Nowadays, apart from visits to Blackpill Lido and nearby Clyne Gardens, a 48 acre paradise of 2,000 different plants, it's the view across Swansea Bay that people flock to the seafront walk for, and the most popular section has to be the trek from Blackpill to Oystermouth Square in Mumbles. But before setting out it is work taking a closer look at the Junction Restaurant because this listed building, dating from 1927, once played a key role as the old transformer house for the Mumbles Train. It was on March 25 1807 that a railroad carriage converted to carry people was conveyed by horse along the perimeter of Swansea Bay. Its destination was Mumbles, which at that time was an oyster harvesting and fishing village.

In later years the train was powered by steam, battery, petrol, diesel and , finally, electric tram. But after suviving the World War Two bombing of Swansea the train came to abrupt end on January 5 1960, when owners South Wales Transport succeeded in closing it down, preferring buses to the railway. The company claimed that the train was operating at a loss - but only a year later they revealed the railway was making a £5,500 a year profit and although they owned the track outright they had been charging themselves £12,000 rent.

There are many who still cling to the belief that the Mumbles Train will make a comeback; among them is retired printer Tony Cottle, chairman of the Mumbles Railway Preservation Society. He says, "I think something is going to happen because the City and County of Swansea is currently carrying out a feasibility study into the possibility of reviving the train in some form or other - and it would certainly ease congestion along Mumbles Road."

Tony is in the process of planning a series of celebrations to mark the 200th anniversary of the railway in 2007, and with such evident nostalgia attached to the train, enthusiasts are likely to converge on Swansea and Mumbles from across the world.
"People are always asking about the Mumbles Train and there's little doubt it would be a huge attraction if it was in service now," says Mr Cottle.

Looking back you can embrace the full extent of the contribution the area made to the development of the Industrial Revolution because in the far distance you can still see some of the country's heaviest industries, such as the Port Talbot Steelworks. Many have now passed into history, but as an industrial era it lives on, thanks in part to David Thomas, the man dubbed as the "father of the American iron industry," who helped the United States to become such an economic and industrial powerhouse. His Welsh background played a major role, of course, because he was born in Swansea.

Looking west to the picturesque seaside resort of Mumbles - where the only industry is tourism and fishing - the lighthouse dominates the view with the slipway for the Mumbles Lifeboat just in front. The lighthouse was built in 1794 as an essential aid to keep ships away from the dangerous Mixon Sands and Cherry Stone Rock. At the time Swansea was fast becoming one of the world's greatest seaports and so these precious vessels had to be protested at all costs. Initially lit by coal and then replaced by oil in 1799, it used to be paid for by passing ships. When the Great Western Railway took over in 1912 they insisted that all the keepers should be Mumbles men. The last keeper to man the lighthouse was Charles Cottie, serving until 1934. Charles would often have to stay on for up to a week if the weather was too rough for him to wade or row back to the mainland.

The lifeboat was established in 1835, again because of Swansea's increasing importance as an international seaport and it suffered its share of tragedies over the years. The worst single disaster came on April 23 1947, when all eight lifeboat men of Edward, Prince of Wales were lost attempting to rescue the 39 crew of the Newport-bound Samtampa.
On a lighter note, Derek Scott, former coxswain of the lifeboat, later became a renowned painter when he retired from active duty.

But the skateboard ramp, meanwhile, is not just an important viewpoint over the bay: towering above it through the trees on the other side of the road is the magnificent mansion home of Skewen-born singing star Bonnie Tyler - if you're lucky you might even catch a glimpse of her.

Discover the haunts of industrial pioneers to world-famous writers, take in the sights and visit one of the Mumbles' famous watering holes...

As we approach the West Cross housing estate on our right - due to the prime location a former council house here can fetch more than £250,000 - the seafront path is ringed by trees and green swathes of grass, eventually giving way to the West Cross Inn which stands as a refreshing oasis along our route.

Just before we come to it though, there is a memorial plaque set in stone on the grassy verge at the side of the path. It honours Amy Dillwyn, acclaimed as the world's first female industrialist. Born at Parc Beck she lived at Hendrefoilan Mansion until the death of her father, Lewis Llewellyn Dillwyn MP, in 1895 and then "lived frugally in Mumbles while she maintained and saved the family's zinc spelter works from massive bankruptcy."

Amy died in 1935 at the age of 90 having been among other things an author, town councillor, president of Swansea Hospital, chief fund raiser for Cwmdonkin Convalescent Home, a female emancipator, water polo player - and a cigar smoker.

