“Not all history is easy to hear. Some of it is raw. Messy. Full of pain that still echoes. But these stories matter – because remembering them is an act of honour. And through that remembering, we learn how to love each other better.”

Here in Greenhill, hardship wasn’t rare. It was woven into the fabric of everyday life – poverty, sickness, overcrowded homes, addiction, loss. But within those difficult moments are stories that ask us to see the people behind the statistics. People like Jane Padley.

Jane was a mother of seventeen children. Only seven survived infancy, a heart breaking reminder of how fragile life was in 19th-century Swansea. She lived in streets just minutes from where you stand now. Her husband, Josiah, was an alcoholic. And like many women of her time, Jane had no protection from his violence.

In April 1884, Josiah murdered Jane in a drunken rage, then took his own life. Their children, already familiar with grief, were left orphaned. Their story was written up in court records, reported in newspapers, and then… mostly forgotten.

Until now.

Jane was buried right here, in the grounds of what is now Matthew’s House. Her headstone lay flat in the soil for decades, weathered and overlooked. But as this garden was reborn, her story rose too. Her grave was lifted and restored, not just as a marker of her life, but as a commitment: that her pain, and the pain of so many women like her, would not stay hidden.

Jane’s story is not the only one.

In 1816, a young woman named Fanny Imlay came to Swansea. Her mother was the famous feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft, and her half-sister, Mary Shelley, went on to write Frankenstein. But Fanny’s life was different. She struggled deeply – with grief, with addiction to laudanum, and with mental illness. At just 22 years old, she took her own life in a Swansea inn.

Her death was quiet, tragic, and full of shame in the eyes of that society. The newspapers described her with vague sympathy. She was buried in an unmarked grave, most likely just metres from where you now stand. Her name was nearly erased – because she didn’t fit the story the world wanted to tell.

And then there were the countless others.

Men like Thomas Ridd, a baker who returned from Australia and fell into deep depression. William Williams, a father of seven who hanged himself in a hayloft. Or William Lewis, who survived an attempt to take his own life but was simply released back to the streets. There were no mental health services. No safety net. Just silence, and shame.

These aren’t stories from a faraway past. The conditions that shaped them, poverty, addiction, isolation, still affect people in our communities today. In fact, suicide remains one of the leading causes of death among young men in Wales.

Greenhill also carried a history of domestic abuse. The court reports are difficult to read, stories of women beaten in their homes, often with no escape. One woman had her eye gouged with a brick. Another, covered in blood, told the court she was too afraid to ever live with her husband again.

These streets,  Tontine Street, Powell Street, Matthew Street, held more than houses. They held pain. But also resilience.

And today, they hold hope.

Matthew’s House, and places like it, exist to break that silence. To offer dignity without judgement. To provide food, friendship, and a safe space. To say, “You’re not alone. Your story matters. And help is here.”

We include this section in the trail not to dwell on sorrow, but to name it, so healing can begin. To remember those who weren’t remembered and to make sure history no longer hides the hard things.

Jane, Fanny, Thomas, they weren’t statistics. They were people. Loved. And now, at last, seen.