Sacred Heart Morriston at School Road, Morriston, Swansea, West Glamorgan SA6 6HZ UK - History of Sacred Heart Parish

[For an interesting article by Councillor Ioan M. Richard on “Eglwys Llan Eithrim” a very early Celtic Roman Catholic Church, see below!]

The last person to write on the history of the Parish was the late Mr Oswald Morris.  Mr Morris wrote to commemorate two memorable occasions in the life of the parish - Canon James Morrissey’s 40th anniversary in the priesthood, and some 48 years ago the editing of a souvenir magazine to commemorate the opening of the present church.

The parish of Morriston emerged as a result of need - during the late 19th Century the population of Swansea grew as the Industrial Revolution demanded more workers. Many Irish families sought a living in the area, escaping the potato famine of 1846.  In the centre of Swansea,  St David’s Church (1851) and St Joseph’s Church (1866) were opened.  The Ursulines of Jesus began their work in Swansea in 1860.

In the district of Morriston, the former ’Hope’ Baptist chapel was purchased in 1899 by the Benedictines.  The building was constructed around 1890 of corrugated iron.  For many years the parish was administered alongside the communities of Clydach and Ystradgynlais, but in 1922 was separated, becoming an independent parish.  The parish continued to be administered by the Benedictines of St Joseph’s until they were recalled in 1932, and the parish was handed over to the Archbishop of Cardiff.

The first resident priest in Morriston was Fr. J. Nowell, who served until 1940, during which time he saw the current presbytery built in School Road, adjacent to a piece of land, part of which was the site for the current church.

The old church was destroyed by fire on Holy Saturday, 12 April 1952.  The cause of the fire is still unknown.  A building fund was commenced  to begin paying for the construction of the new church, which was completed in 1955.  Alongside the entrance to the Lady Chapel/front door of the current church, you can still see the small collection box for the building fund, which remained open after completion of the building.  Construction began 6 December 1953, with the main structure completed by December 1954.

The new church was officially opened with a Solemn High Mass on Thursday of Easter week, 14 April 1955.  For those new to the parish, it may come as a surprise to note that when originally opened, the church building was exactly the reverse of the current layout.  The sanctuary was at rear of the church, in the space now occupied by the choir loft and organ.  The present pulpit was the location of the choir.  The photos alongside this text give an idea of the internal and external appearance of the building as it then was.  You will recognise some of the details however. The pews, statues, stations of the cross, crucifix, tabernacle and (part of) the altar rail can still be seen in the church today.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s with the building of many new residential estates in Morriston and the surrounding area, the numbers of people in the parish began to expand.  As a result it was decided that more space was needed in the church, as it was built to accommodate 200 worshippers.  A number of options were considered, but it was finally decided to switch the focus of the building around, to construct a new sanctuary at the rear, and allow for a congregation of 250 people.  In 1963 the re-ordered church was completed. Much of the interior furnishing was retained - the pews, the Stations of the Cross, Crucifix, the altar rail and statues of the Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Lourdes, St Joseph and St Anthony.

The bright new sanctuary is quite a departure from the original layout, consisting of 5 arches with myriad coloured windows, which are a beautiful sight on a sunny day. On entering the church, attention was immediately drawn, as it should be, to the striking, yet simple new altar, supported by tapered plinths.  At that time the altar was located about 1-2 foot from the wall, and the domed tabernacle was situated on the altar itself. Despite the modern design, the building was finished prior to the conclusions of the Second Vatican Council, so the priest still celebrated Holy Mass with his back to the people.

To the left of the new sanctuary is the Lady Chapel, with etched glass panel to the left of the doorway.  A simple room for quiet prayer. The etched glass shows Mary with the child Jesus, giving the appearance of a tabernacle around the child.

The changes did not end there. Soon after the completion of the sanctuary, further extensions were made at the rear of the building to accommodate an organ that had become available. This was going to be placed in the choir loft, but given that this would not allow room for the choir and additional seating for the congregation, it was agreed that a small extension be built over the baptistery and porch to house the organ.

A baptistery was sited at the rear of the church, which is now the repository or shop. The etched glass panels that adorn the former baptistery can still be seen, and you will notice the ’Beatles’-style haircuts worn by the angels- this was the 1960s after all. A portable font has been used for many years, as the focus of the celebration is before the altar rather than at the back of the church. Reflecting the change of use of the baptistery, the concrete font was removed in 1988 and can now be seen in the front garden of the presbytery!

Following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, the main altar was moved forward  to its current position to enable mass to be said facing the people (this took place in around 1967).  The tabernacle remained central, but was placed on a wooden plinth behind the altar.

The early 1980s saw the acquisition by the parish of the old Soar Chapel and vestry on School Road. The building was renovated by the Manpower Commission, and included the refurbishment of the large 3-manual organ located in the Main Hall.  The building has been in use ever since by the parish, but also a wide range of community groups, from Morris Dancers to pantomime rehearsals.

In December 2001 the altar rail was removed, in line with the teaching that there should be no separation between priest and people; now even more so the large main altar is the focal point of celebration of the sacraments for the parish community.  The sacristy area has been extended to allow more adequate storage for vestments, candles, books and altar linen, and also contains more space for arrangement of flowers and other church decoration.

