Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - A History of Penarth Dock by Roy Thorne . . .

Records also exist of smuggling and piracy during the 17th and 18th centuries. Sheltered by the headland and on the south bank of the River Ely was the Penarth Head Inn which was owned in 1738 by the fearsome Edward Edwards. He was strongly suspected of smuggling brandy, and the customs officers, who had a boat nearby, petitioned the Revenue Commissioners to buy the inn and to eject Edwards.

The inn continued until it was demolished and replaced in 1865 by a grand Custom House. In the 16th century customs men named John Jones, James Jenkins, Francis Phillips and Rowland Vaughan are recorded. The custom's boat, "the King's boat," [1155] is also noted taking officers to the Flat Holm which was a haunt of smugglers. In 1784 Thomas Knight used both Flat Holm and Barry Island as smuggling bases.

The activities of the smuggler Arthur forced the officers to ask for another boat to be stationed at Penarth. The most nefarious seemed to be Callice who pirated cargoes in the Bristol Channel and sold the goods at Bristol and Cardiff. Penarth roads and harbour gained notoriety as "a general resort of pirates who were sheltered there." Callice was in league with William Herbert of Cardiff, John ap John of Cogan and Nicholas Herbert of Cogan Pill, Sheriff of Glamorgan.

The River Severn and its tributaries carry vast quantities of suspended matter, much of it fine mud which is discharged into the sea. Over two thousand years have elapsed since the present relationship between land and sea were established and if distributed evenly this could have built up a layer of six to seven feet across the mouth of the River Severn.[1156]

The mud has not been distributed uniformly. Much of it has been deposited near the shore while much brought down by the rivers has been deposited in their estuaries without ever reaching the sea, and is unaffected by the scouring effects of the high rise and fall of tides in the Bristol Channel. The area between Penarth Head and Cardiff is outside the main stream of the Bristol Channel, and there is a series of mud flats through which the two rivers Taff and Ely meander seaward.

The Cefn-y-Wrach Shoal (cefn = back, gwrach = hag or witch) a gravelly bank of marl between the estuaries and the Bristol Channel was formed between the outflow of the Taff and Ely off Penarth Head. The feature resembled a witch's back.