The Shanty Evaluation - Penllergare Valley Woods

THE SHANTY, PENLLERGARE,
SWANSEA:

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVALUATION

Prepared by Dyfed Archaeological Trust
For: Nicholas Pearson Associates Limited

DYFED ARCHAEOLOGICAL TRUST
RHIF YR ADRODDIAD / REPORT NO. 2010/21

Mawrth 2010
March 2010

THE SHANTY, PENLLERGARE, SWANSEA:
ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVALUATION

Gan / By

K MURPHY

Paratowyd yr adroddiad yma at ddefnydd y cwsmer yn unig. Ni dderbynnir cyfrifoldeb gan Ymddiriedolaeth
Archaeolegol Dyfed Cyf am ei ddefnyddio gan unrhyw berson na phersonau eraill a fydd yn ei ddarllen neu ddibynnu ar

y gwybodaeth y mae’n ei gynnwys
The report has been prepared for the specific use of the client. Dyfed Archaeological Trust Limited can accept no
responsibility for its use by any other person or persons who may read it or rely on the information it contains.

Ymddiriedolaeth Archaeolegol Dyfed Cyf Dyfed Archaeological Trust Limited
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CADEIRYDD CHAIRMAN: C R MUSSON MBE B Arch FSA MIFA. CYFARWYDDWR DIRECTOR: K MURPHY BA MIFA

The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

THE SHANTY, PENLLERGARE, SWANSEA: ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVALUATION

CONTENTS PAGE

SUMMARY 1

INTRODUCTION 2

Project Commission 2

Scope of the Project 2

Report Outline 2

Abbreviations 2

THE SITE 3

Location 3

Archaeological Potential 3

METHODOLOGY 3

RESULTS OF THE EVALUATION 4

CONCLUSIONS 5

SOURCES 5

FIGURES 6

Figure 1. The presumed location of The Shanty shown on a digitised version of
the Ordnance Survey 1877 map. Scale: grid at 100m intervals. North to top. 6

Figure 2. Location of the excavation trenches shown against the topographic

survey by Gwalia. Scale: grid at 10m intervals. North to top. 7

Figure 3. Location of trenches against a digitised version of the 1877 Ordnance

Survey map. Note: the trenches are only approximately located in relation to the

map; there may be an error of up to 5m. North to top. 8

Figure 4. Suggested reconstructed layout of The Shanty. 9

PHOTOGRAPHS 10

Photograph 1. The Shanty in c.1852 looking towards the northeast. 10

Photograph 2. Taken during the evaluation from approximately the same 10
viewpoint as Photograph 1.

Photograph 3. The Shanty in c.1852 looking north. 11

Photograph 4. Looking north from the approximate viewpoint of 11

Photograph 5. The Shanty taken after 1856 from the south. 12

Photograph 6. The site during the evaluation from the south from approximately

the same position as Photograph 5. T 12

Photograph 7. The Shanty in c.1852 looking northeast. 13

Photograph 8. The evaluation taken from approximately the same location as

Photograph 7. 13

Photograph 9. Trench 3 looking south. 14

Photograph 10. Looking north with Trench 5 in the foreground towards the large

flat slab in Trench 4. 14

Dyfed Archaeological Trust Report No 2010/21

The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

THE SHANTY, PENLLERGARE, SWANSEA: ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVALUATION

Summary
An evaluation on the site of a mid 19th-century summerhouse/boat house known
as The Shanty on the Upper Lake, Penllergare, Swansea demonstrated that
archaeological remains had been substantially destroyed by engineering and
other works in the 1980s.

The Shanty was probably built at the same time as the Upper Lake dam was
constructed, in the late 1830s. It was photographed many times by John Dillwyn
Llewelyn in the 1850s. It is not shown on the Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First
Edition map of 1877; it had presumably gone out of use by then. It was a rustic
structure, with a shingle roof supported on untrimmed tree trunks, resting on a
stone plinth/steps. The photographs show that it functioned as a summerhouse
and boathouse, with the dock for a small boat situated between the stone
foundation and the west bank of the lake.

Apart from some loose, large stone blocks and a spread of stone from a
foundation make-up deposit, virtually no trace of The Shanty was found during
the evaluation.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

INTRODUCTION

Project commission

Nicholas Pearson Associates Limited, acting on behalf of the Penllergare Trust, on
14 December 2009 asked the Dyfed Archaeological Trust to undertake an
evaluation on the site of The Shanty, Penllergare, Swansea. Dyfed Archaeological
Trust provided a written scheme of investigation in response to this request. This
was approved on the 26 February 2010. The fieldwork took place on the 22-23
March 2010.

Scope of the project

The evaluation has been designed to provide information on the character,
extent, date, state of preservation and significance of any surviving
archaeological deposits within the site area in order that an assessment of the
impact of any future works on any remains can be determined.

Report outline

This report describes the location of the site along with its archaeological
background before summarising the evaluation results and the conclusions based
on those results.