Over the past century, while the buildings have changed, and familiar faces have come and gone, the essential component remains the same -  the people that make up the living bricks and mortar of our Parish.  As in  countless parishes across the world, they continue to meet regularly to celebrate Mass and the other sacraments together to the Glory of God the Father, through Jesus Christ his Son, in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

29 December 2002

City & County Councillor Ioan M. Richard

23, Mountain Road, Craigcefnparc, Swansea SA6 5RH

Tel  01792 843861        e mail   aptrefor@yahoo.co.uk  

“The Road to Llan Eithrim”           by Ioan ap Trefor

Today’s travellers in and out of the City and County of Swansea use many thoroughfares. They may curse the Speed Cameras in the west and road works in the east, or the confusions at the massive M4 Roundabout in the north at Ynysforgan. The history of our road network is worthy of a grand study in its own right. That is for another day and a real historian. I’d like to take you on a jumbled journey on the road to Llan Eithrim which will involve no original research, so take all of this journey as a secondary sourced jaunt through several centuries. One road that I use frequently is the Llangyfelach road north out of the city centre. There is no doubt that this is part of the ancient highway network in and out of Swansea or Abertawe. This links to an old way at Pantlasau (near Morriston Hospital today). As we know the old word used for a church in Wales is a “Llan” normally associated with some real or legendary saint. The “Llan”, usually meaning the entire church building complex and graveyard, is   sometimes interpreted as the whole enclosure. Today on passing Llangyfelach Church for Morriston Hospital  we pass under the M4 by Gors Lan Farm and Gors Lan Common, wetland common associated with the Church (Lan). Next is Maes Eglwys Farm (or the Church Fields) on the river Llan, a part of Pantlasau or green hollow, signifying cultivated land. Could these have been Glebe lands? On a short diversion up Rhydypandy road there is the Dorglwyd which signified it was gated and above that Cefn Betinge Farm or a place beyond the fallow land. The road that crosses at Pantlasau coming up from Cwmrhydyceirw is called Heol Llanllienwen (the road of the Nuns of the White Order). A whole sequence of names associated with the “Llan” or Church at Llangyfelach. Incidentally this “cross road”, an ancient  forerunner of the M4,  led to the West and Ireland, via Penywaun Farm, Llangyfelach, the home in the mid Seventeenth Century of young Phillip Jones who became Governor of South Wales in Cromwell’s Protectorate. Colonel Phillip Jones was a signature to the warrant of “Regicide” to execute King Charles 1^st. On the return of the Monarchy he survived a purge of those who signed the death warrant. Not many Welshmen can lay claim to be party to killing a King of England!

We need to return to our road. At Pantlasau we needed to swing around onto a continuation of this ancient road going east behind the hospital into Heol Gelliwastad skirting Mynydd Gelliwastad (of the flat groved mountain) and continue down into Clydach. Here it crossed the Lower Clydach river falls at Forge Fach, a very early industrial site of simple cottages with coal levels and a forge with facilities to mill iron and a woollen mill downstream. The road then continued edging the fields of Down Farm and its stream, now Down Street and Heol y Nant of old town Clydach or the Faerdref. The road then swings up hill as Heol Gellionnen onto Mynydd Gellionnen (ash tree groved mountain). We will return to the name Clydach and the significant location Gellionnen later. The road soon descends to cross the Upper Clydach river and ascends up, passing the locality of the ancient Llangiwg Church,  and over Mynydd Gwrhyd  towards Cae Gurwen manor and Mynydd Du and beyond. Our journey now ends.

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This sinuous lengthy narrow road was once a significant ancient highway from Swansea passing several small settlements and their ancient churches on to Mynydd Du and beyond. This was centuries before industry developed the area, with its present maze of many roads and villages and townships  as we now know it.

We now need to retrace our steps in time and distance to Clydach and Mynydd Gellionnen to complete our journey to Llan Eithrim. There are many places in Wales called Clydach. Our Clydach on Tawe with the Lower and Upper Clydach rivers as major tributaries of the Tawe is one. Dyffryn Clydach near Neath is another. Also a river Clydach at Brechfa, Carmarthenshire, and Clydach Gorge near Abergavenney.

Remember the song lyrics – “If you ever go across the sea to Ireland, then maybe at the closing of the day, you will sit and watch the moonrise over Claddagh, and see the sun go down on Galway Bay”.  Claddagh is a famous suburb of Galway city and is named after the river that drains Loch Corrib in a short rocky torrent into the sea. The famous heart shaped Claddagh Ring is worn by Irish colleens and it depends which way the heart is pointing on whether the girl is promised to a sweetheart or not. There are indeed very many “Clydaghs” in Ireland, far more than in Wales. In the deep archive vaults at County Hall, Swansea, the oldest item in the entire West Glamorgan’s massive Archive Collection is an ancient calf skin vellum document dating back to the year 1129. It is an inventory of the Neath Abbey Estate that the monks prepared and it refers to a “Cloydach” nearly a thousand years ago in our locality.  There are many explanations to the meaning and derivation of the word Clydach, and many variations in both the Welsh and Irish languages. These are all different but they seem to have one common root – they all lead back to a rapid, rocky, noisy river tumbling quickly through a stony bed.

