Volume Nine - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - Cefn-y-Wrâch . . .

The bight in which the Penarth and Cardiff Docks are located is filled by East Mud and West Mud (Penarth Flats) which dry from 6 to 30 feet.

The channel to Penarth, which also forms the outer part of the entrance to Cardiff Docks, is a dredged cut through Cefn-y-Wrach. The channel which extends from a position about ¼ mile northeast-ward of Penarth Pier to the entrance to Queen alexandra Dock, nearly 1 mile northward, has a branch to the northwestward from about midway, which leads to the entrance to the tidal basin at Penarth. There is at least depth of 2 feet in this branch which leads to the Penarth tidal basin.

Light buoys. - Outer Wrach Light Buoy is a red conical buoy, showing a flashing light, moored near the eastern edge of the outer end of the dredged channel.

Inner Wrach Light Buoy is a red conical buoy, showing a flashing white light, moored at the eastern edge of the dredged channel at about 500 yards eastward at the entrance to Penarth Basin.'

But what is the correct translation of 'Cefn y Wrach' you hear me scream? The following rather lengthy discourse on the subject was published within the South Wales Daily News on Wednesday May 15, 1878.

• May 1878 - Cefn y Wrach - (Contributed by Ieuan Gryg) - 'Some amusing attempts have lately been made to unravel the meaning of the name, Cefn-y-Wrach, the spot near Cardiff, through which a deep-sea channel has been made to sea. One writer assumes that the phase means "Hump-back;" another, inspired "with the genius of the Welsh language," corrects him, and very confidently asserts that the real meaning of the name is "Witch's back." Two or three other correspondents write in support of this erudite doctrine, and are followed by others who, slightly differing, make it mean the back of an old woman, of a hag, or of a witch.

Then comes forward another writer, with the discovery that the name, or at least that portion of it - wrach - means a swath of hay, making the name to signify the back of a swath, or heap of hay in the water !