Southgate, Swansea

Pennard is the name of an electoral ward in the City and County of Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. It is coterminous with the community of Pennard.The electoral ward consists of some or all of the following places: Bishopston, Fairwood Common, Kittle, Parkmill, Pennard and Southgate in the parliamentary constituency of Gower. Part of Three Cliffs Bay falls within the ward. Pennard is bounded by the wards of Gower to the west; Fairwood to the north and Bishopston to the east. The Bristol Channel borders Pennard to the south. Pennard also elects a community council. For electoral purposes to Pennard Community Council, Pennard is divided into the polling wards of Southgate and Kittle. Pennard ward returns one councillor to the City and County of Swansea council. Since May 2012 it has been represented by Lynda James (Independent). In the 2012 local council elections, the voter turnout was 52.31%. The results were: Councillor James successfully defended her seat at the May 2017 elections.

The A4118 road is in Swansea, Wales, connecting Dyfatty Street in Swansea City Centre with Port Eynon in the Gower Peninsula. The route runs through suburban areas until it reaches Upper Killay, where the road enters rural Gower. It passes over Fairwood Common and through several villages before terminating at Port Eynon.

Parkmill (Welsh: Melin y Parc) is a village in the Gower Peninsula, South Wales, midway between the villages of Penmaen and Ilston, about eight miles (13 km) west of Swansea, and about one mile (1.5 km) from the north coast of the Bristol Channel. The village lies to the north of the A4118, the main South Gower road between Swansea and Port Eynon, in a wooded area, at the bottom of a valley. The building at the centre of the village is a former school that is now home to the West Glamorgan Girl Guides Activity Centre. Pennard golf course lies immediately to the south of the village. Parkmill is in the Gower ward of the City and County of Swansea. Parkmill's only religious building is the Mount Pisgah United Reformed Church, a Congregational chapel, erected in 1822 and rebuilt in 1890. The area is little changed from the mid 19th century, when Samuel Lewis said in his 'A Topographical Dictionary of Wales' (1849): The hamlet of Park-Mill, forming the most populous part of the parish, [Ilston] is yet extremely rural; and the surrounding scenery, which is characterized by features of tranquillity and seclusion, is enlivened by the small rivulet called Pennarth Pill, winding along a beautiful dell, in which are the ruins of an ancient chapel. On this stream a cloth manufactory was established early in the present century, but it has been discontinued. The 'cloth manufactory', a 12th-century water-powered corn and saw mill, at Parkmill has since been renovated and a rural crafts centre sited in it, called the Gower Heritage Centre.

La Charrette was for several decades the smallest cinema in the UK. It closed in February 2008. A tiny, 23-seat venue, sited in a back garden in the town of Gorseinon, near Swansea, 'La Charrette' (French for 'the carriage') was built from a disused railway carriage. With flock wallpaper and hand-operated curtains, 'La Charrette' began showing films in 1953.

Hunts Bay is located on the south coast of the Gower Peninsula, Wales, between Pwll du and Foxhole to the east of Three Cliffs Bay. It was once a sandy beach, but the sand depth on the beach is diminishing, leaving a rocky cove. The loss of sand has been attributed to sand dredging in the local coastal area.

Kilvrough Manor is a large country house near Swansea. It is a Grade II* listed building. Its park is listed on the Cadw/ICOMOS Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in Wales.

Pennard (previously Llanarthbodu) is a village and community on the south of the Gower Peninsula, about 7 miles south-west of Swansea city centre. It falls within the Pennard electoral ward of Swansea. The Pennard community includes the larger settlements of Southgate and Kittle. the population as of 2011 was 2,688.

