Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
THE COCKLE FISHERY
The Burry Inlet and Estuary is better known for its edible cockles than for any other fishery. There are
significant mussel beds, particularly at Pen-clawdd and Whiteford Point, but it is the cockle fishery that
dominates the area. Although it is a fishery steeped in history, there are no written records or photographs
until the 1880s, when the cockle gathering came to be regarded as picturesque and worthy of recording.
Iron Age middens (refuse heaps) found in the dunes at Whiteford show that the resource has been utilised
for thousands of years, but gathering on a larger scale did not take place until the cockles began to be
gathered as a supplement to income as well as diet.
In the early 1900s it was estimated that there were as many as 250 gatherers in the Burry, mainly wo-
men as the men were at work in local manufacturing industries. Some authors stated that as many as 500
families supplemented their income from the beds, but it seems that this figure is somewhat exaggerated.
In contrast the modern fishery supports less than 100 people, gatherers and processors, and few women
are involved. Each person collected about 130 kilograms per day, the cockles being simply raked out of
the sand when the beds were exposed at low water. They were then washed and sieved to remove excess
sand and to reject any undersized animals. It was, and is, backbreaking work and the tides can be dan-
gerous. Despite the gatherers knowing the area intimately there have been many tragedies in the past, not
only due to the speed at which the tide comes in, but also because of the patches of quicksand which at
times are almost impossible to identify. But even with the danger of the tides and the hard work it can be
very tranquil out on the sands. The cockle gatherers say that they can hear the cockles 'singing'. 'They
cometothesurfaceofthesandandallopentheirshellsforwateratthesametime.Itsoundslikeamelody.
When we tread on them, the singing takes on different tones' (Roberts, 2001).
Thecollectedcockleswereplacedinpanniersacrossthebacksofdonkeysandtakentotheshore(Fig.
105). So many donkeys were involved that the hillsides around the villages were said to echo with their
braying all night. Cockles were either sold 'shell on' or more usually as boiled meat, the cooking being
carried out in small processing plants close to the gatherers' houses. The cockles are now cooked in mod-
ern processing factories to meet current hygiene standards, but in the past they were simply boiled up on
crudestoves,constructed fromafewstonesandmetal bars.Themeat wassoldtonearbymarkets atLlan-
elli, Swansea and Neath. Until a few years ago the resulting empty cockleshells were regarded as a waste
productandsimplydumpedinlargespoilheaps.Theywereoftenused,inthesamewaythatgravelmight
be, to make cockleshell paths for the cottages, and such paths used to be a characteristic feature of the
area.Theywerepreviouslyfreetoanyonewhowantedthem,butincreasinginterestingardendesignnow
means that the shells for the first time have a value.
