Volume Twelve - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - further aspects - The Bristol Channel District Guide - selected articles - [1934 Edition] . . . .

Leaving Cardiff, the tide being perhaps on the half ebb, the low and uninteresting mud flats on the right between Cardiff and Penarth are just awash. These mud flats end suddenly at the mouth of the Ely River, and the entrance to Penarth Dock adjoining it, and are replaced by the high, bold cliffs of Penarth.

The town of Penarth, at which Messrs. P. & A. Campbell's steamers call, lies a little beyond the dock, and, with its fine houses framed in a setting of green trees on the top of the cliff, looks an exceedingly cheerful place.

Opposite the beach are the well known Penarth Roads. They offer excellent shelter from the prevailing westerly and south-westerly gales. After a few days heavy weather in so busy and crowed a sea area, it is a fine sight to see the vessels anchored here - still more to see their lights, actual and reflected, from the water at night.

The loose-looking, stratified cliffs are continued down to Lavernock Point. An occasional streak of alabaster shows in their face here and there. Rounding Lavernock, the next headland is Sully, with Sully Island - an island, but that a very small one only at half-tide - lying immediately off it.

Four miles farther on is Barry, which is rapidly becoming one of the foremost seaside and residential resorts in Wales. Beyond the massive break-waters at the entrance we can see the thick tangle of masts and the rigging of the vessels in them. Barry has been mushroom-like in its growth.

When Barry Docks were being made it was prophesied that Cardiff would be ruined, but such has been the increase in the demand for the all-important item of coal that, with Barry in full swing, Cardiff is as busy as ever.

Steamers of the Campbell fleet from Cardiff now call regularly at Barry, and after leaving the Docks, Barry Island, with its beautifully clean looking stretch of sand in Whitmore Bay, opens out.

The definition of island applies less truly to Barry than to Sully, for, although once it was an island at high water, a massive causeway now connects it with the mainland.