Fabian Way overbridge

Image: © vectorkraft Taken: 5 Dec 2011

This photograph looks westwards from the A483 Fabian Way pedestrian overbridge. This A road was built during the 1960s to relieve pressure on the narrow Port Tennant Road which until this time was the main thoroughfare. Prior to this development, the land occupied by what became Fabian Way consisted of various coal yards, factories and railway sidings serving the dockyard. A 1950s OS Map shows a wooden barrel factory would have occupied the land directly in front of this overbridge. Garden allotments could be found beyond this factory until the mid-1950s. Prior to 1900, a pathway existed linking Port Tennant Road (near to the base of Baglan Street) and an entry point into the railway and docks complex. The entry point consisted of a tunnel under railway lines and would have been situated where the car wash site begins today (just within the embankment) Passing through the tunnel afforded you access to the original Port Tennant Inn (demolished around 1890) and various branches of the Tennant Canal. This tunnel was blocked sometime c1910 as the dock railway rapidly expanded. Remains of the tunnel entrance could be seen as late as the early 1990s before council landscaping took place. Until the 1990s the car wash site was occupied by a Shell petrol station. Railway lines ran on the embankment on the left until the late 1980s and served Swansea Eastern Depot (Swansea East Dock station until the 1930s).

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