Volume Nine - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - Mr. B's 1836 Ely Docks . . .

In the space between Cogan Pill and the Penarth Point by enclosing a portion of the Bay formed by the sweep of the River a spacious dock may be formed sufficient for all the trade which has been calculated open for the proposed railway and capable of being extended should any considerable increase of trade hereafter require it.'

Brunel refers to a plan of the docks with railway connections, a copy of which is held at the Glamorgan Archives which was presented to Parliament for approval. A selection of these plans and some detailed sections are shown below.

	A plan dated 1836 presented to Parliament in support of an Act to construct the Ely Docks with its entrance adjacent to Cogan Pill.
	Plan of the Deviation of the Cogan Branch and also of the Proposed Ely Docks In the County of Glamorgan 1836.

As previously described in the Chapter on 'Various dock schemes which failed', this 14 acre dock consisted of a tidal basin and a main wet dock which would be entered through a pair of lock gates making this a tidal docking system. The entrance was intended to face upstream and a second entrance onto the river could also be utilised at high tide. The main dock was estimated to have capacity to serve 200 vessels. The estimated cost of the project was a mere £60,000. The previous Acts of 1836 and subsequent Acts had made no provision for such a scheme and following a campaign against the TVR by the Marquis of Bute, by mid-1840, Robert Stephenson, advisor to Bute declared the Ely dock was no more.