Three Cliffs Bay (Welsh: Bae y Tri Chlogwyn) (grid reference SS535876), otherwise Three Cliff Bay, is a bay on the south coast of the Gower Peninsula in the City and County of Swansea, Wales. The bay takes its name from the three sea cliffs that jut out into the bay. Pennard Pill, a large stream, flows into the sea in the middle of the bay. The beach is an important asset for locals and visitors and routinely qualifies for Blue Flag status. Dogs are allowed on the beach all year. Inland about 500 yards (450 m) from the main beach on high ground above Pennard Pill is Pennard Castle. It was built in the early 12th century, and is imbued with legends of fairies. It is also the only locality in Britain known for yellow whitlow grass (Draba aizoides). Individual beaches that make up this bay have their own names, including Pobbles Bay to the east of the Three Cliffs, and Tor Bay to the west. The beaches are separated at high tide but are accessible to each other at low tide on foot over the sands. Paths lead north to Pennard Burrows, east to Pobbles, and west to Tor Bay. Pobbles and Tor Bay are also accessible from the beach at low tide. Three Cliffs Bay is effectively part of the inlet of Oxwich Bay. At low tide, Three Cliffs Bay forms a continuous sandy beach with Oxwich Bay beach to the west. They only exist as separate beaches at high tide. The sea cliffs are limestone, about 20 m (65 ft) high, and are a popular destination for rock climbers with 20 climbs in the lower grades, including Scavenger (VS 4b) - often considered a national classic. The largest of the Three Cliffs is easily climbed if approached from the grassy base. In June 2006 the BBC Holidays at Home programme declared Three Cliffs Bay to be Britain's best beach. In a recent programme broadcast in the UK the view over Three Cliffs Bay was nominated for "Britain's Best View". Three Cliffs Bay appears in a music video for Red Hot Chili Peppers made by Swansea film company, Studio8. It was used in the opening titles of the 80's TV sitcom Me and My Girl featuring Richard O'Sullivan and Joanne Ridley. Three Cliffs Bay has been used in Channel 4's Skins and was shown in an ITV advert: 'The Brighter Side'.

The Gower Peninsula (Welsh: Gŵyr) in the City and County of Swansea, Wales, contains over twenty villages and communities. Most of the peninsula is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Ilston (Welsh: Llanilltud Gwyr) is a village and community in Swansea, southwest Wales. Ilston has its own community council.

Parc le Breos was a great medieval deer park in the south of the Gower Peninsula, about eight miles (13 km) west of Swansea, Wales, and about 1+1⁄4 miles (2.0 km) north of the Bristol Channel. The park was an enclosed, oval area of 6.7 miles (10.8 km) in circumference, covering about 2,000 acres (810 ha) and measuring 2+1⁄2 miles (east–west) by just over 1+3⁄4 miles (4.1 km by 2.9 km). Parc le Breos was established in the 1220s CE by John de Braose (of the powerful Cambro-Norman de Braose dynasty), Marcher Lord of Gower and husband to Margaret Ferch Llywelyn, Llywelyn Fawr's daughter. Other than for deer husbandry, the park received an income from agistment, pannage, and from sales of wild honey, ferns and dead wood. There is evidence of rabbit warrens in the park. Whether the warrens were free or domestic is unknown.The park's boundary was originally marked by a wooden fence, or pale, on the top of an earth bank inside a ditch. Some parts of the pale survive.Prehistoric finds and an Iron Age enclosure (above Parkmill) show the area of Parc le Breos to have been settled by modern humans since the earliest times.

Parc Cwm long cairn (Welsh: carn hir Parc Cwm), also known as Parc le Breos burial chamber (siambr gladdu Parc le Breos), is a partly restored Neolithic chambered tomb, identified in 1937 as a Severn-Cotswold type of chambered long barrow. The cromlech, a megalithic burial chamber, was built around 5850 years before present (BP), during the early Neolithic. It is about seven 1⁄2 miles (12 km) west south–west of Swansea, Wales, in what is now known as Coed y Parc Cwm at Parc le Breos, on the Gower Peninsula. A trapezoidal cairn of rubble – the upper part of the cromlech and its earth covering now removed – about 72 feet (22 m) long by 43 feet (13 m) (at its widest), is revetted by a low dry-stone wall. A bell-shaped, south-facing forecourt, formed by the wall, leads to a central passageway lined with limestone slabs set on end. Human remains had been placed in the two pairs of stone chambers that lead from the passageway. Corpses may have been placed in nearby caves until they decomposed, when the bones were moved to the tomb. The cromlech was discovered in 1869 by workmen digging for road stone. An excavation later that year revealed human bones (now known to have belonged to at least 40 people), animal remains, and Neolithic pottery. Samples from the site show the tomb to have been in use for between 300 and 800 years. North-West European lifestyles changed around 6000 BP, from the nomadic lives of the hunter-gatherer, to a settled life of agricultural farming: the Neolithic Revolution. However, analysis of the human remains found at Parc Cwm long cairn show the people interred in the cromlech continued to be either hunter-gatherers or herders, rather than agricultural farmers. Parc Cwm long cairn lies in a former medieval deer park, established in the 1220s CE by the Marcher Lord of Gower as Parc le Breos – an enclosed area of about 2,000 acres (810 ha), now mainly farmland. The cromlech is on the floor of a dry narrow limestone gorge containing about 500 acres (2.0 km2) of woodland. Free pedestrian access is via an asphalt track leading from the park's entrance, which has free parking for 12–15 cars about 250 yards (230 m) from the site. Parc Cwm long cairn is maintained by Cadw, the Welsh Government's historic environment division.