Cricket Witness No 5 - Whites on Green

15 Chapter Two The creation of St. Helen’s With the Copperopolis of Swansea continuing to expand in both economic and geographic terms, it came as no surprise to many that during the early months of 1873 Robert Eaton, the owner of the Bryn-y-Mor Field, agreed to a proposal for house-building on his property. The formal announcement of the proposals was made in The Cambrian newspaper on 21 March, but by this time the cricketers of Swansea were already in discussion with other landowners about an alternative venue. Indeed, the problems with the drainage at Bryn-y-Mor had already led the club to use Primrose Field – a recreation ground in a more central location of the town which subsequently became the headquarters of Swansea’s Working Men’s Club. It was however, a far from ideal venue for either cricket or rugby as it had a pronounced slope, but at least it was a dry surface. Indeed, one of the criteria which the re-established Field Committee of the Swansea club had identified as being an important factor in their search for a new venue was drainage. With a plethora of locations with sandy soils on the foreshore of Swansea Bay, JTD Llewelyn and James Livingston made contact during 1872 with Colonel Evan Morgan who leased from Swansea Corporation a strip of land and sand dunes near the St. Helen’s tollgate. The scheme which the Swansea officials had hatched involved the A map of Swansea, dated 1852, showing St. Helen’s and Bryn-y-Mor on the western fringes of Swansea.