The National Waterfront Museum sits between the marina and the South Dock and tells the story of Welsh industry — coal, copper, tinplate, slate, transport — through fifteen themed galleries. It is part of the Amgueddfa Cymru / National Museum Wales network and admission is free.
The setting is striking: a Grade II-listed dockside warehouse from 1900 sewn together with a sleek modern slate-and-glass wing by Welsh architects Wilkinson Eyre. Working models, oral histories and a full-sized locomotive make it interesting for children, but the collection rewards adult visitors too — especially the sections on Swansea's nineteenth-century copper trade with Chile and Cuba.