I’ve been looking at Google maps recently, exploring the city online and finding interesting nooks and crannies. I knew about this Bronze Age stone in Bon-y-maen, to the North East of the city, and I have even visited and drawn it, but I never really gave much thought to the area around it.
The name means “The Base Of The Stone” and legend says that it is joined up with the Penmaen stone many miles away on the Gower Peninsula (Penmaen means “The Head Of The Stone”). It might have been erected on this site as much as 4,000 years ago and no-one knows if there were dwellings there at the time, although it’s long been suspected that there may be prehistoric burials. It’s up on a hill overlooking the River Tawe valley and Swansea Bay, a good vantage point.
Settlements eventually grew up around it and the nearest houses look to be small 19th century terraced buildings, possibly built to house workers during the rapid development of the Industrial Revolution. The pollution was so bad back then that the farmers in the area had to give up as the land became poisoned from copper, lead and silver smelting. The area was also badly bombed during the Swansea Blitz in World War 2 and bomb craters, now green with vegetation, can be seen on satellite maps.
scribblah 