The Swansea Canal from Hafod to Cwm Bwrlais Docks D2-9 and Tramroads T2, T5
The lower Swansea Canal was built by the engineers Charles Roberts & Thomas Sheasby Senior in 1794-96.
The southern terminus of the canal at Brewery Bank developed from eight long, narrow, wharves built on land reclaimed from the River Tawe.1 This later became a complex of 22 wharves with trans-shipment docks and tramroads linking the canal with sea-going ships at the river quays. The efficiency of this system was much improved by the construction of a lock between the canal and the newly constructed North Dock in l853. 2
In all, nine canal docks were built, with goods transferred by tramroad to staithes on the river. The importance of the area was emphasised by siting the canal office on the nearby Strand at the time of the construction of the canal. An additional branch was later built at the southern end of the canal (SS 6581 9370 to SS 6588 9370) in a 'U' shape to form a new wharf on a narrow strip of land between the canal and the North Dock, thus replacing some of the earliest wharves.
During the early nineteenth century 3 the canal was extended southwards some 52m and ran into the central courtyard of Swansea's Cambrian Brewery (owned by the influential Swansea entrepreneur George Haynes). A boathole may have been made through its northern range but the rather imprecise map evidence 4 probably suggests that a wide, flat-decked bridge filled a gap between the wings of the building. The main Brewery courtyard was open towards the river and yet more trans-shipment railways were built down to the river wharves at this point.5 This southward extension of the canal was filled-in and built over in 1852 to form the foundations of the viaduct carrying Brunel's South Wales Railway North Dock Extension of 1852. The viaduct has been demolished but no traces of the canal are visible at this point.
The first mile of the canal northwards to the Hafod Copperworks site has been filled-in and disused since 1929.

The lowest stretch of the Swansea Canal northwards from the Strand to Lock 4 at Maliphant Street in Hafod, was abandoned in l929. The present line of the canal, from the busy New Cut Road (A483) north, is followed by the line of Morfa Road. A large blue-brick retaining-wall to its west supports railway sidings and from the late nineteenth-century the canal and Locks 3 and 4 lay at the foot of this wall. The sites of the buried lock platforms are clearly shown by sharp rises in the level of the road and the adjacent land. The substantial masonry of the lock-chambers remain largely intact underground, and are revealed from time to time during the carrying out of
engineering works.

The area of the 22 trans-shipment wharves and numerous canal basins and docks to the east of Morfa Road is now occupied by factories and car-parks, including by Maliphant Street the substantial re-used buildings of the Hafod Nickel Worrks. More remarkable, though, is the fact that the Pennant sandstone riverside quay walls of the larger and later trans-shipment wharves remain largely intact and are easily visible from the riverside path and cycleway on the east bank of the river.
These ran northwards from the northern lock of the North Dock. One of the best preserved, located at a turn in the river, is 'Glasbrook's Wharf'. A typical wharf wall was set back from the quay and can be observed here, together with the gradient running upwards to the old canal level. The revetment walls, which divided the quays into two levels have disappeared, as have the elevated railway tracks and the timber stages or staithes that protruded into the river from each wharf.
All surface remains of Locks l (Pottery Lock) and 2 (360m and 450m from Swansea basin) have disappeared. They were sited amongst the more northerly of the trans-shipment wharves. North of the original eight trans-shipment wharves two further sets of wharves were developed in the early nineteenth century. A dock (D10) was built which was reached by a short branch canal, from which more railways (T6) ran to river staithes and to an adjacent sawmill. A rectangular dock (D11) served the Vivians' Hafod Foundry, which also had railways (T7) leading to staithes on the Tawe. Both complexes were still in use during l875-7. 6

References
l. 'G.W.R. Swansea Canal Navigation Map'. An l832 copy of a l796 map (S.C. Archives).2. Swansea Local Board of Health l852.
3. The extension is shown on John Evans' 'Plan of Swansea' of l823, scale l32 yards to an inch, and Swansea Tithe Map, l838.
4. Evans' map shows the canal passing through a block of buildings, the larger scale tithe map shows the canal passing under a yard between buildings.
5. Ibid.
6. Ordnance Survey Sheet 24, l875-77.Scale l/l0,560.

Stephen R. Hughes, 17.09.2007.