Volume One - Into the Victorian Age - Some newspaper reports from the 1880's

The" stuff" is then run over the Taff Vale Railway and deposited on the waste ground adjoining that classic spot which is known in the geographical history of the neighbourhood as the West Mud. A "steam navvy" can fill one of these waggons, holding ten tons, in five minutes, and I take it that it would require 40 flesh and blood and bicep navvies to accomplish the same feat in the same time. The boring for blasting purposes is all done by hand, as the marl, which is the principal deposit encountered, although tough enough in all conscience, is not, quite so hard to rend as solid rock. The modus operandi is this : A small hole is made by the hand-drill, and into this a charge of dynamite is inserted. When this is exploded, the aperture is enlarged, and into the cavity is inserted a charge of Harvey's blasting powder. Sometimes the charge amounts to the formidable figure of 300 lbs. By this means 1,500 to 2,000 cubic yards of marl and earth are disturbed ; broken up, in fact, ready for removal by the steam navvy.

The space necessary for the addition eight hundred feet of dock has all but been cleared, and already substantial progress has been made with the masonry which forms the dock wall. And a very splendid piece of work is this same masonry. It looks as solid and compact as a rock. The wall is faced with the red Radyr stone - some single blocks weighing three or four tons - and this is backed by Pennant rock, which is quarried from the Severn tunnel, and is run down from the works at Portskewett, to be utilised at the works at Penarth. These massive walls are 52 feet in depth, 22 feet two inches thick at the foundations, and seven feet six inches thick at the surface. The dimensions of the extension which is now being made will indicate that a most substantial addition will be made to the present dock space, which already affords accommodation for some of the largest vessels afloat, and will, when the new works are completed, be capable of holding a large fleet of the biggest ships built.

The total quantity to be excavated is 900,000 cubic yards, while the masonry which forms the walls of the new portion of the dock is 36,000 cubic yards. The job was commenced some time in last October, and half the earth-work, and two thirds of the masonry, are already completed. The total area is 75 acres, and the entire length of the addition is 800 feet. There will be an increase of about 35 per cent of coal-tipping accommodation, that is to say, four additional tips will be added to the ten already in existence. What struck me most forcibly in my peregrinations on Monday was the gigantic amount of labour which is necessary in producing what, to the unpractical eye, appears such small results. That portion of the new wall which is completed looks solid and compact enough, but the mere work of the mason is almost of trifling importance in comparison with the immense amount of labour which is involved in preparing the ground in order that building operations may be commenced.