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

The chain ferry’s operation was subject to tides and in 1899 a subway was constructed under the river at the same place. On the north side of the Basin was a Seamen’s Reading Room, and there was another on the north bank of the River Ely at the harbour works. They were served by the Anglican Church’s Missions to Seamen.

A pathway led down to the dock from the junction of Arcot Street and Dock Road (now Paget Road) through the ’’Billy Banks”, where there was a limekiln, to a subway under the railway lines to a place between the seventh and eighth pier. At that point was the Inspectors and Tipping Office.

It was a convenient path for men ; tippers and trimmers, gantrymen and other to go to work and be alloted work. The tippers and trimmers tended to work at the same tip. This hill crossed by the path was called "Billy Banks", but the origin of this name is obscure. It is said that goats grazed on the banks, but another story puts forward the view that the man who delegated men to work on the tips was Billy Banks.

Lodging houses for seamen became a necessity because in company with Cardiff it was an export port. Ships would leave Penarth with coal, and bring back another cargo to another port, and pay off their crews at London, Liverpool, Bristol or other ports. The ship would then sail back to Cardiff or Penarth with only the essential crew members to pick up another cargo of coal. Then the ship would need another full crew. So men would need to wait ashore before being "signed on" at the Mercantile Marine office.

Seamen would arrive at Cardiff and Penarth with little money after being "paid-off" at another home port. When "signing on" men were given one month’s pay in advance which they frequently owed to the boarding-house keeper because they had been living on credit. This meant that their rates of pay were low because they had to find a ship master to take them on as crew, and they could not bargain.

Ship’s officers and agents would stay at the Penarth Hotel, (now Headlands School) but seamen would stay in respectable lodging houses. The large houses in Maughan Terrace were of this type.