Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - Working the Ely Tidal Harbour . . .

The difficulties and dangers of working the Ely Tidal Harbour are illustrated in the following accounts.

1880 - "A Vessel Capsized in Ely River. - On Wednesday the Dandy George and Elizabeth, of Bideford (Captain Hutchings), had just completed loading her cargo of coal in Ely Harbour, for Plymouth, and was on the point of leaving when she heeled over, struck on the river's bank, filled, and sank. Efforts were being made on Thursday to raise her, part of the cargo being discharged in a lighter." Weekly Mail [067] 10th July 1880.

Ghostly Story. - Mr. Smith, my apprentice instructor, whilst discussing the workings at the Victoria Wharf and the River Ely coal tips, told me a story one day whilst we were traveling into work on the train from Dinas Powys to Cogan.

He told me that at the other side of the river, in the old days, if the mud, rats, cold, water, machinery or coal gas didn't get you, then a ghost might. An old hand had spun him a yarn about the Victoria Wharf which was home to a ghost for a while.

One day, a worker was assisting in the mooring a ship, when a wire rope suddenly became taught, shot across the ship and cut his head clean off. They searched for the head to accompany the corpse but couldn't find it, presuming it to have been washed down the river on the outgoing tide. Then the reports commenced after others working the wharf saw the ghost of the man.

A few years afterward, there was a flood and when the drains were cleaned out they found that one was blocked. The reason for the blockage? The decomposed head of a man! The head was reunited with the torso at the Llandough cemetery, and from that day the ghost was no more and peace was restored to the Victoria Wharf.