A business trip to Wales' second city this week reminded me that it is by far from being a jewel in the crown of Welsh architectural heritage. The city centre, apart from a Georgian Church and the ruins of a 13th century castle, consists entirely of drab and dreary post-war architecture and is forlorn in contrast to the powerful, natural beauty of Rhossilli Bay and Worm's Head, less than one hours drive away on the Gower peninsular.
And for that, the good folk of Swansea have the "Three Nights' Blitz" of February 1941 and post-war reconstruction to blame, because intensive bombing saw Swansea town centre almost completely obliterated by Luftwaffe raids seeking out the strategically important docks nearby, and, as a Swansea born colleague told me, " what the Luftwaffe missed the Council finished off"
And in the old dock area, fortuitously missed that night by errant German navigators and bomb aimers, there are now smart apartments and a marina full of gleaming yachts and motor cruisers, and nearby, where old colliers and cargo ships abrim with coal, iron and copper would once have berthed, is the wonderful National Waterfront Museum: "Wales story of industry and Innovation" :
tp://www.museumwales.ac.uk/nwms/dynamic/home_eng.php
and there, amongst many interactive and computerised displays, is a ' virtual' tour of some properties surveyed in the 1851 census which recorded amongst the good folk of Swansea a gentleman from Northumberland and a lady from South Shields, both far from home but still in a land of coal.
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