One tributary of the Lower Clydach river is Nant y Capel that joins it at the New Inn public house. This stream has its source up on Mynydd Gellionnen near Gellionnen’s Unitarian Chapel or the “White Chapel” or Capel Gellionnen, which is just North of the road we’ve been following. Location National Grid Map Reference SN 701 042. This was founded for Protestant Dissenters in 1692 in an era of religious unrest. In 1801 the now Unitarian Chapel was rebuilt and at that time an ancient stone was placed into the wall. This carved stone had variously been used as a gate post and as a horse mounting stone. It had been found on the open mountain common nearby as one of several fragments of an original larger carving. Those involved must surely have recognised its antiquity if not its importance. The Royal Institution of South Wales (Swansea Museum) was not set up until 1835 so perhaps it was fortunate that the Unitarians saved this stone in the wall of their chapel high up on Mynydd Gellionnen. Indeed in 1853 Lady Mackworth of the Gnoll Estate in Neath had workmen to pillage ancient stones from all around the area to create a “Grotto” (a glorified rockery) in the estate’s garden! These are now saved elsewhere as valuable museum pieces known as the “Gnoll Stones”.

Our road journey has paused on top of Mynydd Gellionnen in terms of distance travel. We now need to do some “time travelling” to unravel the mystery of the stones found there.  The Llangyfelach Tithe Map of 1839 has a small parcel of land, at today’s Ordnance Survey Map grid Reference SN 697 037, entered on the Tithe Map and its Register as a small field parcel number “5645 - Penlle’r Fynwent” (the headland with a graveyard) this is located immediately downstream of Ffynnon Wen (white spring) 

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the source of Nant y Capel stream a little South of Capel Gellionnen. This “graveyard” and Chapel are certainly not connected. Up until about seventy years ago this small enclosure had the outline of a small building now long gone. This is recognised by most historical researchers as the site of “Eglwys Llan Eithrim” a very early Celtic Roman Catholic Church. Llaneithrim is recorded in the annals of the Book of Llandaff known in Latin as “Liber Landevensis” the ancient register  of the

Cathedral Church of Llandaff compiled around the year 1125. In this ancient manuscript it is written that Bishop Herewald, who was installed in 1056, consecrated Llan Eithrim Church at about 1060 and installed a Priest called Guidir to officiate mass there.

There can be little doubt that  the Carved Stones of antiquity found nearby on Mynydd Gellionnen must surely be associated with this ancient church and no other. A church sited there, in what is now a secluded remote site, must have been close to a nearby existing highway, and that highway must have been the road we’ve been following. The main stone section is a carving of a Priest in Vestments of the Irish style from the Ninth Century pre dating the entry in the  Book of Llandaff. This stone was gifted in 1967 by the Trustees of Capel Gellionnen to the safe keeping at Swansea Musuem where it stands proudly on display in a protective case long known as “the Gellionnen Stone”. It is local Pennant Sandstone and just one of several fragments. Originally it would have had a Wheel Cross at its head. The Wheel stone Cross is believed to be now in the porch of the deconsecrated Llangiwg Church at Rhydyfro, Pontardawe. Perhaps one day wisdom will prevail and for posterity and safe keeping these two larger fragments should be reunited as one large stone and put proudly on display in a safe public museum haven. There is an abundance of references to LlanEithrim in historical journals, yet nobody can shed any light on the meaning or origin of the word / name “Eithrim”. All the experts shrug their shoulders and say it is “obscure”. The word Eithrim lives on in several local farm names and even street names in Clydach. In my lifetime I have spoken to my elders who clearly remember another unusual feature in the vicinity of LlanEithrim – a “Sulphur Well” that was well known locally as “Ffynnon Rotten Eggs”. This water reputedly had healing powers. Could this have been why a nearby house is called “The Spa”? Unfortunately this well dried up about sixty years ago and was lost due to underground subsidence of its waters into the workings of the Darren Colliery underneath at Trebanos. Could it have been a “Holy well” associated with LlanEithrim? At the time of writing, summer 2007, the St Benedict’s Roman Catholic Church  at Clydach, is celebrating its Centenary. From the evidence of Llan Eithrim it seems that the Christian faith has been celebrating Mass high above Clydach for at least one thousand two hundred years at Llan Eithrim.   On a personal note, I’d like to think that those ancient folk who celebrated their Mass at Llan Eithrim were all monoglot Welsh speakers. Today we have a thriving Welsh medium Primary School on this road to Llan Eithrim – Ysgol Gynradd Gymraeg Gellionnen at Heol Gellionnen, Clydach. For its official opening day ten years ago in 1997 the late Arch Druid and Crowned Bard Dafydd Rowlands wrote of Gellionnen :-

“Mae hyfrydlais plant yn fyw fel blagur gwanwyn newydd, ac ar y tafodau ifainc bydd seiniau’r Gymraeg yn llafar hyderus”.

Ioan Ap Trefor, Craigcefnparc, Abertawe.                 V111  -  2007.