Swansea Copper Day
Saturday 5 March 2011 was Swansea Copper Day, a free city-wide festival in the heart of the world's historic copper industry. A day of talks, films, tours, displays and chat drew over 2000 people to Swansea.
The Swansea Copper Day blog chronicles the planning and organisation of Copper Day.
The day was organised by the team working on the Global and Local Worlds of Welsh Copper Project. This was a completely voluntary collaboration with no dedicated resources of time or funds. Its success relied on the good will and contributions of 29 different organisations, groups and individuals. In total 29 activities and events took place at 13 venues, some of them continuing beyond the day itself.
Two important anniversaries inspired the festivities: 200 years since the first copper ingot rolled out of the internationally-famed Hafod Copperworks of Vivian and Sons, and the 50th birthday of the Lower Swansea Valley Project which began a pioneering post-industrial urban land reclamation scheme that sought to return as much of the valley back to its natural state, after the centuries of slow poison from the smelting and refining works.
Download souvenir Copper Day poster and programme (PDF, 3.8MB)
Copper Day in the Press
Day to illustrate how copper has helped to shape our city, 7 March 2011 (South Wales Evening Post)
Copper Day marks 200th anniversary of Hafod Copperworks, 5 March 2011 (BBC)
Making the copper past of city, 5 March 2011 (South Wales Evening Post)
Copper Day demonstrates appetite for heritage-led change, 19 February (South Wales Evening Post)
City prepares for Copper Day, 7 February 2011
Find out more:
Images of the day on Copper Industrial Heritage group on flickr
