Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - Mr Martin's Recollections of Penarth Dock . . .

Harry interestingly states that the pontoon was nearing the end of its working life (I suggest that this would have been in the 1950's) and suggests that 'it had finished its years of service and was collapsing'. His father obviously worked at the Penarth Pontoon and Slipway Company and, I suppose, had 'inside' information on the condition of the structure. He remembers that they took one half of the pontoon and docked it upon the other half. This was an feature cleverly built into the design by the celebrated engineers Clark & Stanfield of Westminster, London.

Clark & Stanfield design for the Flensburg floating dock, situated in Northern Germany, from a book [020] [001] about their floating docks published in 1901. They state:- 'There is only the under water portion proper of the dock that is not readily accessible, and even that in all the numerous docks that we have designed can be got at without great difficulty. It is our invariable practice to make all docks self docking, that is, capable of bringing every portion of themselves out of the water.'

The chapter relating to Mr Harry Martin's Recollections of living and working at Penarth Dock in its active years, plus a series of other contributor's interesting stories, are quite fascinating and I recommend the book ; We Remember It Well - A Patchwork of Recollections - [326] - IBSN 1 872808 36 0