Below is a detail from an Ordnance Survey map from 1837. clearly visible are the two rows of houses marked Gough's Buildings on the "island" between the river and the canal. These two rows were just the first in a network that would spread out across this "island".

The Gough family were major landowners in the area, owning the Ynyscedwin Ironworks and other property along the upper Swansea valley.
They employed a surveyor to record the details of all this property, and could afford to have him decorate the book with little paintings like the one above right.
The workers who lived in Gough's buildings lived very hard lives and few would have owned a book apart from the Bible

More about Gough's Buildings...