Volume Ten - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Even more aspects - Penarth Dock and Llandough Fields Reclamation Report : 1989 . . .

As the demand for good quality steam coal rose, the capacity of the docks in Cardiff was restricting the shipping of coal and so, notwithstanding the opening of the Bute East Dock in 1855, interest was revived in the former Cogan Pill scheme. First the Ely Tidal Harbour and Railway Company was incorporated in 1856 as an independent company (with Taff Vale Railway Support) for the development of the north side of the River Ely. The following year, the Penarth Harbour, Dock and Railway Company was incorporated to satisfy further demand by the provision of a new dock on the south side of the River. Both schemes were opposed vigorously by the Cardiff Dock interests, who persuaded the House of Lords to carry an amendment stipulating that the shipping rates at Penarth could not be lower than those in Cardiff.

Because of its location, at the foot of the Penarth escarpment, it was not possible to build a dock on the same scale as the Cardiff docks. However, the Penarth sea dock, opened in June 1865, was 60 ft wide, the basin 400 ft long and 330 ft wide, with the dock 2100 ft long and 370 ft wide. It was a tidal dock with gates opened at high water. Vessels entered on one tide and left on the next. Twelve staithes were erected to handle the tipping of coal from waggons on to ships. The dock cost two million pounds. Such was the confidence of the Taff Vale Railway Company that they took a 999 year lease on the Penarth dock.

The rail link to Penarth dock, from Radyr, was built across low lying ground from Grangetown to Cogan Pill on an embankment and one of the effects of this embankment was to stop the water from the River Ely flowing into the low lying land on the other side.

In 1867, Lord Bute built his own road from Cardiff (Grangetown) to Penarth, the Penarth Road, and raised money at a private toll gate adjacent to the Crossing over the river Ely. (The toll was collected until the early 1950's). This road crossed the undeveloped low lying flood plain of the Llandough fields.

Penarth had a population of only a few hundred when the Penarth Dock was commenced but the area quickly developed. By the time the dock was opened there was intense building work on the escarpment and by 1878 it was considered necessary to open a railway branch line from Cogan to Penarth.