Concerning the 'Roman' bridge at Blackpill, I've looked at what sources i can find and there is no doubt it's not Roman, in spite of the naming of the modern developments near it. It is probably only 18th century - there is not a single Roman bridge surviving anywhere in UK ( website for Roman bridges). only a couple of collapsed buttresses up north.
I think he was caught a bit north of where the big Tesco's is now, more up towards Tonyrefail near the Royal Mint (no English jokes please about 'The Hole with a Mint!)
The place is still known as 'Pant y Brad' (the hollow of the treachery) and a an old commemorative plaque used to be on the bridge there. Variations of the tale abound, but a monk from Penrhys Priory in the Rhondda was alleged to to have given him away. He had fled from the advance of his wife Queen Isabella (The She-Wolf of France) who had taken Roger Mortimer as her lover and Edward, with his boyfriend Huw Despenser the Younger, fled to Wales, staying five nights in Despenser's Caerphlly Castle, before fleeing further to Neath Abbey with his personal treasure. He left the there for some reason and came back eastwards - there is a story of him hiding up an oak tree at Llangynwyd nar Maesteg ( how many kings are alleged to hidden up oak trees?) Then he was caught near Tonyrefail and taken to Llantrisant Cstle, en route to Berkeley. The two Despensers, father and son, were hanged, drawn and quartered, Dad in Bristol and the son in Hereford, from a fifty foot scaffold.
If you want to read about the allegation that Edward survived and died in Italy, look up 'The Fieschi Letter ' on Wikipedia or read Ian Mortimer's controversial book.
Incidentally, in Victorian times, a doctor in Swansea treated an old lady and instead of a fee she gave him an old box, inside which was Edward Ii's marriage contract, perhaps left behind in Neath. It was in the Swansea Institution, but now in the Swansea Council Archives on Mumbles Road.
I remember the bridge, I used to travel from Newton, Mumbles to Dynevor School on the Mumbles train every day in the 1940s and we passed this simple stone arch over the Pill. I looked for it just now on Goggle Street Level, but saw no sign of it - there has been so much 'development' (awful words) around that area. The rail line has gone, thanks to the short-sighted powers- that- be ( and South Wales Transport wanting to save money) so the oldest passenger railway in the wolrd which started in 1807 vanished in 1960, when it now could have been a cracking tourist attraction
Anyway, that bridge - wouldn't have been Roman, there was nowhere for it to have gone, no forts or marching camps in that area. It was probably medieval or even later. There was no proper road from Swansea to Mumbles untlk well after the railway began, but obviously there must have been a track for pack horses carrying fish to market etc.
I'm speaking at a meeting of the Swansea Historical Society at the Industiail Museum on Saturday, so I'll ask around to see if anyone knows anything about it.
I don't want to hog this column about history, but fresh in my mind is a visit made yesterday with a group from the small Gelligaer Historical Appreciation Society. We went to have a look at Castell Morgraig, about a mile from my home on the northern outskirts of Cardiif, led by Brian Davies, the charismatic curator of Pontypridd Museum. The ruins, for they are almost totally overgrown, lie on the ridge called the Graig, which forms the barrier between Cardiff and Caerphilly and the valleys to the north and there has been hot debate and controversy for a century about whether it was built by the Welsh of the Cantref of Senghenydd or the Normans under the de Clares. It was probably thrown up hastily around 1250-60, but never finished. You can read about it and see the pictures on on that great website, Castles of Wales.
I was almost brought up on C J O Evan's book on Glamorgan, probably still the most concise guide to the county. Obviously quite a bit out of date now, due to decades of new discoveries, but still a very worthwhile read and some good photos.
I have amongst my scores of books on Welsh history, an even more obscure one, called 'Edward II in Glamorgan', by another clergymsn,. the Rev John Griffith of Nantymoel. It covers a much wider field than suggested by the tile,with fascinating asides about all sorts of historical matters. I found it years ago in a second-hand bookshop, published in 1904 by the Western Mail. It tells how Edward was eventually captured near Tesco's in Llantrisant ( if you know what I mean) and hauled off to Berkeley Castle where he is alleged to have been assassinated in a particlarly horrible way - but this book was where I first heard of the tale that he was rescued by the Welsh and ended his days in an Italian monastery, the body in his tomb in Gloucester Cathedral said to be one of his captors.
Bernard Knight
