The Norwegian Church was a church for Norwegian sailors originally located in Newport, but later relocated to the docklands area of Swansea,

Wales Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...

. It was a Grade II

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The church building was originally located at

Newport Docks Newport Docks is the collective name for a group of docks in the city of Newport, south-east Wales. By the eighteenth century there were a number of wharves on the west shore of the River Usk; iron and coal were the principal outward traffic. Th ...

. The building consists of a

Seaman Seaman may refer to: * Sailor, a member of a marine watercraft's crew * Seaman (rank), a military rank in some navies * Seaman (name) (including a list of people with the name) * ''Seaman'' (video game), a 1999 simulation video game for the Seg ...

’s

Mission Mission (from Latin ''missio'' "the act of sending out") may refer to: Organised activities Religion *Christian mission, an organized effort to spread Christianity *Mission (LDS Church), an administrative area of The Church of Jesus Christ of ...

to the west end and a single

gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

to the east end. It was originally built as a place of worship for

Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...

sailors when they visited the UK. It was relocated from Newport to Swansea in 1910 at a site directly opposite the Sainsbury's supermarket on the

River Tawe The River Tawe (; cy, Afon Tawe ) is a long river in South Wales. Its headwaters flow initially east from its source below Llyn y Fan Fawr south of Moel Feity in the Black Mountains, the westernmost range of the Brecon Beacons National ...

. In 1966 the Norwegian Seamen's Mission in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula o ...

told the last minister, Pastor Somerset, to abandon the Mission and return to Norway. However, a Norwegian who had settled in Swansea, Eric Benneche, wrote to the

Bishop of Bergen The Catholic Diocese of Bergen or Diocese of Bjørgvin in Norway existed from the eleventh century to the Protestant Reformation (1537),

offering to run the church from the expatriate community's own resources. Permission was granted and the Bishop visited the church in person to present them with the key. Benneche was also allowed to officiate as a lay pastor at services, christenings, weddings and funerals. Benneche was followed, in 1968, by the Reverend Vivian James (1927–2011). who kept the church going for a further thirty years. He had been a missionary to Lapland, Norway from 1953 to 1967 and preached in both English and

. When Pastor James retired in 1998 the church was the last working Seamen's Mission Church. It closed in 1998. With the redevelopment of the district, the building had to be relocated again. In 2004 the building was dismantled and reassembled next to Swansea's Prince of Wales dock where it later reopened as a jewellery gallery, and later as a nursery. It sits alongside two other historic listed buildings – the Ice House and J Shed.

References

{{reflist
Explore Gower: Norwegian Church
Grade II listed churches in Swansea Tourist attractions in Swansea Norwegian diaspora in Europe Relocated buildings and structures in Wales

History

See also

References