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

◊ May 1884 - The Penarth Harbour and Dock Company obtained an Act in 1880 to enlarge the dock and continue inland, taking 5½ more acres, adding 870 feet to the dock, and making it 2200 feet long, and the width of the new portion being 370 feet at its junction with the old and 150 feet at the further end. This has been accomplished at a cost of about £260,000. (equivalent to c.£32.3m in 2020)

A mound on the hillside, 125 feet above the dock level, representing 1,150,000 cubic yards of stuff, had to be removed. When the first excavator appeared with his spade on the top of this hill, and in reply to curious visitors, said he was "going to to make a dock out of that hill," the apparent audacity of the project provoked a laugh, but the work has been done in less than a couple of years by Mr. T. A. Walker, the contractor, represented by M. W. R. Parker, and afterwards Mr. Bertleon?, resident contractor's manager, and Mr. H. O. Fisher, resident engineer, Sir John Hawkshaw being the engineer who designed the extension as well as the old dock.

Communication has already been made sufficient to admit smaller vessels, and only a bank 150 feet wide, and now at water level, has to be removed. To expedite this Mr. Walker is sinking a 50 foot shaft, with the bold view of blowing it up by dynamite, and allowing it to fall into the hole excavated below it by means of powerful dredgers. It will be completed in about two months, and with the additional tips, the Taff Vale Company, to whom it will be leased as in the case of the old dock, expect to increase the present shipments by 40 per cent.

The four additional coal tips, or staithes, will make in all 14 tips, capable of shipping 150 tons of coal per hour. The curved line of the dock has been maintained, so that long vessels are enabled to overlap one another between the tips, and thus economise space and prevent delay, as the dock is generally crowded with shipping, huge vessels from 3000 to 5000 tons lying four in a tier.

Everything is worked with the smartness and despatch which have characterised the Taff Vale Railway throughout its prosperous career.  The dock offices are placed in direct communication by telephone with every tip, so as a shipper or captain can at any moment learn at the office how the loading of a vessel is progressing. The dock is illuminated at night by electric light. There is a special Customs House at which vessels can clear, and a Mercantile Marine office close to the dock where crews can be shipped. - Bristol Mercury [194] 26th May 1884.