Volume Six - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Select Aspects - The Pumping Engine House . . .

The Gwynne's pumping engines were still problematic to the Cardiff Railway Company in 1916 when their General Manager reported : “The inability of the pumps [for Bute Docks] to keep up the dock levels has given the Dockmaster and myself a great deal of concern during the past few years. Last year we were in a critical condition at the end of October and unless heavy rains had come the results would have been very serious indeed.” The source of the foregoing account of the Bute Docks and their Gwynne's experiences is the WHAEA Newsletter No.3 published in Spring 2019. [710] 

W. H. Allen were awarded a contract for a pumping station for the 'South Dock' by the Cardiff Railway in 1903, possibly for the new Queen Alexandra Dock which opened during 1907.       left : This illustration was published within 'The Engineer' periodical and was related to a previous order for W. H. Allen & Company for supply to the Bute Docks, Cardiff during 1883. [015]

However, I recall that at the Penarth Dock installation there were two individual centrifugal pumps mounted upon separate masonry plinths, the casings of which were as tall as man. I was also unable to recall the steam engines being in a vertical orientation, as per the illustration above, so I was relieved when I read an article about the Dock published in 1896.