A view of the lower end of St. Mary Street, Cardiff with the railway bridge over the Glamorganshire Canal at East Canal Wharf. To the right of the photo is the Central Hotel and an underpass continues through Grangetown and out onto Penarth Road. Just as you exit the underpass with the Cardiff General Station platforms above is the entrance to the parcels and freight area. The canteen is where my Auntie Win worked for many years and my mother often helped out to assist the family income when times were hard. Another image of the past from the Penarth Dock Collection. [001]

The Glamorganshire Canal once wound its way through the centre of Cardiff, Gabalfa, Llandaff North and Whitchurch but it was culverted under St. Mary Street and built over. It traveled on through Crockherbtown where there was a weighbridge the barges being lifted out of the water onto a cradle and weighed. Tolls were charged according to the type of cargo. In 1894 this weighbridge was moved to North Road. Here is the view a few miles on its northern route to its original destination, the old ironworks at Merthyr and the collieries on the way. Then coal overtook iron as steel ruled okay, and then the railway overtook the canal, and then finally, nothing of importance came down to Cardiff Docks by any means! [001]  [372]