SWANSEA
Site Details
- NPRN
- 33145
- Map Reference
- SS69SE
- Grid Reference
- SS65649305
- Unitary (Local) Authority
- Swansea
- Old County
- Glamorgan
- Community
- Castle (Swansea)
- Type of Site
- CITY
- Broad Class
- Civil
- Period
- General
Site Description
Swansea or Abertawe is believed to have been founded in 1013. The port was shipping coal and limestone from the town by 1550; during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Swansea grew significantly becoming a centre of heavy industry, notably copper, arsenic, zinc and tin smelting, with associated extensive railways and docks. The town’s industrial importance made it the target of heavy bombing during World War II, when the centre was largely destroyed. Through the twentieth century, the heavy industries declined, leaving a huge area of dereliction and prompting establishment in the early 1960s of the much-lauded Lower Swansea Valley Scheme to reclaim the land. Swansea was granted city status in 1969.
The most important buildings in Swansea are the medieval Castle (nprn 94515), Tabernacle Chapel (nprn 8993) at Morriston and the 1930s Guildhall (nprn 144).
B.A.Malaws, RCAHMW, 06 November 2008.
