Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - Report upon Penarth Dock - 1984 . . .

Because of this and despite the superior qualities of the arched wall when the dock was extended a solid wall was used to continue the north wall of the main dock. A cross-section of the arched wall is shown in figure 10.

Figure 10 - Section through arched quay wall.

3.3 - Subsequent Alteration work carried out on the dock walls

Only one major alteration to the dock walls at Penarth Dock appears to have been undertaken and apart from this the walls have remained unchanged since the time that they were built.

In 1904 the need for additional ship-repairing facilities at Penarth Dock to supplement those already provided by the slipway brought about a decision to order a floating dry-dock (otherwise known as a pontoon!) from Messrs Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson Limited. The dry-dock was to be positioned at the west end of the main dock and required to be connected to the quay wall which had to be altered to facilitate this.

A 450 feet section of the west end of the north wall was involved and eight large slots had to be provided to allow the fitting of the mechanisms to accept the connections from the floating dry-dock.

Exactly how this work was carried out is unclear; presumably the wall was dismantled to the required depth and then rebuilt when the shore connections had been installed. This work was carried our sometime between 1909 and 1910 and the dry-dock for ship-repairing in 1911.