Swansea Mosque is located in two former terraced commercial buildings on St. Helen's Road in

Swansea, Wales Swansea ( ; ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea (). The city is the twenty-eighth largest in the United Kingdom. Located along Swansea Bay i ...

. It has served the

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

community in Swansea since the 1980s. In order to cater for the needs of Swansea's growing Muslim community, a project is underway to redevelop a disused church building nearby on St. Helen's Road just yards away from the existing mosque. The new mosque building was founded in 1862 as St. Andrew's Church. Built in 1864 by Scottish immigrants working in the

drapery Drapery is a general word referring to cloths or textiles (Old French , from Late Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ... , from Late Latin ). It ma ...

trade, St. Andrew's was at that time Swansea's only

Presbyterian Presbyterianism is a historically Reformed Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders, known as "presbyters". Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word ''Pr ...

Church. Designed by John Dickson, the façade has decorative twin towers and is located on St. Helen's Road. St. Andrew's later became the property of the

United Reformed Church The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers. The URC is a Trinitarian church whose theolog ...

before falling into dereliction. After fire damage in 1964, the rear hall was redesigned and rebuilt. A Muslim charity (Kafel Fund UK) bought the building from a private owner in 1997. In 2004 following the merger of the charity with the mosque, the current restoration and renovation plans commenced. The new mosque project attracted controversy in 2004 when the

British National Party The British National Party (BNP) is a Far-right politics, far-right, British fascism, fascist list of political parties in the United Kingdom, political party in the United Kingdom. It is headquartered in Wigton, Cumbria, and is led by Adam ...

circulated a leaflet in opposition to it.BBC News - Police probe BNP mosque leaflet
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References

External links

Swansea MosqueSwansea's New Mosque Project
1980s establishments in Wales Buildings and structures in Swansea Mosques converted from churches in Europe Mosques in Wales {{Wales-struct-stub

See also

References

External links