Category: Blog

It takes a lot of understanding, this story, although I particularly like the bit about the mice…Notwithstanding unexpected rodent interest, there are three main characters in this peculiar tale. Jessie Hill – the victim – a market gardener who lived on Carmarthen Road in Swansea Rhys Davies – the accused. A haulier from Penfilia Street.…

The house in High Street stank of fish. That is what the reporters first noticed –salt fish mingling in a sickly way with smells from the dwelling itself and with those from the backyard where the animals were kept.  A fit place for an intensive investigation by the local board of health, is what they…

Martha Ann Nash was buried in December 1885, aged 6. You can search for as long as you like but you won’t find her grave.  Today Llangyfelach cemetery is tangled and overgrown. It is does not readily reveal its secrets. No one seems to know where she is now. Poor Martha. Abandoned in death, just…

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…

This story is now available to read as a flipbook which can also be downloaded to your own device for free – Follow the link below this box https://heyzine.com/flip-book/3be01849ed.html 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…

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…