas,
Who Do You Wish Was With Us?
G
OWER HAS THREE
corners, at Mumbles, Rhossili and Llanmadoc, all of them defined by the lime-
stone cliffs. Where you would expect to find a fourth corner to complete the compass of this roughly rect-
angular peninsula, at Gowerton perhaps, the hard geology is hidden by the broad sweep of the estuary. At
each of the three corners there is a tidal island, or in the case of the Mumbles, two tidal islands, Middle
Head and Mumbles Head. Rhossili has the famous Worms Head; known locally as 'the Worm', itself di-
vided into an Inner Head, Middle Head and Outer Head, but here they are joined by a bridge of rock, the
Devil's Bridge, and by Low Neck. Llanmadoc has the island of Burry Holms. Because of their relatively
small size and the fact that they are not offshore these areas have been generally ignored in any of the sur-
veys of Welsh islands. Although they are tiny in comparison to some of the other islands, they add an extra
dimension to the peninsula and its natural history. There is also a small tidal island at Sedgers Bank on the
western side of Port-Eynon Bay, but the only area above the high tide line is a minute storm beach covered
with a relict sand dune on which sea spurge, sea bindweed and common restharrow
Ononis repens
grow.
Berges Island, now forming part of Whiteford Burrows, has not been an island for a very long time. Grove
Island, a low-lying island which was said to have existed 'not far from the Mumbles rocks', is reputed to
havebeendestroyedbyatidalwavethatstrucktheSouthWalescoastonthemorningof20January1607-
but there are no reliable records of its existence, only a mixture of personal reminiscences, speculation and
legends.
Worms Head, Burry Holms, Mumbles Head and Inner Head are all remnants of the core of an anticline
separated from the mainland by a fault, the pounding of the sea having eroded the limestone along the
weakness. Burry Holms, for example, is separated by a 'sound' that formed along the Broughton fault. It is
not entirely clear when the islands become separated from the peninsula and more research is needed, but
the best estimates are between 3,000 and 4,000 years ago.
WORMS HEAD
Thewesternextremity oftheGowerlimestone formsthelongpromontoryofWormsHead,anamederived
from the Old English
wurm
, meaning a dragon, and at certain times and in certain conditions the serpent-
like shape of the island is clear (Fig. 90). As Wynford Vaughan Thomas noted, 'It really does look like
a vast serpent, coiling its way out to sea and rearing its head as it makes its final plunge westward.' It is
