Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - The subway under the river Ely story . . .

A number of local historian's and other reports imply, incorrectly, that all the cast iron segments making up the subway were cast at the foundry of T. Gregory in Taffs Well witness their name is cast into an entrance section of the subway. Mr. Thomas Gregory was the owner of the Garth Engineering Works, Taff's Well. (Mr. Gregory also served on Caerphilly and Glamorgan County Councils)

The Garth Foundry became the location for the South Wales Forgemasters works just beside the railway line and river. The National archives also hold agreements with Thomas Gregory dated 18th October 1898 relating to the Castle Coch Quarry Sidings, Taffs Well. I now know that this company cast only the wonderfully ornate entry and exit ironwork to the subway, as preserved at the Cardiff Bay Yacht Club. I also established, to my best knowledge, that the main structural subway segments were cast at, or under licence to, the British Hydraulic Foundry Company Limited, hence the letters seen in the upper image "B H F C Co Ld". A date "24/5/97" was also cast into the inner surface of the segments which identifies the pattern used. I believe that it is most probable that all the segments were cast and probably machined at Glasgow prior to their delivery by steamship to a temporary jetty erected beside the works in the River Ely.

The British Hydraulic Foundry Company Limited exhibited at the 1901 Glasgow International Exhibition on stand number 511. They showed various diameters of cast iron linings for subways and tunnels. The company supplied 60,000 tons of segments to the Great Northern and City Railway so the mere 1,500 tons or so, that I estimated was required to construct the Penarth subway was a small order in comparison.

The company set up making tunnel linings at Whiteinch, Glasgow in 1892 where they produced, amongst other products, vast quantities of railway chairs; the support for the rails which is screwed to the sleepers as well. [009] [060] left - The final consignment of cast iron segments being delivered to a temporary jetty on the banks of the river Ely and bound for the subway construction during March 1898.