Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - The River Ely Iron Ore Wharf . . .

The report on the previous page mentions "lowering stiffening coal into vessels." Stiffening was coal loaded into a sailing vessel's hold to utilise the space previously occupied by conventional solid ballast, stone etc. I assume this was simply to maximise the quantity of coal exported per voyage and stabilise the vessel until fully loaded with cargo and trimmed : see fuller explanation by clicking this link!

April 1859 - The ballast staith is not completed. It is 312 feet long, stands on twenty-six rows of piles, many of which are sixty feet long, and is forty-two feet eight inches wide. When finished it will have a number of cranes, and the ballast taken out will be carried to the spot which we have already named as north of the harbour entrance. There will be two turn-tables on the ballast staith. - Cardiff Times [019] [361] 30th April 1859.

September 1859 - Messrs. Hawkshaw and Dobson reported in these terms : - "We have to report that the harbour works, the coal drops and the ballast wharf, and the works for the railway, between the junction with the Taff Vale Railway and the harbour, are so far completed as to admit of being opened for traffic." - Cardiff Times [019] [361] 3rd September 1859.

1871 - Slater's Commercial Directory [160] stated in relation to the Ely Tidal Harbour that : There are 3 cranes for unloading iron ore and ballast, each of a capacity of 50 tons per hour.

February 1880 - Large consignments of Spanish ore are coming to hand. One of 10,000 tons for Cyfartha is now in process of dispatch from Penarth by Taff Vale. - The Engineer [015] [499] 27th February 1880.

It therefore appears that the wharf by the early 1870's continued its intended dual purpose and that iron ore was being imported, from Spain and possibly from Cumbria, and then transported via the Taff Vale Railway to the northern outcrop iron manufactories for processing.

c.1879 - The track layout of the TVR leading to the Ely Tidal Harbour circa 1879 shows ten coal tips and a ballast wharf. [008] 1885 - The O.S. map of the harbour and dock, surveyed 1878 to 1879 and published in 1885, indicates a railway line leading to a small wharf presumably for ballast together with ten coal tips.