Abbreviations

Sites recorded on the Regional Historic Environment Record are identified by their
Primary Record Number (PRN) and located by their National Grid Reference
(NGR).

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

THE SITE

Location

The Shanty is a 19th-century summerhouse/boathouse located on the edge of
Penllergare Upper Lake (Glamorgan-Gwent HER no. 04954w, NGR SS 6243
9921), on the outskirts of Swansea. It was probably built at the same time as the
Upper Lake dam was constructed in the late 1830s. It was a photographed many
times by John Dillwyn Llewelyn (the owner and ‘creator’ of Penllergare) in the
1850s (Photos. 1, 3, 5 and 7) and is shown on a painting by his daughter, Emma
Charlotte. It is not shown on the Ordnance Survey 1:2500 First Edition map of
1877; it had presumably gone out of use by then.

The approximate location of The Shanty can be estimated from studying the
historical illustrations and the 1877 Ordnance Survey map (Fig. 1). It was located
on the west bank of the Upper Lake on the north side of a small bay. Photographs
of the 1850s show that The Shanty sat approximately 1.2m – 1.5m above the
water on a stone foundation with rustic stone steps leading down to the lake. It
was a rustic structure, with a shingle roof supported on untrimmed tree trunks.
The photographs show that it functioned as a summerhouse and boathouse, with
the dock for a small boat situated between the stone foundation and the west
bank of the lake. A path ran alongside the lake and past The Shanty. A suggested
layout of the site is provided in Figure 4.

There is now no trace of The Shanty. A modern track over a sewer pipe runs
along the lake edge. Close to the site of the Shanty this track is slightly further to
the west than the original lakeside path and probably about a metre higher.
Immediately to the north of The Shanty are large silt traps retained by stone-
filled wire-basket gabions and concrete. It seems likely that waste material
resulting from these various engineering works, which took place in the 1980s,
was dumped over the site of The Shanty, raising the ground level by 0.5m to 1m.
The lake was dredged (at the same time as the engineering works?), but is now
largely silted up again. The surviving lake height is approximately that of the
historic lake height – roughly 49.17m above sea level.

Archaeological Potential

There was potential for the stone foundation, the rustic steps and the boat dock
to survive beneath the 1980s dumped material.

METHODOLOGY

Initially the intention was to open two machine-excavated trenches (Trenches 1
and 2 – Figs. 2 and 3). However, once on site it was deemed necessary to open
several other trenches. The trenches were excavated using a 6-tonne tracked
machine with a 1.8m wide toothless ditching bucket. The trenches were
excavated to a maximum depth of 1.5m. The excavation took place on the 22-23
March 2010. The trenches were back-filled on the afternoon of the 23 March.

It was intended to hand-excavate and clean any revealed archaeological features,
and then record these using conventional archaeological techniques. However,
little of interest was revealed, and therefore recording comprised photographs
and sketch drawings. The location of the trenches and salient details were
recorded using a Trimble TST (Total Station – electronic distance measurer) using
station locations set up by a surveying company (Gwalia). All heights quoted in
this report are related to the data points established by Gwalia, which are
expressed in metres above sea level.

Several volunteers organised by the Penllergare Trust assisted in the evaluation.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

RESULTS OF THE EVALUATION (Figures 3 and 4, Photographs 1 - 10)

Trench 1

Trench 1 was positioned on the bank of the silted lake. Removal of recently
deposited superficial silts revealed a layer of stone rubble and silt that overlay a
geotextile mat, which was seen to overlie a compact layer of stone rubble and
brick. The stone was grey/blue in colour and not from a local source. These layers
date to the 1980s when the track/sewer was constructed, and it appeared that
the geotextile had been laid to provide stability to the stone rubble. The trench
was immediately back-filled.

Trench 2

Trench 2 was parallel to, and 4m to the north of, Trench 1. It was a maximum of
1.3m deep, its bottom a little above the height of the current lake. The main fill of
this trench comprised black silts, which probably survived the 1980s dredging. A
layer of flat, shattered, local stone lay on the bottom of part of the trench. The
deposits revealed at the western end of the trench were similar to those in Trench
1, comprising compact rubble derived from the track/sewer construction.

Trench 3

Trench 3 ran approximately north to south and was c.1.5m deep, with the bottom
being up to 0.15m below the current lake level. It was entirely filled with silt, tree
trunks (with sawn ends), large branches, pieces of plastic and car tyres. Several
large stone blocks lay in the silt at the junction of this trench and Trench 4. This
deposit continued below the bottom of the trench. It is probably mostly derived
from the excavation of the silt traps in the 1980s, with the stone blocks
representing demolition remnants of The Shanty.