Just a few yards further on is a stopping point for the Swansea Bay Rider, in some ways a scaled down version of the Mumbles Train, which operates daily throughout the summer months. It's decked out in red and black just like the Mumbles Train and runs between St Helen's and Southend, stopping at Blackpill, West Cross, Norton and Oystermouth, giving passengers the opportunity to get off to explore the sights of Swansea Bay.

The West Cross Inn is often the first port of call today just as it was when Sunday drinking was barred - except for people who had travelled three miles or more.
Len Morgans, current leaseholder of the Inn, says, "This was the first pub after the three mile limit outside Swansea - and the first place where you get a drink on a Sunday if you were not from the immediate area."
The Inn is a lot quieter than its predessor the Currant Tree was, as the 18th Century hostelry was a haunt of smugglers, who would smuggle anything that was taxed, notable tobaccos and spirits. Those days have long gone; the Currant Tree was destroyed by an unexplained fire in the late 19th Century, with the West Cross Inn eventually replacing it in the 1920s.

Pubs in Mumbles do, however, have a rich history that stretch back in some cases to Napoleonic time and nowadays of course the infamous 'Mumbles Mile', noted for its run of 10 or more drinking dens, attracts hen and stag parties from all over Wales and beyond.

The law that allowed "genuine travellers" to enjoy a drink on a Sunday remained a bone of contention among local people for many years and arguably the Religious Revival of 1904-05 led to a large number of inns closing. But most of the survivors are still around now, albeit with changed names. Poet Dylan Thomas, who famously described Swansea as an "ugly, lovely town" was frequently seen at the White Rose during his adult years.

Stop off for an ice-cream in one of the region's best-located gelateria and take a trip through time with the story of Oystermouth Castle...

Remarkably, there is another large swathe of grass on the Mumbles side of the West Cross Inn. The former Swansea Council had it in mind to clear the whole of the seafront of houses, and so when two came on the market next to the Inn the authority snapped them up and demolished them virtually the next day. But the action caused such an outburst of public opinion that the policy - ostensibly to improve the view - was abandoned.

After a 200 yard gap from the West Cross Inn we come across a row of fine detached and semi-detached houses, all with uninterrupted views over the bay. Their rear gardens extend down to the promenade, providing an ideal setting for tea on the lawn.

After a further short walk approaching Norton we reach another potential stopping point, a 'Gelateria (Italian for Ice Cream house) and Café'. A popular haunt for walkers and cyclists, you'll often see a fair crowd of people enjoying their ice-creams inside and out - depending on the weather. As owner Irena Dwyer ruefully admits, the promenade is completely weather-dependent and so, "if it rains there is nothing. But because there is no car access it is only walkers and cyclists who know we are here. It is, however, the perfect hideaway, especially on a sunny day."

As we approach Oystermouth Square a roadsign points the way to nearby Oystermouth Castle and on to Bracelet Bay, itself a mile or so further on beyond Mumbles. The earliest part of the castle monument - the front part of the central block or keep - was probably built by William de Londres in the 12th Century. It later became home to the Lords of Gower and was, it's believed, the likely centre of government in Gower, with Edward I paying a brief visit there in 1284. The de Breos family, who were given Gower by King John, rebuilt the castle in stone and much of what remains today is from that period. On the top floor of the chapel block, established in the 13th century, you can still see its impressive east window and this, and other chapel windows, retain their fine tracery and are widely regarded as among the finest in Wales.

From the 16th Century onwards the castle was largely abandoned and fell into ruin. Much later, in the 20th Century, it became the home of the Glamorgan Battalion of Local Defence Volunteers - the Home Guard. They were cheekily or playfully known as 'Look, Duck and Vanish' but they were men - and boys - from all walks of life in the Mumbles area.
Now, with the help of the 'Friends of Oystermouth Castle', Swansea Council are planning to make the castle as accessible as possible to the public. It's certainly a major tourist attraction, particularly among visiting Americans.

If you ever wondered why Oystermouth is so called, wonder no longer - the ground you walk here was once a centre of world importance in the oyster trade...

Oystermouth was always regarded as another name for Mumbles although today it is known as a district of the seaside resort. At all events it stands as a reminder of the area's historic and, indeed, long-lived reputation as a premier source of the most romantic of seafoods, the humble oyster, prized over the centuries for its aphrodisiac qualities.

