This image is dated the 26th June 1909 and entitled “the launch of the pontoon” from “A Taff Vale Railway Miscellany” which seems to confirm that a slipway is in use on the incline adjacent to the pumping engine house. Two culverts, the masonry archways, seen at the waterline are inlets to the dock leading from the River Ely and used to top up the water level in the dock at neap tides (the dock was a tidal dock remember). The centrifugal pumps in the pumping house were capable of relocating 2,000,000 gallons of water per hour.

I also conclude that the object on the slipway is not a part of the pontoon since it was almost certainly delivered fully assembled from the Geordies’ yard. It could be part of a lock gate or, more plausibly, a hatch covering the hold of a ship, but I am unsure of this. [030]

An enlarged and colourised section of a photograph taken from the western end of the dock in the early years (c.1908) of the century. It clearly shows the inclined dock wall with boat building or repairing activity being carried on in the shed which is located approximately where the engineering works will subsequently be built. Above is a continuous train of coal wagons awaiting tipping. [000]

A section of the 1895 TVR map of Penarth Dock showing the inclined dock wall at the eastern end adjacent to the pumping engine house and dockside crane. The boat-building repair works (see arrow) is shown as a cross-hatched rectangular block at the head of the incline. [247]