Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - Various dock schemes which failed . . .

Mr. Batchelor proposes to embank a considerable proportion of the Cardiff flats, extending in a Southeasterly direction from the Rumney river towards the Penarth-head, terminating in a Pier at the southern bend of the Taff river, and opposite thereto to throw out a groin from the Penarth dock entrance upon the Cefn-y-wrach, sweeping back to the cliffs rising from the Penarth beach.Between these two points he proposes to construct an embankment in a horse-shoe form, extending land-ward over the Cardiff flats, through the head of the Bute Low Water Pier, across the toe of the east mud onto the Penarth flats, proceeding to within a short distance of the most seaward point of the Ely Tidal Harbour embankment, and ending at the North-pier of the Penarth Dock Basin.

This inner embankment would enclose the Ely river, in which a dock could be formed of about 400 acres, with nearly 30,000 lineal feet of water frontage - the Taff river, wherein a water area of about 500 acres, with about 25,000 lineal feet of frontage could be obtained - and the Bute mud cut, which would afford 75 acres of dock, and about 5,000 lineal feet of frontage. It would also form a Tidal Basin seaward of sufficient are to safely accommodate four time the number of vessels than has ever yet taken refuge in adverse weather on the mud bank it is proposed to reclaim, the value of which would ultimately go far in reduction of the original cost of the undertaking. Between the points on the embankment where it is pierced by the entrances to the Great Import Float and the South Float, Mr. Batchelor suggests the extension of an open Wood-pier, at which steamers drawing ten feet of water might come at all states of the tide, to accomplish which he would dredge out the channel.

For carrying out the scheme the conformation of the estuary is particularly favourable, the physical difficulties being limited to the unusual ones, that of constructing works in tidal waters, and of providing for those periods when the rivers are subjected to floods. As to the former, most of the works consist of embankments at limited depths, for which materials in abundance are cheaply and readily procurable. All the necessary masonry would have gravel and marl foundations, with little excavation, and would be limited to the entrances of the docks and to the extreme points of the North and South Piers, so that few undertakings of the magnitude of the one proposed present less difficulties to be overcome. Then with respect to the flood waters. In the present case the rivers flow over beds with considerable declivity, so by damming them up, by no possibility could the valleys through which they flow be inundated, one of the chief difficulties encountered by the engineers in floating rivers subject to heavy floods.