Volume Eleven - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - some more aspects - Picturesque Penarth —an Ideal Seaside Residential Centre - 1907.

Castle Rock - Flat Holme.

Near the Welsh shore are the islands of Flat Holme and Steep Holme. The latter once possessed a fort, but is now only celebrated for its wild peonies.

Penarth is exceptionally healthy, and its death-rate phenomenally low. " This," writes a local expert, " is accounted for by the great care and attention given to all sanitary matters and to the town being built at a height of from 100 to 250 feet above the sea-level, with a general slope towards the South and South-West, thereby receiving the fullest possible benefit from the sun, while all breezes from Easterly or Southerly directions reach the town from the sea, thus causing it to be cool in the summer, and mild in the winter.

The mortality rate has been one of the lowest in the United Kingdom for years past, and one month last year (1906) it only reached 3.9 per 1,000, and the average for the year was 8.3. For the past thirteen years the average has been under 11.0 per 1,000. The water is obtained from the Brecknock Beacons, and is subjected to careful chemical and bacteriological examinations periodically throughout the year, and is declared to be 'soft, of great purity, and free from contamination.'"

Penarth Esplanade and Beach.