Abstract
This is a strange book. It is published by the author on a not-for-profit basis, somewhat in the fashion of those retired, or underemployed Victorian clergymen who contributed their observations and thoughts on natural history or folklore in dusty tomes long since forgotten. I hope that this one does not suffer a similar fate, for it is produced to a very high standard (printed by Gomer in Llandysul), in a large hardback format with heavy paper and glorious colour illustrations throughout. The book is a joy to handle and to browse through, with photos and diagrams which have been lovingly fashioned and annotated. For the non-specialist this is a blessing.
The title is intriguing, and in the Overview and Introduction (Chapter 1) the author explains that it arises from his obsession with working out whether the groundwater on Gower has come from the north crop of the South Wales Coalfield, or whether it has all come from the Gower Peninsula itself. This is not exactly a matter of grave concern to the Gower residents or to anybody else, and I fear that the title will damage the commercial viability of the book. That is a pity, since it is really a wide-ranging physical geography of Gower, with a potentially substantial market.
The book is carefully planned and for the most part logically laid out. In Chapter 1 (Overview and Introduction) there is a brief introduction to the peninsula and a simple summary of the bedrock geology. In Chapter 2 (Landscapes cut in time: peneplains and platforms) there is a fifty-page analysis of the main erosion surfaces on the peninsula, with a discussion of the relationships between eustatic oscillations and tectonic/isostatic adjustments. There is a considerable geological content in this chapter, but there is a strange juxtaposition of discussions of large-scale crustal tectonics and mantle plumes and the formation of the cemented and fossiliferous Patella beach which occurs in multiple coastal locations. The latter section would have been placed far more comfortably in the following chapter, in the context of Quaternary events. The author makes a somewhat controversial claim that because of the association of the Patella beach with angular slope breccia, it was created during a single catastrophic ‘superstorm surge event’. He also somewhat controversially concludes that the Heatherslade cemented beach deposit was formed during a Holocene storm ‘event’.
Chapter 3 (Glaciation of Gower) is a long chapter, profusely illustrated, which concentrates on the Late Devensian (and Last Glacial Maximum – LGM) because this is the episode during which most of the visible landforms were created and most of the accessible glacial and glaciofluvial deposits were laid down. There is some preoccupation with ‘fill lines’ (deemed to represent the edges of till sheets) and ice lobes, and although there are abundant maps and diagrams which illustrate the author’s conclusions, it is difficult to get a clear understanding of the sequence of events before, during and after the LGM. Kokelaar makes frequent reference to The Quaternary of Gower field guide edited by Shakesby and Hiemstra (2015), mostly accepting their suggestions, but for this reader a much greater recognition of events in adjacent areas would have been useful. Figure 46, labelled as ‘New Map of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) limits on Gower’ presents a very confusing picture with ‘ice lobe limits’ that do not seem to tie in at all well with the field evidence in coastal sections.
In Chapter 4 (Cave developments) the author is on familiar territory, and there is a great deal of fascinating detail which has not been accessible previously in the literature. Many details of cave morphology and sediments are tied in to sea-level and climate changes, and to Quaternary glacial events, but some of the cave descriptions (e.g. those relating to Tooth Cave) are perhaps too detailed, and would have been better published in a specialist journal rather than in a book intended for a general readership. The author appears to have realised this himself, for he has moved a great deal of detail into a ‘caves notes’ section, which is seven pages long. Frustratingly, there is nothing about the most famous cave on Gower, at Paviland.
In Chapter 5 (Sinks and Springs) we come to the main section of the book, running from page 169 to page 228. Here, the author gets into his hypothesis relating to the Gower water supply. There is much information on springs, wells and water supply routes underground and overground, and then the author examines the ‘exotic supply’ and ‘local supply’ alternatives, with considerable hydrological detail. This is no doubt fascinating if you are a professional hydrologist; less so if you are simply interested in landscape and its evolution through time.
In Chapter 6 (Storms, Dunes and Rockslides), Kokelaar moves into the Holocene, and considers the coastal changes that have occurred over the past 11,000 years or so. He considers the Holocene sea-level rise but confusingly revisits the submarine moraine evidence from Swansea Bay already dealt with in Chapter 3. The submerged forest evidence is dealt with somewhat cursorily, and there are sections on sand mobility, storms, beach stripping, the formation of modern storm beaches and coastal rockslides and mineralisation. There is also a brief mention of quarrying activity. This is a frustrating chapter, shorter than it should have been – but maybe by this time the author was growing weary!
There are several appendices, including a reference list; but there is no index apart from a list of placenames. Finally, mention must be made of the book’s appearance and layout. The illustrations are generally superb, but the book design is frankly chaotic. Many illustrations are divorced from their figure captions, and in some cases the italicised captions are longer than the supporting text, and spread over more than one page. There are long notes (including extra photos and diagrams) at the end of each chapter, many of them containing information that would have been better off elsewhere. Sadly, these design deficiencies make the reading of the book a very challenging task, and it becomes clear that it is not meant to be read at all, but simply dipped into for information on one topic or another. It could have been so different, if the author had employed an editor. . .
Overall, this is an unusual book, well worth £20 of anybody’s money because of the abundant information it contains but spoiled (for this reader at least) by a lack of balance and by a lack of editorial control.