John Martin Williams. He and his family lived in part of the house, converting the remainder of the property into separate apartments with the land containing an orchard, lawn, coach house, cowshed and other outbuildings. Among those resident in the house in 1935 were the Lewis and Richards families later followed by the Bancrofts from 1938 to the 1950s. David Williams and his wife remained resident in the property until c.1961, when it was sold. A small garden nursery operated on the site for a few years with the house continuing to be in multiple occupation. Four families lived there in 1963 and 1965 and two in 1971 and 1987/88, the last occasion the house was shown as being inhabited in the electoral registers. After a short period of non-occupation, the house was demolished in c.1989, the land having previously been sold for prospective housing development. The latter however has not materialised and the site remains undeveloped.
Sources This very brief account of Cwmgelli House has drawn upon a number of primary and secondary sources. The main primary material are the lordship of Gower surveys of 1650 and 1764, the land tax assessments for Clase Lower (1774, 1776 and 1788), the Ynystawe estate MSS (D/D SB) held at the West Glamorgan Archive Service, the Llangyfelach tithe map and apportionment (1838), census enumerators’ returns (1841-1911) and electoral registers (1922-89). The main secondary works are: Jeff Childs, ‘Landownership Changes in a Glamorganshire Parish, 1750-1850. The Case of Llangyfelach’ in Morgannwg XXXVIII, 1994, pp. 42-87; Gerald Gabb, Jubilee Swansea II: the town and its people in the 1890s (Swansea, 1999); Stephen Hughes, Copperopolis: Landscapes of the Early Industrial Period in Swansea (Aberystwyth, 2000) and W. H. Jones, History of the Port of Swansea (Carmarthen, 1922; facsimile edition, Swansea 1995).
Acknowledgements I am most grateful to the following people for providing information on Cwmgelli House: Mr Neil McGregor; Mrs Myra McGregor, Mrs Brianna Moore; Mr Joe Stephens (of Tasmania) and his correspondents and Dr Peter Williams of the Treboeth History Society. Jeff Childs South West Wales Industrial Archaeology Society The above article is reprinted from the Bulletin of the South West Wales Industrial Archaeology Society, no.115 (October 2012) with their kind permission. The author is currently preparing a volume for publication by the Archive Service entitled ‘Farms and Families of Llangyfelach’. For more information on the Society’s activities and to read selected extracts from past Bulletins, see their website http://www.pete-hutch.co.uk/swwias.html
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