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

In August 1857 a further contract was given to Rennie and Company for a bridge over the River Ely at a cost of £2,000 to enable earth to be taken from the dock site onto the other bank of the river where the coal drops were being built.

By August 1858 the consulting engineer, Mr. Hawkshaw was able to report : "Nearly the whole of the masonry and bridge works are finished. The widening and deepening of the river, and the pitching of the river bank are also nearly finished, and rapid progress is being made with the formation and pitching of the Sea Embankment. Eleven out of twelve coal drops contracted to be erected at the harbour are in course of construction, and arrangements have been made for the construction of a wharf and approaches thereto for discharging ballast.

The part of the work now requiring the longest time to complete is the Railway Embankment, into which 150,000 cubic yards of earthwork to be brought from the site of the intended dock, remain to be put. At the end of last month, upwards of 815,000 cubic yards of earthwork and 12,600 cubic yards of masonry had been completed." [1165]

Before this embankment was built the sea often flooded the area up to Leckwith Causeway. In October 1762 Mary Williams was swept off her horse when caught by an ebbing tide whilst returning from Cardiff Market to Cogan Pill and was drowned near Leckwith Bridge. [1166]

On the branch line which had been built from Grangetown to Penarth an accident occurred and was reported in the "Cardiff Times", 2nd October 1858, when William Brian, employed by Messrs James and Price in constructing new roads at the growing Penarth was killed.

"It appears that when the navvies leave work in the evening they endeavour to get a ride on the ballast wagons if the engine is on the road towards Canton. At 5.30 on the day in question, an engine and 25 laden wagons were proceeding from the harbour towards Canton when a large number of men, including deceased, jumped on the moving wagons. Deceased fell, and several wheels passed over his legs. Joseph Strong, labourer at Penarth said the men would run to the wagons. No one could stop them. Somebody shouted to the men not to get on the wagons as they were doing so, but the man would take no heed to it." James Hemingway was in attendance and said that the dead man was not employed on the harbour, but on the roads.