Port Talbot (Aberafan) has a long history as a port, although much of the town’s historic identity is swallowed up by the dominant steelworks . Coal was moved down the Afan Valley to a site originally known as Llewellyn’s Quay, probably from the 1600s or earlier. By the 1750s, a tram line had replaced the pack horse route, and by 1811, iron was also being moved through the valley. Copper ore was imported for the copper works at Cwmafan by the 1830s, and a wharf near Llewellyn’s Quay was built to handle ore (the original Copper Works Wharf).
Port Talbot was identified as a port of interest because of the two large integrated steelworks. The dock was also considered vulnerable because it could be destroyed by bombs on the lock gate and entrance.
Above: Port Talbot from Luftwaffe intelligence records created in 1938-39.
The Luftwaffe surveys of the Welsh ports are an incredible record of past landscapes that have now changed. Although the intent of the reconnaissance missions was to prepare for the bombing of the South Wales ports in 1940 and 1941, they also recorded some of the earliest and finest detail if the coastal landscape. Many of the best surviving images are explained and interpreted in Eye of the Eagle: Luftwaffe Intelligence and the South Wales Ports 1939-1941.
Below: The river mouth of the Afon Nedd and Briton Ferry in February 1941. The burrows had a road used since medieval times to allow travellers to cross the sands at low tides.
You can always contact me to buy the Cilfái books. Send me a message on FB or use WhatsApp or LinkedIn. Or you can email me at my Gmail address. Eye of the Eagle will be available at an illustrated Bo0k Launch talk at Swansea Central Library in early June. I will probably do some talks on the air war over Wales later in the summer.
You can also buy copies of the Cilfái books at the lovely little shop in Swansea Environment Centre. It’s the only shop in Swansea that stocks them.
If you want to buy the books online, the easiest way is to buy them direct from lulu.com because these are the people who print them. In fact if you use Amazon all they actually do is contact lulu. So cut out the middle man and go straight to lulu.
So you can buy Cilfái: Historical Geography on Kilvey Hill, Swansea. This is the history book of the trilogy and it covers the biggest topics in the history of the Hill. So that is Coal, Copper, Pollution, Restoration and Repair and the Nature Recovery. This one also includes Annexes covering the legal background to White Rock Copper Works from 1737, and the Geological history and the pioneering explorations of William Logan. 126pp, fully indexed and referenced.
The second book of the trilogy is Cilfái: Woodland Management and Climate Change on Kilvey Hill, Swansea. This one covers the environmental issues faced by the hill and the woodlands. A lot of this one reflects my past government work as a programme reviewer for Defra, DCMS and Historic England, particularly where matters of the environment are concerned. I’m a qualified ecological surveyor and have been involved in a number of large environmental schemes since the 2010s. This book is built around my ecological surveys of the Hill and you will see a lot of Annexes here showing how we create Species and Habitat Action Plans for conservation, My records of everything I found within 1 km of The Glade (between 2010 and 2023) including Mammals, insects, Invasive Species and Reptilees and Amphibians. I also include my Open Mosaic Habitat plant list (including bombsite plants). I have produced a sample copy of a standard Woodland Management Plan to show people how to prepare a good conservation plan and I finish up with my discoveries and monitoring of bat populations on the Hill. This book also has discussions of landscape resilience and climate change issues as we saw them in UK Government.130 pp, fully indexed and referenced.
The final Cilfái book is Cilfái: The History and Heritage Features on Kilvey Hill, Swansea. This is based on my new surveys of all the heritage and historic features on the Hill. I spent a couple of years working for UK Parliament, chiefly as a heritage researcher so I picked up al ot of experience working with Parlamentary conservation departments, Historic England and Scottish Heritage. When I reviewed the current records of heritage and archaeology for the hill, I could see they were incomplete or needed updating. This book does that, and I’ve added maps and What3Words locations of all the heritage features on the Hill from the prehistoric sites, coal and copper industries up to the present day with The Green Man. I’ve also added a number of heritage featurews to the list that aren’t on the official lists. All this empasises the point about how special Cilfái actually is.
A lot of people know me as a historian specialising in World War Two and my latest book is a revised and much enlarged version of a book I originally published in 1993. Eye of the Eagle: Luftwaffe Intelligence and the South Wales Ports 1939-1941 takes me back to my original research field as a Historical Geographer investigating landscape history. Using Luftwaffe aerial photographs to study Gower landscape sent me in a different direction as I tried to understand the history behind German military intelligence activities in South Wales. Over many years I amassed a large collectionn of Luftwaffe intelligence which portays the reality of the war oiver Wales from the German viewpoint. It also provides a fantastic insight into the activities of the ports of Swansea, Cardiff, Barry and Llandarcy in their finest hour as they supported the nation’s defence and resilience. Using a combination of Luftwaffe intelligence documents and maps and local records from the 1930s, this book examines the reality of why the ports were bombed. A4 size, 170 pp, fully indexed and referenced.
Nigel Robins 