[5] In 1106 much of South Wales was assigned to an Anglo-Norman lord, Henry de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Warwick, and as part of a castle-building programme he built Loughor Castle, as an earthwork with timber defenses, built into the south-east corner of the Roman ramparts.

[8] The arrival of the Railway in 1852 required the building of Loughor Viaduct, built from wooden trestles by Brunel, also originally featuring a swing-section.

Loughor Estuary and Burry Inlet, with vast areas of sandbanks and some of the highest tidal ranges in the world, has always had its share of risks.

[10] In the early 20th century the main industries were large tin and steel works, situated on both banks of the estuary.

About 1800, John Vivian (1750–1826) of Truro, Cornwall, joined the Cheadle Brasswire Company as managing partner in the copper works at Loughor and Penclawdd.

His family would go on to be key industrialists across the Swansea area, running copper-mining, copper-smelting and trading businesses, as Vivian & Sons, throughout the 19th century.

[11][12] This employed large numbers of both men and women from Loughor, who would cross the estuary each day to get to work.

Upper Loughor began as a distinct settlement, initially around what is now the Glebe Road area, and became established as a separate town by the mid-19th century.