Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
to the sand dunes of Hillend and Llangennith, which have impeded the drainage. As a young man in the
early 1880s Phil Tanner was employed on farm work by local farmers and by the squire at Hillend. He
hadtoworkfortwelveorthirteenhoursaday,beginningat7.00am.Hismainoccupationwas'laking'on
the Moors. This involved the cutting and clearing of the ditches that marked the boundaries of the fields
(Fig. 142).
The management of the area has clearly changed over the past 160 years. The tithe map for 1844 re-
veals that the central part of the system was cropped for hay, with corn, pasture and a small withy bed
restricted to the slightly higher land in the vicinity of Hillend and Llangennith village. During the Second
WorldWarpartsofthecentralareawereploughedforbothpotatoesandspringcereals.Small-scalearable
cropping continued until the early 1950s, but the current use consists of summer grazing for beef cattle,
togetherwithafewhorsesandsheep.Onefieldonthesouthernedgehasbeendrainedtoformacampsite.
FIG
141.
Llangennith Moors, with Rhossili Bay and Worms Head in the background. (Harold Grenfell)