The oyster trade was once the centre of this fishing village's life with Swansea Bay noted as a major source of the delicacy. And Mumbles folk didn't just harvest oysters - they also thrived on them. They became a stable diet, whether it was fried in omelettes, cooked in breadcrumbs or used to fill steak which was then grilled. Many tucked into them with fish and chips out of a paper bag.

The Romans, who developed a taste for Burry Inlet cockles from further along the coast, were among the first to appreciate the delights of oysters, too, and in 5th Century Wales there is evidence they consumed huge quantities during their occupation, with these possibly coming from from Swansea Bay.

A strong trade in oysters was developed in Swansea during the Middle Ages and the oyster beds off-shore at Mumbles were considered the most prolific in the country by 1684 when the first Duke of Beaufort toured Wales. In later centuries the holder of this title profited greatly from Swansea's oyster trade, demanding rent from workers for maintaining "plantations" of oysters on the waterside he owned.

In the 17th century the oyster dredging was conducted from small rowing boats hauled by the women of Mumbles. A vessel with a rig was introduced in the 19th Century and this was known as a "skiff." The dredge, which was locally designed, was attached to the bottom of each of the 180 boats involved in the oyster trade and each "skiff" was mastered by a three-strong crew. At one time 600 people were employed in the industry, with many oysters shipped directly by sea to Bristol for distribution throughout the country. It's acknowledged that in 1871 a staggering ten million oysters were scraped off the sea beds of Swansea Bay and Gower, with a total saleable value of around £50,000 - an enormous amount of money for the time.

Onward to Part 6...

Untangling the mystery of Mumbles' name, the fall of the oyster trade, and the arrival of tourism...

By the late 1870s the oyster beds were devastated by over-fishing, spiralling the industry into sharp decline. Many people had to find alternative work after an oyster disease wiped out most of the beds in the early 1920s, with the last skiff retired in 1930. However if you look over the sea wall you will still see not just the wrecks of the old oyster boats - still there after all these years - but also the shell remnants of Swansea Bay's other once-thriving crustacean industries, with cockles and mussels as well as oysters.

And yet the hardship the oyster families faced was a lot more enduring than the boats in which they plied their trade. So many people depended on the industry that when it collapsed, its impact on the local area was nothing short of catastrophic. Families went without food and clothes, with many forced to pack-up and settle in another part of the country. Life was not just harsh; it was also a constant struggle for survival.

Now the oysters are making a long-awaited comeback, as the increasing number of restaurants in the Mumbles demand the freshest locally-caught seafood. The oysters are being slowly harvested again, with new research showing the once-dormant beds enjoying a new lease of life.

However, well before the situation began to improve for the oysters, a lifeline had been thrown to those who stayed on in Mumbles - the birth of tourism.
In the 17 and 1800s, Swansea earned itself the title of "Bath-by-the-sea" after becoming a playground for only the wealthiest of citizens. Now, though, it is the Victorian resort of Mumbles that earns the tourism plaudits because of its quaint streets, restaurants and shops, coffee bars - and, of course, the imfamous Mumbles Mile.

(From this point in the walk you can either continue onward to the Mumbles pier, or return along the beach to where the walk began).

Before returning to Blackpill - and because of the confusion between Oystermouth and Mumbles - it is worth considering the origin of the name 'Mumbles'. This refers to the area named after the two islands that stand sentinel at the end of the promentory and it is believed they were so called - perhaps by the occupying Romans - due to their visual similarity to "breasts," i.e. 'mamma' in Latin and 'mammelles' in French. It's fairly common for that particular theory to surprise as many locals as it does visitors...

From here it is possible to continue along the foreshore at low tide, though those with walking difficulties or using wheelchairs may find that the shingle on the beach and rocks toward the promenade wall too much of a hazard.

All coastlines change over time due to the effects of nature, and Swansea Bay is no exception. But as we're becoming more aware, Man can have a major effect, too - in some cases a detrimental one. One such example is the concrete groynes you'll see on the beach, which as most will concede stick out like a sore thumb. They were placed on the beach to prevent longshore drift - the action of sediment pushed sideways along the beach, a process generated by waves and sea currents - but this old style "hard engineering" has now fallen out of favour, with the groynes left to erode.

Further along there are new sea defences; they still represent old-style hard engineering, but are of a much better design. The sea defences are sloped to slowly reduce the wave energy, acting more like a natural beach which is, of course, the best form of sea defence.

Mark Blackmore, who is aranging an informative stroll along the seafront from Blackpill to Oystermouth Square on September 19 at 2pm, says, "Looking across to the Victorian sea wall at this point you can see that the power of the waves has removed the sediment at the base, making it taller. It's a good thing they used such massive foundations in those days!"

