Church Micro 4922...Swansea - St Gabriel Traditional Cache
Church Micro 4922...Swansea - St Gabriel
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
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Another in our series of Church Micros in the South Wales area.
Not within the Church precincts, so please don't search in the grounds.
On street parking available nearby, area can be very busy with Students so stealth will be required,
BYOP and tweezers.
In the 1880s Swansea was growing rapidly. Middle-class suburbs were spreading west. St Helen's Avenue and King Edward's Road had been built and houses were starting to climb up Rhyddings Park Road and Finsbury Terrace. To meet the needs of this new and expanding community a prefabricated church (or 'tin tabernacle') was erected at the top of what is now Rhyddings Park Road in 1886.
Work on what was to become St Gabriel's started in 1888. There was one condition attached to Colonel Morgan's (the Landowners) generosity: the new church should be dedicated to St Gabriel, because that was the dedication of the church in Ethiopia in which his eldest brother, Jeffrey, was buried. Colonel Morgan remained a devoted member and a most generous benefactor of the church until his death in 1927.
The architect of St Gabriel's was Thomas Nicholson of Hereford (1823-1895). He had previously built or restored a good number of churches in the Hereford diocese, but his only previous commission in Swansea had been St James, Walter Road. He was a diligent but rather unimaginative Gothic revivalist. As a restorer he was too heavy-handed and was said to have left 'a trail of destruction' in his home diocese. St Gabriel's is probably one of his better churches.
The new church was consecrated by the Bishop of Saint David's on 18 July 1889, until the creation of the diocese of Swansea & Brecon in 1923 Swansea was in this diocese.
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