The steam tug - 'Canning' at swansea marina and the lightship Helwick', which

spent much of its life warning ships about the Helwick Sandbank in the Bristol Channel.

While Swansea has a long history, it has also evolved rapidly in recent years. The City Centre has extended seaward into the award-winning Marina and Maritime Quarter, where you'll find attractions including the National Waterfront Museum, Swansea Museum, the Dylan Thomas Centre,
The mission art gallery, and the LC leisure complex, and waterpark.

Mission Gallery pictured right is a Grade II Listed building and began its life as St Nicholas Church, a non-denominational Seaman’s Mission, built in 1886 by Benjamin Bucknall. Regarded as an important part of the community even then, it offered moral and spiritual guidance to seamen and the local community. The building opened as an art gallery in 1977 called Swansea Arts Workshop, an initiative managed by a group of artists as part of the Association of Artists & Designers in Wales (AADW). Run entirely on a voluntary basis, they took over the lease in 1977 and transformed the interior into an exhibition space with workshops. Since 1992 it has been an independent gallery, adopting the name Mission Gallery in 1998. The building’s history and memories it contains have proved to be a fascinating source of inspiration for those artists who have exhibited at Mission Gallery, with many of them creating powerful and thought provoking site specific work.