Hafod Copper Works, Swansea

Description

This narrated animated reconstruction of the Hafod Copper Works site in the Lower Swansea Valley was created in 2011 as part of the ESRC project 'The Global and Local Worlds of Welsh Copper', led by Swansea University.

During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the Lower Swansea Valley became the centre of the world’s copper industry, Swansea, widely known as ‘Copperopolis’, pioneered the commercial processing of copper.

The River Tawe and the abundance of coal deposits in the surrounding areas were ideal for the copper smelters. Ore was imported in large quantities, first from Anglesey, Cornwall, and Ireland, and later on from Chile, Cuba, and Australia.

Earlier smelting works had been small and haphazard, but the building of the Hafod works in 1810 marked a new departure for the smelting industry.

The Cornish entrepreneur John Henry Vivian planned his works to operate as efficiently as possible, and selected a prime location between the Swansea Canal and the River Tawe. Coal could be brought down the valley on the canal; and copper carried along the river from the nearby port.

Vivian’s works became one of the most important industrial and transport complexes in the Great Britain.