Trench 4

This trench was roughly parallel to Trench 2, c.8m to the north. It was up to 1.5m
deep at its eastern end, but only 0.8m at its western end. A large slab of local
stone (1m x 0.6m 0.2m) lay horizontally towards the western end of the trench.
The surface of the slab was at 50.65m OD, approximately 1.48m above the lake
surface. It was initially considered that this was an in situ paving/step slab of The
Shanty. However, further investigation demonstrated that it sat on modern
rubble, tree trunks and silt. Silts predominated at the eastern end of the trench
with just an occasional presence of stone blocks, but stone dominated to the
west, with the layer composed almost entirely of stone rubble. The larger stone
blocks were locally derived, but most of the smaller stones were not from a local
source. Some crushed wire frames for gabions were present at the west end of
the trench.

Trench 5

This was a short spur trench running south from the large stone slab in Trench 4.
The bottom sloped down from north to south. It was excavated to a maximum
depth of 1.3m. The upper deposits comprised modern compacted stone and silt,
which overlay broken slabs of local stone. This underlying layer seemed to be
about 0.5m thick, but it was not investigated in detail.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

CONCLUSIONS

It is clear from the evaluation that the remains of The Shanty have been virtually
destroyed. This destruction occurred during two, probably related, episodes: the
construction of a track/sewer and the building of silt traps/lake dredging.

A considerable amount of engineering was involved in order to construct the
track/sewer, including the provision of a firm foundation, evidenced by the stone
rubble in the western ends of trenches 1, 2 and 4. Rubble was also dumped into
what was probably in the 1980s a silted, marshy inlet to the lake in the vicinity of
Trench 5. It is likely that at this time any remains of The Shanty were spread and
mixed up with this imported stone. The large blocks of stone revealed in the
trenches are the result of this destruction. During or after construction of the
track/sewer, material comprising silt, fallen trees, plastic and other modern
debris, was spread across the site when the silt traps were excavated. This
material was mostly revealed in Trench 3. It is likely that heavy machinery used
during silt trap excavation stood on hard standing laid over the site of The Shanty
causing more damage to the already substantially destroyed archaeological
remains.

The broken slabs of local stone towards the base of trenches 4 and 5 (and also
spread as far as Trench 2), underlying the modern material, are most probably
remains of the make-up for the foundation of the Shanty, laid down on the valley
floor prior to the flooding of the valley in the late 1830s. Figure 4 is a conjectural
map of The Shanty as it may have been in the mid 19th century.

SOURCES

All sources in this report are taken from the Penllergare Database, maintained by
the Dyfed Archaeological Trust.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Figure 1. The presumed location of The Shanty shown on a digitised version of the Ordnance
Survey 1877 map. Scale: grid at 100m intervals. North to top.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Figure 2. Location of the excavation trenches shown against the topographic survey by Gwalia.
Scale: grid at 10m intervals. North to top.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Figure 3. Location of trenches against a digitised version of the 1877 Ordnance Survey map. Note:
the trenches are only approximately located in relation to the map; there may be an error of up to

5m. North to top.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Figure 4. Suggested reconstructed layout of The Shanty.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Photograph 1. Top. The Shanty in c.1852 looking towards the northeast.

Photograph 2. Bottom. Taken during the evaluation from approximately the same viewpoint as
Photograph 1.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Photograph 3. Top. The Shanty in c.1852 looking north.

Photograph 4. Bottom. Looking north from the approximate viewpoint of Photograph 3. The figure
is in same position as that in Photograph 3.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Photograph 5. Left. The Shanty taken
after 1856 from the south.

Photograph 6. Below. The site during the
evaluation from the south from

approximately the same position as
Photograph 5. The figures are in

approximately the same position in
photographs 5 and 6.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Photograph 7. Top. The Shanty in c.1852 looking northeast.

Photograph 8. Bottom. The evaluation taken from approximately the same location as
Photograph 7.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

Photograph 9. Above. Trench 3
looking south.

Photograph 10.Left. Looking north
with Trench 5 in the foreground
towards the large flat slab in
Trench 4. Note the slabs of local
stone on the slope in the
foreground.

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The Shanty, Penllergare: Archaeological Evaluation

RHIF YR ADRODDIAD / REPORT NUMBER 2010/21
Mawrth 2010
March 2010

Paratowyd yr adroddiad hwn gan / This report has been prepared by K Murphy

Swydd / Position: Trust Director

Llofnod / Signature Dyddiad / Date 30 March 2010

Mae’r adroddiad hwn wedi ei gael yn gywir a derbyn sêl bendith
This report has been checked and approved by J Meek

ar ran Ymddiriedolaeth Archaeolegol Dyfed Cyf.
on behalf of Dyfed Archaeological Trust Ltd.

Swydd / Position: Head of Field Services

Llofnod / Signature .............…....…………....... Dyddiad / Date 30 March 2010

Yn unol â’n nôd i roddi gwasanaeth o ansawdd uchel, croesawn unrhyw sylwadau
sydd gennych ar gynnwys neu strwythur yr adroddiad hwn

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Dyfed Archaeological Trust 15 Report No 2010/21