Volume Ten - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - Penarth Dock in 1874. . .

Besides the dock and basin, of which we have already spoken, there is at Penarth a tidal harbour extending for a length of 13,000 ft. measured along the centre line of the river. At high water the average width of this harbour in the first reach of the river is 600 ft., and its length 4000 ft., the area of water surface being thus about 55 acres. When the depth of water is reduced to 15 ft. the width in the same reach is 280 ft., and the area 26 acres.

On the Cardiff side of the tidal harbour the Penarth Dock, Harbour, and Railway Company have a frontage of 12,000 ft., while on the Penarth side they have a similar frontage of 3000 ft. For shipping coal staithes have been provided, as shown on the map (see previous page) and at each of these 150 tons of coal can be shipped per hour. Cranes are also provided for unloading ballast or iron ore, of which latter there are large importations received at Cardiff. The depth of water in the berths at high water is during ordinary spring tides 30 ft., and during ordinary neap tides 20 ft., while the maximum flow of the tide takes place at the rate 2 knots per hour. The Penarth Dock and Harbour Works, we may add, were designed by Sir John Hawkshaw, and carried out under his supervision and that of Mr. Samuel Dobson.

By means of the Penarth Railway the Penarth Docks and Harbour are placed in direct communication with the Taff Vale Railway, while a branch forms a connexion with the South Wales Railway (now a portion of the Great Western system), and through it with the Rhymney Railway. Every facility is thus afforded for communication with the great coal fields and iron works of South Wales. In connexion with our account of the Penarth Docks, we may notice the vast development which has during the last few years taken place in the traffic over the Taff Vale Railway.

In 1841 the gross tonnage of minerals and goods conveyed over that line was but 1841 tons (ed: I think this tonnage is a typo!) ; in 1845 it had increased to 398,291 tons ; in 1850, to 781,900 tons ; in 1885, to 1,411,766 tons; in 1860, to 2,550,215 tons ; in 1865, 3,366,785 tons; in 1870, to 4,605,583 tons ; while last year it reached 5,147,074 tons, of which 4,527,641 tons was coal and coke.