The Mount, which was located in

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the C ...

on the

Oystermouth Railway The Swansea and Mumbles Railway was the venue for the world's first passenger horsecar railway service, located in Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. Originally built under an Act of Parliament of 1804 to move limestone from the quarries of Mum ...

and which first opened to passengers in 1807, was the world's first recorded

railway station Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in Track (rail transport), tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the ...

. It was the point on the railway at which Benjamin French commenced to pick up passengers for the journey to Oystermouth (also known as Mumbles) on or after 25 March 1807. The station's physical form is not known, and it is unlikely that any special facilities (e.g. platforms, booking office, etc.) were provided, but its location was close to the later site of the Royal Institution of South Wales ( Swansea Museum).

History

In 1804 the British Parliament approved the laying of a railway line between

and Oystermouth in

South Wales South Wales ( cy, De Cymru) is a loosely defined region of Wales bordered by England to the east and mid Wales to the north. Generally considered to include the historic counties of Glamorgan and Monmouthshire, south Wales extends westwards ...

, for transportation of quarried materials to and from the Swansea Canal and the harbour at the mouth of the

River Tawe The River Tawe (; cy, Afon Tawe ) is a long river in South Wales. Its headwaters flow initially east from its source below Llyn y Fan Fawr south of Moel Feity in the Black Mountains, the westernmost range of the Brecon Beacons National ...

and in the autumn of that year the first tracks were laid. At this stage, the railway was known as the Oystermouth Railway and controlled by the Committee of the Company of Proprietors of the Oystermouth Railway or Tramroad Company, which included many prominent citizens of Swansea, including the copper and coal magnate John Morris (later Sir John Morris, Bart.). In later years it became known as the Swansea and Mumbles Railway. There was no road link between Swansea and Oystermouth at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the original purpose of the railway was to transport

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the ...

and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

. Construction seems to have been completed in 1806 and operations began without formal ceremony, using

horse-drawn vehicle A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have m ...

s. As constructed, the line ran from the Brewery Bank adjacent to the Swansea Canal in Swansea, around the wide sweep of Swansea Bay to a terminus at Castle Hill (near the present-day Clements Quarry) in the tiny isolated fishing village of Oystermouth. In February 1807, approval was given to carry passengers along the line, when one of the original proprietors, Benjamin French, offered to pay the company the sum of twenty pounds in lieu of tolls for the right to do so for twelve months from 25 March 1807. This is usually cited as the date when the first regular service carrying passengers between Swansea and Oystermouth began, thus giving the railway the claim of being the first passenger railway in the world. Passenger services operated from The Mount, the world's first recorded

References

{{reflist Disused railway stations in Swansea 1807 establishments in the United Kingdom