View from Penarth Head - Situated on the A4160 road about 6 miles from Cardiff is the Bristol Channel resort of Penarth. The town has fine docks, beaches and pier from which pleasure steamers run in the season.

This postcard was published by Ernest Joyce & Co. Ltd. of Newport but the date stamp year is illegible. However, the fact that there is a 5d stamp attached commemorating Charles Dickens indicates that it was posted c.1970. The single funnel paddle steamer leaving the pier is the P. & A. Campbell, White Funnel Fleet, 'Glen Usk' which was scrapped in 1963, hence, this photograph pre-dates the posting date. It is another heritage postcard held within the Penarth Dock Collection. [001]

The Beach and Penarth Head - A postcard view from the pier posted during August 1961 to an address near Cheadle. Doris is writing the card whilst watching her friends playing golf whilst the weather is 'quite good.'

Rhaetian Penarth Group - Penarth Headland, and the cliffs along and through Lavernock to Sully, are interesting to the geologically minded since the rocks of the latest age of the Triassic Period, c.2m years ago, are present. These rock formations were deposited when it was desert which, in time, became ancient seaside! The gypsum and alabaster deposits and mine have been previously mentioned on this Penarth Dock website and you may be able to find the odd fossil or two lying about on the beach delivered of the Jurassic rocks, however, most of these archaic artifacts are, in my experience, to be found pushing mice around and/or being deceitful in local council offices. [001]

The Beach, Penarth - Another postcard view taken from the pier looking across to Penarth Head, with the sewage outfall to the sea nearby the bathers! The twin ferro-concrete structures of the searchlight stations under the headland and the 'stairway to heaven' are clear in the distance and are a reminder of the need to protect the dock infrastructure from the historic French and the recent, and yet to come again, German aggression. The post-date is during September 1931 to a Mrs. Williams in Anglesey and the writer reports that there is lovely weather in Penarth! [001]

The Beach and Pier, Penarth - A striking contrast is illustrated within this image of both the leisure industry and the working environment!

The p.s. 'Glen Usk, has just left the pier in this 'Excel Series' postcard view, date unknown but prior to 1963. The colourised enlargement, however, clearly illustrates the infrastructure, proximity and extent of Cardiff dockland and the East Moors steelworks, etc.

I have always felt that there is a local perception that Penarth has simply evolved as a quiet leisure resort, intended for the pleasure of the non-working classes and the rich, and that the commercial reality of the danger and sweat of heavy industry and the maritime activities were distant, disconnected and unimportant aspects of the prosperity and heritage of the town. Maybe you should reconsider your views? Another piece of our heritage held within the Penarth Dock Collection. [001]