Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
FIG 34 . Port-Eynon Salthouse, on the western side of the bay. (Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical
Monuments of Wales)
ThesitewassavedfromerosionbytheseaandconsolidatedbytheGlamorgan-GwentArchaeological
Trust and the local authority, which owns the site, in the early 1990s. It was not the only salthouse in the
peninsula, however, the site of the second structure being commemorated in the place name of Salthouse
Point near Crofty.
THE AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION
Agriculturalpracticesremainedmoreorlessthesameuntiltheseventeenthandearlyeighteenthcenturies,
when Welsh farmers responded positively to the introduction of new techniques. In the latter century in
particular the enclosure of most of the open fields in Gower required considerable amounts of fencing,
andthisusuallycausedadeclineofwoodlandinthinlywoodedareassuchasthepeninsula.Asurgeinde-
mand for fencing materials provided the finance to clear woods for farming, instead of retaining them for
coppice. It has been estimated that the creation of enclosure fields required between 400 and 500 poles,
usually oak, per mile (1.6 kilometres) of fencing.
One of the most important innovations affecting these newly enclosed fields was the introduction of
crops that gave the farmer a much richer yield for feeding livestock. Among the plants available, broad
red clover Trifolium pratense var. sativum , sainfoin Onobrychis viciifolia and perennial rye-grass Loli-
um perenne were of special interest. Broad red clover, which is early flowering, is used for forage, fresh
or dried fodder (in hay), for silage or as a green manure. It was, at the latest, being grown in Gower by
the 1690s and fields were rapidly converted to the new system. Isaac Hamon stated that there was 'much
clover grass and seed' being sown. He added that the cultivation of clover was particularly prevalent in
the Bishopston area. This evidence is probably correct, because Hamon was for many years the steward
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