Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - A History of Penarth Dock by Roy Thorne . . .

The Taff Vale Railway Bill (Merthyr Tydvil and Cardiff Railway Act, 1836), was opposed by the canal company, but the Bill received Royal Assent in 1836. By 1840, one year after the opening of the Bute West Dock, the railway was opened to Abercynon on 9th October 1840.

In the early part of the 19th century a proposal was examined to make a 'dock' at Cogan Pill, and the connection of a new canal from the Glamorgan Canal. This plan proved too costly.

In 1821 a meeting attended by iron masters, members of Cardiff Town Council and Thomas Telford, the great engineer, discussed the possibility of making a straight cut to divert the River Taff from Canton Bridge to the River Ely. The meandering River Ely was to be straightened and deepened between Leckwith Bridge and the sea. A wide ship canal was then to be cut from a floating dock near the Taff river mouth across Saltmead and the old Taff river bed to join the Glamorgan Canal. The abandoned bed of the Taff was also to be widened, straightened and deepened from the proposer ship canal to Canton Bridge and converted into a floating dock. The scheme was estimated to cost £20,000, an amount which was deemed prohibitive, and no further action was taken. [614]

In 1828 the second Marques of Bute (1793-1848) commissioned Mr. David Stuart to report on improvements which could be made on his lands at Cardiff. He first examined the East Moors which became completely covered at Spring Tides, and when the tide receded it looked like a swamp. Mr. Stuart made a sea bank which shut out the sea and then made drainage ditches so that water could drain into the sea. These ditches protected various plots which were sought for eagerly and became a profitable investment.

Lord Bute was a mineral owner and suffered from the inability of the canal to cope with the increasing traffic. He sought the advice of James Green, the West country canal engineer in 1828. Green reported critically on the then current position and gave his views that, "the canal entrance was too high up the river, so that vessels had to follow a winding channel and needed pilots, and that the sill of the entrance lock was at the level of half tide at moderate springs, so that vessels could only get out at the top of the tide, and at any high tide there was a crowd of vessels trying to get out through the lock and others trying to get in."