Langland Bay facts for kids
Langland Bay is a really popular place for holidays on the coast in Gower, Swansea, which is in south Wales. It's a favourite spot for surfing and often wins the European Blue Flag award because of how clean and good quality it is.
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A Look Back at Langland Bay
Langland Bay, along with other nearby beaches like Caswell Bay and Rotherslade, is looked after by the City and County of Swansea council. In the 1950s and 60s, Langland Bay and Caswell Bay were super popular with holiday visitors. People would come by coach or public transport from places like Swansea and the South Wales Valleys. During summer, a bus route (number 87) went right to the seafront. At other times, you had to walk a bit from Langland Corner.
The seafront at Langland and the nearby Rotherslade (sometimes called 'Little Langland') once had three hotels: the Langland Bay, the Ael-y-Don, and the Osborne. A few more hotels, like the Brynfield Hotel, Langland Court, and the Wittemberg, were just a short walk away. Over the last forty years, most of these hotels have closed. Many have been turned into apartments, and one became a nursing home. The Wittemberg was partly rebuilt and reopened as the Little Langland Hotel.
A very old and impressive building, built in the mid-1800s, stands near the Newton Cliffs. It was first called Llan-y-Llan. The Crawshay family, who were famous Merthyr Tydfil Ironmasters, built it in a Scottish Baronial style to use as their summer home. Later, it became part of the Langland Bay Hotel. After that, it was a special home for coal miners called the Club Union Convalescent Home. Now, it's called Langland Bay Manor and has been turned into 13 fancy apartments.
In 1897, a famous French painter named Alfred Sisley visited Langland Bay while on his honeymoon. He stayed at the Osborne Hotel, which had views of both Langland Bay and Rotherslade Bay. He painted over twenty pictures during his trip to Penarth and Gower. Two of his paintings of Langland Bay are now in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff.
Langland Bay was also known for its many green canvas beach tents, as well as the beach huts you can still see today. These tents were put up every year, usually from April to early September, on the stony part of the beach in front of the promenade. Sometimes, during big storms in early September, the rough seas would wash one or two away! There were also two safer rows of tents on the higher ground of the Langland Bay Golf Club. Sadly, all these tents were damaged by vandals in the 1970s.
Langland Bay has always been a place where new sports ideas took off. In the early 1960s, local teenagers were among the first in the country to try out new American sports like skateboarding, surfing, and fibreglass canoes. These new fibreglass canoes quickly became more popular than the older canvas ones their parents used.
Getting There and What's Available
You can walk along a coastal path that connects Langland Bay to Caswell Bay on one side and to Rotherslade, Limeslade Bay, and Bracelet Bay on the other. You can also drive to the bay, and there are two big car parks where you pay to park. During the school summer holidays, public transport also runs to the bay for a short time.
You can buy hot and cold snacks from two small shops near the beach. However, these shops often have shorter opening times in winter. They mostly sell ice creams and gifts for children. There are public showers near the beach, and a St John's Ambulance hut and information office are open during busy times.
Swansea City Council has a Surf Lifeguard service at the beach. Lifeguards are on duty from the end of May until the beginning of September to help keep everyone safe.
The beach has 79 holiday beach huts owned by the Council. The newest ones, at the western end of the bay, were built in the early 1860s, and the rest were built in the 1920s. For many years, most of them were in need of repair, but in 2007, work began to rebuild them all. At the eastern end of the bay, there are also some privately owned beach huts with their own grounds and a private car park.
At the western end of the beach promenade, there's a brasserie (a type of restaurant) that opened in the summer of 2007.
Sports at Langland Bay
Tennis
There are six tennis courts that anyone can hire and play on. In recent years, these courts have hosted the popular Swansea Junior Tennis Championships, supported by Swansea City Council. In the 1960s, similar tournaments were held here, but they included a wider range of ages.
Golf
The Langland Bay Golf Club[1] is located on the western side of the bay and offers amazing views of both Langland Bay and Caswell Bay. It's an 18-hole course that is not too long. However, the course is quite tricky, and the strong, unpredictable winds from the exposed headland can make the game challenging for any golfer.
Surfing
Langland Bay is very popular with surfers. It's easy to get to from nearby towns, and it has different types of waves that can be ridden at various tide levels.
When the tide is low, a spot called Crab Island offers one of the best and most powerful right-hand waves in the country. However, this wave breaks over an exposed reef, so it can be dangerous for new surfers. The sandbar between Langland Point and Crab Island is actually a reef, creating a strong wave in shallow water. Langland Point offers a gentler wave when the ocean swell is large.
At mid-tide, the reef (which is more protected from the main swell) provides a smaller wave, but it can get crowded with surfers.
At very high tide, the waves break right on the shore, which can push surfers directly onto the stones.
Several local surfers from Langland Bay have competed internationally. One famous surfer is Carwyn Williams, whose parents used to run a small hotel in the area. Carwyn Williams once beat Damien Hardman, who was the World champion at the time, in Hossegor, France. After a serious accident, doctors thought he might not walk again. But he made a full recovery and is now living and surfing in France.
Fishing
Fishing is not as common in Langland these days, either from the beach or the rocky shore. A distinctively marked large rock on the western side of the bay, called Cross Rock, used to be a popular place to fish at high tide during summer. People would use a float and soft crab as bait. They would catch fish like bass, sea bream, and dogfish. Langland Point also offered good fishing. Using spinners or feathers there could sometimes catch mackerel as well as bass. Occasionally, people would catch Common dab and European plaice from the beach using lugworm or ragworm, though there were never many worms on the beach.
