We will have a choice to litterpick or to help cut back invasive plants to expose more of the archeology in a hitherto untouched area of the site around the Great Workhouse and entrance to Smith Canal. FoWRC and Keep Wales Tidy will be inattendance to guide us and keep us safe (and provide insurance). The C&C of Swansea will collect our bagged litter and chip the plants we cut at a later date. Gloves and litter pickers will be provided. Please bring secateurs and similar if possible. For anyone feeling brave there may even be the chance to use a grapnel to haul trolleys out of the muddy riverbed.
Parking is available on site but it is reecommended that you park near the entrance to the car park since there is a match on at the nearby Stadium later in the day. We will be finished hours before kick off but a few fans do arrive very early.
Also, be warned there are no toilets on site. Whilst we won't be working especially close to the river, please keep the usual close eye on children and pets.
White Rock Copperworks
From the White Rock Trails (used with permission);
The White Rock Copper Works were established in the Lower Swansea Valley in 1736, 70 years before the better known Hafod works. White Rock was one of the most important copper smelting works in the Lower Swansea Valley, the world centre of non-ferrous smelting for much of the 18th and 19th Centuries. Lead and silver were also smelted at White Rock.
Metal needs coal to be smelted. Swansea was close to huge reserves of coal, and was easily accessible by sea. The raw copper came to Swansea to meet the coal. Other related industries soon appeared in the valley.
In the 1960s the Lower Swansea Valley Project reclaimed the valley from the ravages of two centuries as ‘the metallurgical metropolis of the world’. Huge amounts of industrial waste, much of it noxious and toxic, was removed between 1967 and 1979. Smelting works and industrial infrastructure were demolished. Gradually new commercial, and recently residential, developments moved in.
The White Rock site, designated an Industrial Heritage Park, was further cleared in the 1990s but has since been allowed to deteriorate. The White Rock project is working with Swansea Council and CADW to restore the site to its 1990s state.
"Recent developments in terms of conserving and interpreting the works sites at Hafod and White Rock have been more encouraging than anything that has happened there for a generation or more. Some feel that White Rock, with its 18th Century canal tunnel (with unloading bays) and riverside dock is the pièce de résistance, the highlight of the whole fascinating area.”
You can find out more, including reading about our last CITO (April '15), here http://whiterocktrails.org/.