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

As our seafront faces east it could hardly be a successful competitor with other summer resorts. Mr. Forrest was largely instrumental in bringing the railway to Penarth Town in 1878 and that action was significant in that it gave convenient transport to Cardiff for people who wished to live in Penarth.

Between 1881 and 1891 the town’s population doubled from 6,228 to 12,424. Although Penarth has a special identity of its own and has never been part of Cardiff, and is now for local government purposes in the Vale of Glamorgan, in reality it is a suburb of Cardiff.

Now the only signs of vessels are the yachts of the Penarth Motor Boat and Sailing Club moored on the River Ely, and the oil tanker that ties up at the jetty. Coal exporting has ended, but ironically the oil tankers regularly call at the same site from where coal was first shipped from Penarth Harbour in 1859.