Coastal erosion and dropping sand levels are an increasing concern around many of the Gower bays, and the 'Save Our Sands' (S.O.S) campaigners point an accusing finger at the Llanelli Dredging Company which is extracting sand under licence from the Bristol Channel, notably the Helwick Bank off Gower. The company, on the other hand, denies that it is responsible, although the campaigners claim that bedrock unseen for countless millennia is now being uncovered by the rapidly retreating sands at Gower's most popular beaches.

Two of the beaches concerned are close to Mumbles - Bracelet Bay and Limeslade - while Swansea appears to have lost a dramatic amount of sand over the past few decades at certain points along the bay.
Alun Cairns, the South Wales West AM, even went to the extent of holding an open air consituency surgery at Limselade five years ago to highlight coastal erosion there, and he says, "Some of my fondest childhood memories were spent along the Mumbles coast. In spite of living just 14 miles away in Clydach, many of my summer holidays were spent in a caravan just a short walk from Limeslade Bay.
"Ignoring the rose-tinted spectacles that we tend to call childhood memories, there is no doubt that there was a greater presence of sand on shore than there is in 2005. I distinctly remember digging pits and building sand castles on Limeslade - something that is nigh on impossible today due to the lack of sand."

Mr Cairns admits the fall in the level of sand is worrying, particularly the rejection that there is any link with dredging. He says, "The future propserity of many depends on the tourism industry. If such erosion continues a major economic asset and environment will disappear."

What links the Spanish Armada, the Bay of Naples and the Bay of Fundy in Canada? Why Swansea Bay of course...

Passing West Cross it's worth noting that this part of the foreshore may have close connections with one of Britain's most celebrated seafarers, the legendary Sir Francis Drake. The ancient woodland in this area once extended as far as the coast, and rumour has it that many of the oaks were cut down in the 16th Century to help build Drake's fleet that inflicted such a massive defeat on the Spanish Armada. John Powell, chairman of the West Cross Park and Woodlands Protection Society, is convinced it is true, if only because the trees were of a particular type specially used for shipbuilding - and there weren't too many anywhere in Britain at that time.

Returning to Blackpill we can fully appreciate how impressive a bay Swansea really is. It is often compared to the bay of Naples in Southern Italy. This is how the 19th Century poet Walter Savage Landore put it, on returning to Wales from his travels abroad: "The bay of Naples is very fine but give me Mumbles for scenery every time."

He also referred to that "horrible black intrusion" on the dunes - a reference to the track for the Mumbles Railway.
On the subject of dunes, how often do we see them revived? The answer is not very often - yet Swansea Council's environmental policy for the beach has allowed a newly formed dune system to develop on the foreshore just in front of the skateboard ramp, near Blackpill. The growth was due to a change in the way the beach is cleaned; such progress does give hope for the future of the Swansea Bay coastline. Beaches have to be cleaned, of course - because of the action of the tides Pembrey near Llanelli once gained an unenviable reputation as the "dustbin of the Atlantic" but the "funnel effect" of the Bristol Channel does not, fortunately, work in the same way as far as Swansea is concerned.

Swansea Council is responsible for beach cleaning and a spokeswoman for the authority says, "Litter is hand picked - mechanically collected - to protect the strandline ecosystem, as Blackpill is a designated site of special scientific interest. During the summer months litter is picked on a daily basis. For the rest of the year the beach is checked daily and litter is picked when required."

The Crown Estate owns around 55% of the foreshore between mean high and mean low tide levels, and approximately half of the beds of estuarial areas and tidal rivers in the UK. It also owns the seabed out to the 12 mile territorial limit, including the rights to explore and exploit the natural resources of the UK continental shelf, excluding oil, gas and coal. Beaches generally are either owned privately or by local councils.

As you'll see if you cover the walk as the tide is either coming in or going out, the difference between high and low tide levels across the Bay is extremely large. In fact, the Bay running from Swansea down to the Mumbles has the second-highest 'tidal reach' (the difference between high and low tide) in the world, behind the Bay of Fundy in Canada.

The foreshore at Blackpill lies at the heart of the Swansea Bay SSSI and as it sits at the apex of the bay it's the last part of the shore to be flooded by the incoming tide. The marine invertebrate life in the mixture of sand and mud on the beach provides a rich source of food for birds such as the Mediterranean Gull, which has been recorded here since April 1970.

Special thanks to Swansea Tourism Development & Swansea City Council.