At the center of Swansea city South Wales stood a church that had been there since the 14th century. In 1739 the roof of the church caved in as the congregation watched in horror while standing outside. The church ended up being demolished in 1896 after a series of reconstruction on the roof. Plans went out to rebuild the church. The job of designing the new church was up for grabs. Two people applied for the job, A local architect and man named Sir Arther Blomfield, He wasn’t local but had designed many building including many churches, The bank of England and The Royal Collage of Music in London. He was also the president of The Architectural Association.
Based on his work recored, the comity in charge of the rebuild gladly gave Blomfield the job. The other architect took this extremely personal and was enraged by the decision. He didn’t handle his rejection well at all and spend months stewing in his resentment. The fact that the comity chose an outsider over him seemed like a huge insult to his work. He was not going to let the matter drop, so when the opportunity for revenge arrived, he took it. A row of cottages across the road from the new St Mary’s church went up sale, the angry architect bought the cottages, knocked them down and built a huge red brick building in their place. The building was used for offices for a local brewery. Out of spite, the angry architect placed a calved sculpture of a sinister looking devil stroking his goatee, the devil had a menacing grin and was staring directly at St Mary’s church with evil looking beady eyes as if to shower the church with wicked thoughts. The angry architect was proud of his sculpture despite the locals being fearful of it. When the devil sculpture was erected, The angry architect pronounced a curse up on St. Mary’s church.
“When your church is destroyed and burned to the ground, my Devil will remain laughing”
Even though a curse was set, 40 years passed by quite peacefully. St Mary’s. church held Sunday services, weddings, funerals and bake sales without a hitch, until February 1941 during World War II. Between the 19th and 21st of February, Swansea was under attack and was subjected to heavy bombing from German planes. The Germans were set out to cripple all coal exports from the city. Swanseas port was a main target due to its ability to ship supplies in and out of Wales. The Germans were looking for the right time to strike and they found it due to some confusion between the RAF and the Swansea GOR, they were told to ceasefire. This lead to there not being any night fighters to defend the city. Over 3 nights the city was absolutely obliterated. Approximately 1.200 high explosive bombs and 56,000 incendiary were dropped. 857 buildings were destroyed and 11.000 damaged and 230 innocent lives lost. 409 people were injured and 7000 lost their homes. The city would never be the same again. The city centre was completely leveled and St Mary’s church succumbed to the devastating events. St Mary’s finally burned down until all that was left was a burned out shell of the structure. Across the road stood the red brick building completely untouched, including the Devil sculpture which was still eerily smiling down on the ruins of St Mary’s with its menacing grin. The church was rebuilt in 1950 using Blomfield’s original design while The Swansea Devil looked on. Eventually the red brick building was sold and knocked down. The Quadrant shopping centre was build in its place. The Devil sculpture vanished for the 18 yers until in 1980, when South Wales evening post launched a campaign to find the sculpture. Rowley Davis, an historian, found the sculpture inside an antique dealers garage. The sculpture was taken back to its original location. The staff planned to move it around the Quadrant shopping centre but the sculpture always seemed to return to the same spot, above the main entranced overlooking St. Mary’s church. The members of church felt extremely spooked and uneasy about sculpture and started a petition to have it removed. To avoid any more upset, the staff moved the sculpture away form the main entrance. However, each night when the shopping centre closed, the sculpture would return to the entrance.
In June of 2019 the sculpture was rehoused to the Swansea museum where it could be properly be maintained. The sculpture has been restored to its original glory but the curse has been not forgotten. The staff at the museum positioned the sculpture to face directly towards St Mary’s church, with its beady eyes and wicked smile.
