Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - The Explosives Pier at Penarth Dock . . .

As previously explained, I spent the last year of a five-year long apprenticeship at the Penarth Dock Engineering Company Limited in the drawing office set up in a building built circa 1912 and erected on 'stilts' over the soggy ooze of the River Ely. Between this brick two storey building and the company garage there was an old and rickety landing stage upon which we sometimes made new apprentices 'walk the plank'!

Only later, half a century or so, during my research of the dock history, did I re-evaluate the 1895 Taff Vale Railway Plan of the Penarth Dock and Ely Tidal Harbour which indicated that this landing stage/jetty/pier was in fact labeled the 'Explosives Pier'.

Please excuse illustrations and text that has been duplicated for explanation purposes taken from previous chapters of this website

	A 1949 or 1950 aerial view of the River Ely and Penarth Dock. The drawing office and location of the former 'Explosives Pier' are indicated.
	Some views of the 'Explosives Pier' also duplicated from previous subject matter within this website plus a map of the transportation routes possible.

The impetus for this chapter was a request for more information regarding the likely route of transport of explosives from Penarth Harbour to Bristol, published within in the WRRC Newsletter No. 169 (Spring 2022) by a fellow member of the Welsh Railways Research Circle. [737]