Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - The dock extension of 1883 . . .

Kelly's Directory of South Wales [175] for 1895 added some extra technical information about the docks:

"Being a tidal dock the gates can be opened at high water from sea to dock for the ingress and egress of shipping, thereby avoiding the great delay usually caused at other docks by locking through. There are 14 coal staiths in the dock and 2 in the basin, each capable of loading 150 tons per hour, for loading steamers of the largest dimensions. All the staiths are on the high level, and the double staiths appropriated to large steamers are capable of shipping 300 tons per hour.

Every provision has been made for shipping coal with the least possible breakage, the greatest dispatch, and at the minimum charge. There are numerous cranes worked by hydraulic power for the discharging of ballast and iron ore. Hydraulic power is also applied to the opening and shutting the dock gates and to other purposes, affording facilities for working the dock and for the dispatch of shipping. Large centrifugal pumps are fitted to the dock for increasing depth of water during neap tides.*

In 1894 the exports were-coal and coke, 2,428,045 tons; iron and iron work, 407 tons; general merchandise, 1,050 tons; imports, iron and iron work, 1,502 tons; timber, round and square, 3,283 tons; deal and dealends, 14,480 tons; pitwood, 824 tons, general merchandise, 71,300 tons.

Near the entrance to the dock is a fine suite of offices for the use of the Customs, Dock Company and Board of Trade. In the centre of the dock is a mission room, in connection with the missions to Seamen’s Society, built at a cost of £1,000, and containing reading and refreshment rooms both for officers and seamen."

* The large centrifugal pumps mentioned above were installed within the pumping house situated at the north-western end of the dock and adjacent to the gatehouse of the engineering works. Large diameter ducts connected the pumping house with the river Ely and in the 1970's images of the pontoon area, the stone inverts in the quay wall may be seen. There were two centrifugal pumps 6 feet in diameter capable of pumping 2,000,000 gallons of water per hour into the dock.