Swansea
Print Workshop @
Kings
Lane Warehouse
now viewing: Kings Lane Warehouse / The Existing Building / The Site
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The Site
Historic Swansea: Kings Lane
Kings Lane is a sloping cobblestone street, which runs along the Warehouse’s larges south facing façade. The lane’s narrow width, stone walls, and rugged slope, are indications of its medieval origins. It possesses the intimacy and charm lost to many contemporary urban areas.
Assuming the Swansea Housing Association development goes forward as proposed, Kings Lane will provide the Warehouse’s only architectural and physical connection to its historic context.
According to Richard Porch, Regeneration Officer for the City & County of Swansea and author of Swansea: History You Can See, the passage most likely dates back to medieval times when King’s Lane marked the north side of the town’s defences. In mid-Victorian Swansea (1852-1931), it took the name Morris Lane, and was a very busy thoroughfare connecting the North Dock on the Strand with High Street.
It is thought that the bottom of the wall on the south side of King’s Lane could be all that remains of the town wall. Due to the levelling of site north of the King’s Lane will become one of the few routes connecting the regenerated Strand with the Park Tawe and Homebase.
Currently, the Warehouse is one of the only buildings accessed off the lane, and, according to Geoff Pettifor of Swansea Housing Association, there is the suggestion that King’s Lane will be pedestrianised. Both of these will serve to channel more traffic by the print workshop.