Swansea Museum

Learn more about Swansea’s history and everyday life in the past at Swansea Museum. The oldest museum in Wales, Swansea Museum has four sites around the city. The collections at three of the sites are open to the public and free to visit.

Take the family to explore six fascinating galleries at the main building of Swansea Museum, located on Oystermouth Road. Discover an Egyptian mummy, a traditional Welsh kitchen and wonderful objects from around the globe. In addition to the permanent collections, the imposing main building also houses temporary exhibitions.

An important feature of the museum’s collections are the many boats and ships on display and two are kept floating in Swansea Marina – a tugboat and a lightship. Head for the pontoon off Museum Square to view Helwick, Lightship 91, so named as one of its roles was to warn shipping about the Helwick Sandbank in the Bristol Channel. The other vessel is Canning, an oil-burning steam tug which operated in Swansea Docks from the mid 1960s.

The Tramshed on Dylan Thomas Square houses a double-decker Swansea street tram, a reconstruction of a horse-drawn tram and part of a 1960s tram. Step back to the age of street trams in Swansea as you climb inside a Mumbles tram. The Tramshed’s opening hours are restricted and dependent on volunteer availability so call ahead to avoid disappointment.

The fourth site, Swansea Museum Collections Centre, is not open to the public and housed in a historically significant building on the former Hafod/Copper Works site in Landore.

Please see Swansea Museum’s website to confirm opening times and other details before visiting.