Mumbles and Gower

Mumbles and Gower played a very important part in Dylan Thomas’ life, although he was essentially a ‘townee’.

‘MUMBLES, a rather nice village, despite its name,
right on the edge of the sea’

‘GOWER is a very beautiful peninsula, some miles from
this blowsy town….as a matter of fact it is one of the
loveliest sea-coast stretches in the whole of Britain’.

This is how Dylan described these areas around Swansea in his early letters to his first serious girlfriend, Pamela Hansford Johnson.

Dylan Thomas was essentially what he referred to as a ‘townee’. He wrote to his close friend Vernon Watkins, ‘I’m not a country man; I stand for….. the provincial drive, the morning café, the evening pub…’

He lived most of his short life in towns or cities – Swansea, London, Oxford, New York, but the countryside, in particular the Welsh countryside and sea-side, played a very important part in his life, and had a profound influence on his work. It is some of these influences that this trail seeks to illuminate.

This journey does require the use of a car or public transport.  It would be best to allow a full day to get the best of this trail with a car. On public transport, it might be best done as several trips.

The Mumbles and Gower Trail will be published online soon.

This post is also available in: Welsh