Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Summer visitors to Gower in the years past will have treasured memories of sultry days amidst the
golden gorse in the slades, when the oppressive noontide calm was broken only by the monotonous
chant of the yellowhammer; memories of cloudless skies and shimmering blue water lapping gently
on the stippled sands, of many coloured anemones in crystal clear rock-pools, of seagulls circling
lazily over the sun-baked cliffs.
Horatio Tucker,
Gower Gleanings
F
ORSOMEOF
theearliestinformationonthenaturalhistoryofGowerwehavetothankEdwardLhuyd,
Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, or more accurately his correspondents. Appointed Keeper in
1691,Lhuydwasapolymathwhomadeimportantcontributionstotheemergingdisciplinesofbotany,geo-
logy, antiquities and philology. He was part of the new order of experimental science, scorning the earlier
naturalists'who,tilthislastcenturycontentedthemselveswithbarereadingandscribblingpaper'.Thisap-
proach committed him to first-hand observation whenever possible and also, as he was revising the Welsh
sections of Camden's
Britannia
(1586), to creating a network of correspondents throughout Wales. Despite
this antiquarian work he considered himself to be a naturalist, not an archaeologist, and commented that
'I was obliged to undertake ye Antiquities for ye sake of encouragement, not that I delight in ye study so
much as in Nat History'.
Lhuyd's need for local information was greatest in the south of the country and this is probably the
reason for his connections with no fewer than four people within the bounds of the Marcher Lordship of
Gower. Although only two of these were in the peninsula - Gower as we know it today - the area features
prominentlyinLhuyd'scollectionsforhissurveyofWales.ThefirstoftheseinformantswasJohnWilliams
of Swansea. As with most of his contacts, Williams was a native of the area about which he wrote and was
abletowritewithauthority.AlthoughWilliams'Gowercorrespondenceislimitedtothirteenletterswritten
between 1693 and 1696 he responded amongst other things to Lhuyd's enquires about the megalith known
asArthur'sStone,surveyedtheblow-holeatWormsHead,reportedonlocalbeliefinthecuriositiesknown
as
maen magal
or
glain neidr
(the latter translating literally as 'jewel snake') and supplied Lhuyd with a
wide range of these fossils. Unfortunately the two men later became bitter opponents over the question of
whether fossils were of organic or inorganic origin.
Lhuyd's most prolific correspondent, however, was Isaac Hamon. When or how they were introduced
is not clear, but they met at least once when Lhuyd reached Swansea in 1697 at the beginning of five years
of travels to collect information. Lhuyd had previously visited Gower in the autumn of 1693 and again in
1696, and it is likely that in 1697 Hamon took him to see some of the sites he had described. Hamon's ac-
countofGower,preparedforLhuyd,providesavaluabledescription oftheareaasitwasatthecloseofthe
seventeenth century. Covering the 23 parishes of the Lordship of Gower, it represents a substantial part of
theknownresponsetoLhuyd's
Parochial Queries
(1696),asetof31questionsdealingwiththegeography,
