Category: Blog

It is every parent’s nightmare. Your child taken from you in the middle of the day in broad daylight. The next time you see them they are dead. This was the horror faced by the Macari family in the summer of 1941. To make matters worse, they knew who had done it. But they just…

It was July 1882 when The Polaria docked in Swansea. The ship had been launched on the Tyne by Mitchell and Co. in February that year for Carr Line of Hamburg. It had been specifically designed for the emigrant service operating between Hamburg and New York and could accommodate over 1000 passengers. Carr Line had…

The Cambrian newspaper  said  ‘Living memory holds nothing to compare with it and local history offers no parallel.”  It was a terrible day.  A south westerly gale on 27 January 1883 caused the death of over fifty people, including four of the Mumbles lifeboat crew.The storm broke at about 5.00 am and within thirty minutes…

Mynyddbach Chapel is lovely, a small comfortable place, an archetypal Welsh Chapel, the oldest Independent chapel in Swansea. and you can find it set back from Llangyfelach Road in Treboeth. It was built in 1867, renovated in the middle of the twentieth century and threatened with demolition in the twenty first. It was saved by…

This is a grave that either contains mysteries – or contains nothing at all. It is simple and unassuming, close to the wall of the parish church in Caio in Carmarthenshire. It is the grave of John Harries who, together with his son Henry, became known as the dyn hysbys (cunning men) of Cwrtycadno .…

THE TEARS OF A CLOWN Walter Wallace had come to Swansea to murder his wife but these things never work out as you plan. He was driven slowly back upstairs by the police, who were understandably alarmed by the razor blade he held in one hand and the extremely unreliable revolver he had in the…

The Pontardawe Tragedy of October 1888 became inevitable once Thomas Lott had been employed cutting chaff. With a sharp knife. He also worked occasionally as a butcher. With a sharp knife. And most significantly of all, he worked in the abattoir. With a sharp knife. This story is a terrible thing. Elemental. Terrifying. Your dead…

     Clyro is such a peaceful place. The traffic rumbles along the A438 on the edge of the village but the untroubled churchyard is a tranquil haven and you can imagine Francis Kilvert sitting next to you on his favourite old tomb next to one of the splendid yew trees, and enjoying together the beauty…

    There is a sense of ancient history about St. Llawddog’s church in Cilgerran. Of forgotten stories, of secrets.      To find Cilgerran you should leave Cardigan on the A478 towards Narberth and turn left into the town.  It is a pretty place, with a dominant and picturesque Norman castle standing above the Teifi. It…

John Renie’s gravestone is odd. There is no other way to describe it. Unless you call it a “curiosity.” But I am sure you won’t have seen anything like it before. It is unique. A square of stone upon which a puzzle has been etched, as if it was a large piece of paper on…