Volume Nine - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - Swing Bridge Connections : Penarth Dock, River Taff and Glamorganshire Canal . . .

Taffy Misbehaves :

During November 1869, a mere three years after its opening, a meeting of the Cardiff Corporation Town Council discussed a fundamental problem relating to the River Taff swing bridge :

• The River Taff - 'Mr. Ingledrew said he must call their attention to a subject of considerable importance. He said that they would recollect that three or four years ago a swing bridge was built across the Taff, on the new road leading from the Glamorganshire Canal to Penarth, and at that time the swing part of the bridge was over the river. Since then, from some cause, the river had materially altered its course so much that the river did not now flow under the bridge, but under the piles to the west of the bridge.

It would affect their trade, because men of capital, who desired to establish factories on the banks of the river on seeing that the river had so far deviated from its course, and no attempt was made to control it, would hesitate upon expending their capital in any scheme of the kind they might have in view. . . . He was also of the opinion that something should be done to straighten the course of the river, and to deepen it with a view to attract capitalists to build factories on the banks of the river. . . . It was a matter of considerable importance, and they had now the anomaly of a bridge where there was no river.' - Cardiff and Merthyr Guardian Monmouth and Brecon Gazette, The [156] [361] 13th November 1869.

It seems puzzling that the issue of river traffic navigation is not mentioned in this article. The alternative bridge at Clarence Road, being sited someway upstream, was not opened until a decade later. It therefore seems probable that in the interim period some compromise was found which may have included dredging the river to facilitate navigation. The swing bridge was finally demolished in 1894 as the following newspaper article confirms.

• March 1894 - Grangetown Bridge - T.V.R. Co. Couldn't Sell So Have Now Removed the Old Structure - 'The old swing bridge over the Taff River, which was erected by the Taff Vale Railway Company in 1886 1866, between Grangetown and the Bute Docks, and which about twelve months ago offered for sale to the Cardiff Corporation, has been removed.