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

On the east side the T.V.R. built eighteen coal hoists and three cranes under a lease for 250 years. The terms of the lease were that the railway company were to pay a fixed rental of £1,615 a year, plus a royalty of £15 for every 10,000 tons of coal shipped. A wharfage rate of 2d a ton on shipped coal was also to be collected by the company and paid to the Bute Trustees.

The West side and Collingdon Road were left for the erection of warehouses and the intended development of import trade. Collingdon was secretary to Lord Bute. The "Little Dock" continued to export coal carried by the T.V.R.

From 1846 onwards, as far as coal exporting was concerned, the West Dock although Bute owned, was a T.V.R. dock.

The Agreement between the Bute Trustees and the T.V.R. Company was finally signed in December 1849. The Marquess of Bute and the T.V.R. had negotiated with Robert Stephenson as arbitrator, over completing a document with covenants to settle every outstanding point of the documents of 1844 and 1845.  As the Marquess died in 1848 his Trustees had to obtain an Act in 1848/49 to empower them to finalise the document on behalf of the young Marquis of Bute.

So by December 1849 there was agreement between the Trustees and the T.V.R. By this agreement the T.V.R. agreed to ensure that all goods and merchandise carried on their line either imported or for export should be unloaded or shipped at a Bute Dock. This covenant was not limited to coal. That is why the T.V.R. Co. never made a dock.

The two parties, although exploiting the same mineral, coal, were still separate companies. The T.V.R. also agreed that as the Bute Trustees had granted the east side of the West Dock to them they would abandon all interest in establishing coal exporting facilities at the River Ely.