Volume Ten - Pre-Victorian to the present day - even more aspects - The Shipping World Article of June 1886 . . .

The site had been obtained from Lord Windsor on a lease of 999 years, the rent being a royalty of one half-penny per ton on all exports and imports. Parliamentary powers having been obtained, the Company at once began operations, and on June 10, 1865, the new dock, constructed at a cost of £685,000, was opened. It had then a length of 2,100 feet, a breath of 370 feet, and an area of 17½ acres. The lock is 270 feet long and 60 feet wide. The depth of water on the cill of the lock is 35 feet at spring tides and 25 at neap tides, that is, 4 feet lower than the Bute East Dock and 7 feet lower than the Bute West Dock cill. Being a tidal dock, it is able at high tide to throw open all its gates from sea to dock for the ingress and egress of shipping, thus preventing delay occasioned in other docks by locking of the vessels. There are fourteen coal tips in the dock, and two in the basin for steamships of the largest dimensions. All the fourteen tips are on the high level, and each is capable of shipping 150 tons an hour. The tips appropriated to large steamers are capable of shipping 300 tons an hour. Coal can be shipped by these tips with the least possible breakage, with the utmost despatch, and at the lowest charges. Hydraulic crans for discharging ballast, iron ore, &c., are placed along the quays, and hydraulic power is also applied to the opening and closing of the dock gates and in other ways affording facilities for working the dock, and in discharging, loading, and despatching vessels. The dock was leased to the Taff Vale Railway Company in 1866 for a term of 999 years. By the original terms of the lease the Railway Company paid to the Dock Company  guranteed dividend of 4½ per cent, undertaking at the same time to divide with them any profit earned in excess of that sum. By a subsequent arrangement, however, the Taff Vale Railway Company guaranteed to the Dock Company a perpetual dividend of 5½ per cent.

◊ 1886 : Plan of Penarth Harbour Dock and Works.