The first Heritage Centre was housed in the Watch House building on the finger pier, and opened in July 1999. The exhibition attracted over 4000 visitors during the three months it was open.

Encouraged by this response to the exhibition, the Trust, along with local volunteers, commenced work on renovating the" Sail Loft", some 50 yards away from the Watch House building. This Sail Loft, being a much larger building, became home to a much larger and permanent heritage exhibition centre including a cafe and shop.

During the Winter of 1999 and Spring 2000, the Sail Loft was renovated by The Amlwch Industrial Heritage Trust, along with the help of local volunteers.
A small cafe and shop was opened in the Sail Loft building, in July of that year.

The Sail Loft was built by Treweek some time before 1872, as part of "Iard Newydd". The upper floor of the sail loft is approximately 60ft x 20ft, and slopes from back to front, and slightly from right to left. The generally accepted explanation is that it was easier to roll bolts of sailcloth down the slope. Of course, the building may have been built for a totally different purpose, but what other aspect of shipbuilding would have benefited from having a building with sloping floors?

Ian Borland came up with another suggestion, via email, as to why the sail loft has sloping floors -

"I thought it might interest you to know that in Dundee I was once shown round a long building with a sloping floor, deliberately built on a hill.
Its function, I was told, was for use in Rope making.
You may appreciate that Sailors will use different types of ropes for different reasons, so many different raw materials would be used. Some of these would have to be imported, whilst some might have been grown locally.
Sisal, Manilla & Hemp are some types I can think of off the top of my head.
I believe hemp was grown in Hampshire around the time the new forest was planted to supply oak for the Naval ships of Nelson's time."
A very valid suggestion.