Heroic Materialism

     Tucked away behind the stuccoed Victorian terraces of Uplands in Swansea is this mighty industrial structure, built by, and for what purpose, I don't know. I've checked and it isn't listed. My first suspicions were that it is the work of  E M Bruce Vaughan the architect of the elegant, Bodleyesque church of St Paul, Plasmarl - redundant now and beginning to look very parlous, and that it may have been built in connection with the Swansea tram system.  However I'm no longer so sure about the former; Bruce Vaughan was mainly a church architect, and my guess was based on the presence of the large thermal, or Diocletian, window in the e wall and there being a Gothic paraphrase of a thermal window lighting the crypt of St John's.  A tenuous connection, I suppose.

     That being said it is, as you can see, a remarkable building, skilfully and sensitively designed of rubble and smart limestone (?) dressings, an heroic projection, manifestation, and celebration of the industrial power of Swansea in her pomp, lifting it beyond the merely utilitarian. The influences are various, Late Antiquity, English Baroque and French Neoclassicism of the Ledoux and Boullee type.  A touch too of the Arts and Crafts.  As for date, I'm not entirely sure about that either.  It could date from anywhere between late Victorian and the eve of World War II, but a building with considerable heft and presence, that makes for a profound contrast to the jolly Victorian suburbia around it.