KILVEY HILL: Mystery stone building uncovered by Skyline diggers at the summit

Kilvey Hill has given up a secret: the remains of a small stone building, hidden under the topsoil at the summit, uncovered by the diggers building Swansea’s £49m gondola and luge attraction.

Skyline Swansea says the remains emerged during topsoil removal in August, on the hilltop where groundworks for its summit restaurant and cafe began last month.

Working with Archaeology Wales, the remains have been cleaned and carefully recorded, with that work completed last week, and the stones are now fenced off to protect them.

What the building was, Skyline has not said. Its photographs show low courses of stone wall and a flagged floor, with fragments of brick and tile among the rubble.

The building has been “preserved by record”, the standard treatment for finds on approved construction sites: fully documented, measured, drawn and photographed, so its story survives on paper whatever happens to the stones themselves.

The stones may yet get more than paper, though. The company says it is now in discussion about how the remains “can be managed to allow this part of the history of the site and its story to be preserved”, with more information promised in the coming weeks.

In its statement, the company said: “To reassure members of the public, we want to reiterate that all procedures have been followed correctly to identify, report, clean and protect these remains, working in close partnership with both Archaeology Wales and Heneb.”

Heneb, the Trust for Welsh Archaeology, brings together the country’s four regional archaeological trusts, including the one that has covered Glamorgan for half a century.

Found where the summit restaurant is going

The building came to light in the middle of the project’s most intensive phase at the top of the hill, with around eight weeks of summit groundworks under way for the restaurant and cafe that will sit beside the gondola’s top station.

Skyline said last month that no further walking trails were expected to close during this stage, though walkers would see more fencing and vehicles from the diverted paths.

The statement’s shape is worth noting: it is addressed “to reassure members of the public” that procedures were followed, a form of words that usually arrives when people have been asking questions. On a hill where the £49m scheme has drawn demonstrations and questions in the Senedd, someone usually is.

The find adds an unplanned chapter to a summit being remade with a gondola station, restaurant and luge tracks: whatever the building was, it was there first.

What it was, and what the archaeologists’ record shows, is promised in the coming weeks. The hill, which has held this secret through every argument fought over it, keeps it a little longer.

Author

Kit Peters

Kit Peters is a journalist and the editor of Swansea Bay News, covering Swansea, Neath Port Talbot and Carmarthenshire since 2020.