Penarth Dock, South Wales - 150 years - the heritage and legacy  
Penarth Dock, South Wales - the heritage & legacy . . .
Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - The construction of the dock . . .
c.1864 - The demise of the Penarth Head Inn

1864 - The Penarth Head Inn. The original of the photograph below which establishes that it was taken by Mr Joseph Collings of 47, Bute-street, Cardiff. You will see more of his amazing work later in this chapter. The Glamorgan Archives, Cardiff hold the original photograph. [599] [Glamorgan Archives Reference : DXMA/22] [20180131]

There is an interesting history to the Penarth Head Inn in relation to published within the Cardiff Records Volume 5 : Records of the Custom House : The Port Surveyor in 1750 begs the Collector and Comptroller to represent to the Revenue Commissioners the advisability of purchasing a certain public house at Penarth, near the place where the King's boat was moored. It does not seem that this request was complied with, as the house retained its licence until it was pulled down, about the year 1880 (clearly the incorrect year!). It was known as the Penarth Head Inn, and was a picturesque old house on the beach, at the corner where the road comes down hill towards the pier. This was the house which was reported to be used by smugglers in 1738. [232]

 
1864 - Penarth Head Inn
1864 - Penarth Head Inn

1864 - The demise of the Penarth Head Inn built in 1730 - the smuggler's haven! The footings for the new Customs House are being prepared in the foreground. In the lower view is alleged to be the current landlord, William Jones, centre stage. A number of donkeys may be seen on the right with the stables and coach house behind. There is a chute, presumably to assist in the building work to the far right placed in the middle of the route where Dock Hill was later built. Penarth was known as Donkey Island for visitors. The lower image has been colourised. [007]

The identity of the 'current landlord', William Jones, or the date quoted is somewhat in doubt! The London Gazette [100] of 1st April 1862, stated : 'Notice is hereby given, that the Court acting in the prosecution of a Petition for adjudication of Bankruptcy, filed on the 6th day of February, 1862, by William Jones, of the Penarth Head Inn, in the parish of Penarth, near Cardiff, in the county of Glamorgan, Licensed Victualler, did on the 28th March, 1862, allow the said bankrupt an Order of Discharge.'

The Cardiff Times [019] recorded on the 1st July 1859 "Penarth - Last week the Penarth and Ely Tidal harbour was opened for traffic. There was no demonstration of any kind. The new dock is progressing slowly. The well known inn, the "Head," the favourite resort of mariners of every clime whilst they are staying out in the Roads, is to be demolished to give way to the new dock."

 
1864 - Penarth Head Inn
1864 - Penarth Head Inn

Then on the 9th September 1864 [019] "The "Head Inn”. The days of this old-established inn are numbered, and in a few days the merciless pick and shovel and the navvy's wheelbarrow, will do their work of destruction, and the house, with its bowers (in which the love-sick swain and the blushing maiden were wont to whisper sweet words to each other in days gone by) will disappear. The new inn will be erected on a slope above the present house."

The "new inn" referred too above was named the Marine Hotel and was in fact built at the seaward end of the Mercantile Marine Office building and not 'on a slope above the present house.' The Marine Hotel was owned by William Hancock and the entire contents of the hotel were auctioned off in August 1917. I am not sure if it ever reopened after this event but it was definitely closed, and probably demolished, as a result of the slump in the coal trade during the 1920's and the 1930's. The lower image has been colourised. [007]

I also recall that "blushing maidens" were an extremely endangered species around Penarth by the time I became lovesick!

 
A section of a register or Plan of the Parish of Penarth dating from 1847.
A section of a register or Plan of the Parish of Penarth dating from 1847 which indicates that William Richards, Morton Aurris, David James and Charles Polling lived at the Penarth Head Public House & Garden which was situate upon the lands of Clive, The Hon. Robert Henry & Lady Marriett. The numbers in the following columns are, I believe, statue area measure of land in Acres, Rods and Square Feet. The original document is held at the National Archives, London. [539] [20181026]

 

Smuggling at Penarth is mentioned within Crystal Tilney's enlightened book on the History of the Parish of Penarth and Lavernock. [1187]

Prior to the 1850's . . . 'The population of Penarth  still consisted largely of farmers and fishermen, though the eighteenth century had seen a great deal of smuggling, the most notorious figure in these years being Edward Edwards who built Penarth Head Inn, where the Dock Offices now stand, for the storage of contraband. One particular line in which Penarth smugglers specialised was guns cast in the foundry at Cardiff.  They were brought to Penarth Beach at night, buried while the routine search was carried out by the Preventive Men (hindered rather than helped, one suspects by the parishioners), then shipped abroad when the hue and cry had died down. [1186]

As with piracy, so with smuggling - many of the local gentry were involved, and there may have been 'brandy for the parson, baccy for the clerk' among those contraband cargoes. There is no record of disturbance or bad blood between the priest and people in these years, so it may well have been the Penarth rectors heeded Kipling's advice -

'Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie, So watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by.'

 
October 1864 - The above entry within The Photographic News provides an accurate date for the photograph(s) of the Penarth Head Inn and confirms Mr. Joseph Collings of 47, Bute Street, Cardiff was the photographer. - The Photographic News Vol.VIII.[1206] [499] 14th October 1864.

 
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