Introduction . . .

This project started out as a short paper intended for the consumption of friends at a local engineering association here in Yorkshire which has been our home since 1971. As I uncovered more and more of the detail, I became determined to understand in context the history of what I took very much for granted in my youth whilst observing ships and shipping in the Bristol Channel; mostly in prohibited areas in the pursuit of my hobby as the local shipping anorak.

These pages and associated ramblings are therefore, mostly based upon the recollections and historic research of myself, David Carder, who was apprenticed to fitting and turning at the Penarth Dock Engineering Company Limited in March 1966. Also with contributions from wife Julie, being the MD’s personal assistant of some seven years standing and her late twin sister Judith, who also worked at the company in a secretarial role for a few years and resided for many years above the dock, at Bromfield Place, on the Penarth headland.

The impetus for the original paper was that I stumbled across the very worthy website of Tyne Built Ships [102] - A history of Tyne shipbuilders and the ships that they built and in particular a reference to a pontoon or floating dock launched in 1909 which was a vital tool in the proud maritime heritage of the Penarth Dock Engineering Company Limited, formerly named the Penarth Pontoon, Slipway & Ship Repairing Company Limited and prior to that, the Penarth Shipbuilding & Ship Repairing Company which was initially established way back in 1878. The web page comments that the pontoon was “09/08/1962: Sold to Pounds Shipbreakers at Portsmouth for breaking up”.

I subsequently found this to be the incorrect date and in fact, it wasn't entirely broken up and most of it is still there under Plymouth Park today.