Penllergare: A Landscape of Science, Memory, and Transatlantic Connections

Penllergare House

Penllergare House
watercolour by 
May Mackenzie, 1908

The estate of Penllergare, long associated with the Llewelyn family, occupies a distinctive place in the cultural and scientific history of Swansea. From the pioneering photographic experiments of John Dillwyn Llewelyn to the horticultural pursuits of Sir John Llewelyn, the estate became a centre where scientific curiosity, botanical experimentation, and public service intertwined. By the early twentieth century, Penllergare had become not only a landscape of beauty but a place where ideas about the natural world, agriculture, and global exchange were actively cultivated.

Sir John Llewelyn and the Romance of Medicinal Plants

South Wales Daily Post

On 7 June 1926, the South Wales Daily Post published a reflective letter from Sir John Llewelyn, written from Penllergare and forwarded by Mr. Bliss, Superintendent of Swansea Parks. In it, Sir John looked back over a lifetime of interest in the medicinal and economic uses of plants. Though one of the senior members of the Royal Horticultural Society, he described himself simply as a practical gardener, shaped by observation and experience rather than laboratory science.

South Wales Daily Post

Responding to an article titled “The Romance of a Drug Factory,” he reminded readers that some of the world’s most familiar plants possessed extraordinary healing properties. Aspirin, he noted, derived from the bark of the willow tree, while quinine, the indispensable antimalarial remedy, came from the bark of the cinchona tree, native to the high forests of South America. These botanical facts, he suggested, revealed the deep and often overlooked relationship between everyday plants and modern medicine.

Sir John recalled that Sir Daniel Morris, formerly Assistant Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, had supplied him with young cinchona plants. These he successfully cultivated at Penllergare, and he believed that the tree could be grown commercially in suitable climates across the British Empire. The medicinal value of cinchona, he observed, had been recognised since antiquity, and quinine remained essential to physicians throughout the world.

The Study of Grasses and the Future of Welsh Agriculture

Another subject that deeply engaged Sir John Llewelyn was the study of grasses, a field he regarded as central to both agriculture and economic botany. In the same letter, he referred to the exhibits at the Royal Horticultural Society’s Chelsea Show, noting the increasing attention being paid to grasses and their practical importance.

He emphasised that the usefulness of grasses as fodder depended not only on the species themselves but also on the soil, climate, and conditions in which they were grown. These factors shaped both their nutritional value and the amount of fertiliser required to sustain them. His remarks reflected a lifelong belief that horticulture and agriculture were sciences of observation, experiment, and careful stewardship.

Sir John welcomed the establishment of a new botanical garden and expressed the hope that it would be the first of many such institutions in Wales. He praised those who promoted scientific and agricultural education, wishing them every success in their efforts to advance knowledge and improve the land.

Published in the South Wales Daily Post, the letter stands as a vivid record of Sir John Llewelyn’s recollections and preserves his testimony that Sir Daniel Morris of Kew had supplied him with cinchona plants—plants that took root and flourished at Penllergare, linking Swansea to the wider history of global medicinal botany.

Sir Daniel Morris: The Botanist Behind the Cinchona Connection

Daniel Morris credit - National Portrait Gallery, London

Sir Daniel Morris, born in 1844 at Loughor, Swansea, was one of Wales’s most distinguished botanists and a leading authority on economic botany. Trained at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he joined the staff in 1872 and rose to become Assistant Director from 1886 to 1898. He later served as Adviser on Tropical Agriculture to the Colonial Office, shaping agricultural policy across the British Empire.

Under Morris’s guidance, Kew developed into the centre of a global network dedicated to the exchange, distribution, and acclimatisation of useful plants. As Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture for the West Indies, he promoted the cultivation of sugar cane, bananas, cacao, limes, rubber, and cinchona, helping Caribbean agriculture diversify after the decline of the sugar industry.

The cinchona tree, native to the Andes, was the world’s primary source of quinine, then the essential treatment for malaria. Kew played a decisive role in distributing cinchona plants and seeds across the Empire, particularly to India and Ceylon. Sir John Llewelyn’s recollection that Morris supplied him with cinchona plants at Penllergare suggests that Morris also encouraged experimental cultivation in Britain, reflecting both his scientific curiosity and his commitment to expanding the Empire’s botanical resources.

Sir Daniel Morris died in 1933 at Boscombe, Dorset, leaving a legacy that linked Swansea to the global history of medicinal plants and the development of modern economic botany.

Penllergare and the Americans During the Second World War

During the Second World War, Penllergare entered a new chapter in its long history of international connections. The estate, with its open grounds, woodland approaches, and proximity to Swansea’s strategic industrial coastline, became familiar to many American servicemen stationed in South Wales. Their presence formed part of the wider American deployment across Britain in preparation for the European campaign.

From 1943 onwards, large numbers of United States Army and United States Army Air Forces personnel were based in the Swansea district, including units involved in logistics, engineering, and coastal defence. Many of these men passed through or spent leisure hours in the vicinity of Penllergare, which offered a welcome contrast to the bustle of wartime Swansea. Oral recollections from local residents describe American soldiers cycling along the estate’s lanes, visiting nearby villages, and forming friendships with Welsh families.

The Americans brought with them a distinctive cultural presence—jazz records, cigarettes, chewing gum, and a sense of transatlantic modernity that left a lasting impression on local communities. Their interactions with the people of Swansea, including those living around Penllergare, formed part of the broader story of Anglo‑American wartime cooperation, a partnership that would prove decisive in the liberation of Europe.

Although Penllergare itself was not requisitioned as a major military site, its landscape became part of the lived experience of American servicemen preparing for the D‑Day landings and the campaigns that followed. In this way, the estate—already linked to global botanical networks through Sir John Llewelyn and Sir Daniel Morris—acquired a new and poignant connection to the international struggle for freedom during the twentieth century’s defining conflict.

Penllergare as a Meeting Place of Worlds

Across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Penllergare stood at the crossroads of science, botany, photography, imperial networks, and wartime alliances. From the cinchona plants nurtured in its gardens to the American soldiers who wandered its paths during the Second World War, the estate became a place where local history touched global events. Its story reflects the wider history of Swansea itself—a community shaped by innovation, international exchange, and the enduring human desire to understand and improve the world.