Volume Eight - Pre-Victorian to the present day - more aspects - More storms and their effects . . .

The full effects of the gale which sprang up with fearful fury from the east early on Tuesday, are now to be viewed at Penarth in a large number of wrecks. The gale was, as felt at Penarth, one of the most disastrous and one of the most violent known for many years past. It blew in gusts of tremendous force, howling along the beach and sweeping under the legs of those gathered to witness the manifold calamities, with almost sufficient violence to carry them off their feet.

Persons who have been living in the neighbourhood for 20 years state that it eclipsed any storm within their recollection, and the fact of the injuries to shipping that we have had to chronicle are quite sufficient to bear out the fact. The number of trows, cutters, and schooners on the west mud and pitching at its extremity is very large, such small craft, or what is left of them, being scattered over the whole area.

The most important wreck that occurred during the preceding night near Penarth, however, was that of the 'Buckhurst' (Captain McIntyre), a large iron sailing ship, and almost new. This vessel, which is 1897 tons burthen, left Penarth Dock on Saturday last, bound for Bombay. She, however, did not get favorable winds, and stayed in the roads until the storm overtook her. She was driven up on the beach about half a mile south of the lifeboat house, but the efforts of those on the beach and the coastguardsmen, the crew were all fortunately saved.

The gale continued, with less fury, during the whole of Wednesday, and our reporter had the opportunity of observing the scene at Penarth under circumstances little changed from those in which the calamities occurred.

Going from Cardiff Docks along the confines of that, at low tides, desolate patch known as the West Mud, numbers of those smacks and trows plying between Cardiff and the English side of the Channel, were to be seen on the mud, only waiting for the return of the tide which will bear them away safely enough ;