Volume Nine - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - Swing Bridge Connections : Penarth Dock, River Taff and Glamorganshire Canal . . .

	1880's OS map showing route of road between Cardiff and Penarth together with the location of the swing bridges over the River Taff and the Glamorganshire Canal connecting also Grangetown and Butetown.
Fig. 1 - A side elevation of the swing bridge over the River Taff. [520]

The following detailed description of the Taff and Glamorgan Canal swing bridges was published within the periodical 'Engineering' [520] of January 1867. It is heavy reading for the non-technical amongst us but for us sad engineers well worth replicating in full. Skip through it if you are non-technical but please look at the engravings of the bridges on the following pages - they are wonderful! I duplicated them as necessary to assist understanding of the text explanation.

• 1867 - The Penarth Bridges - 'The pair of swing bridges, of which we give engravings, are situated on a line of road connecting Cardiff with Penarth. Cardiff is situated on the northern and Penarth on the southern side of the Cardiff harbour, and, until the construction of the works just mentioned, the only road connecting the two towns entered the northern part of Cardiff, and the line of communication between Penarth and the southern part of the former town, where the docks were situated, was consequently somewhat circuitous. Recently there have been completed at Penarth, on the southern side of Cardiff harbour, some extensive docks, designed by Mr. Hawkshaw, and carried out under the joint superintendence of Mr. Hawkshaw and Mr. Samuel Dobson ;