the tide had been excluded, pits and borings were made to determine the nature of the bottom. A much narrower dock had been planned, but it was decided to move the south wall further south. A mole was added running along the middle of the dock, which increased the length of the quays.[28] Thirty locomotives were used inside the dock works to carry materials. At peak there were 3,000 workers on the site. In the summer and autumn the work continued day and night, with the site lit by electricity and Wells lights.

Completion[edit]

Opening day in 1889

Entrance to Barry Dock (1897) by William Lionel Wyllie
The civil engineer John Wolfe Barry reported that the docks were nearing completion in September 1888.[7] A caisson[a] was built at the sea face of the entrance within the temporary stone dam, fitting against the quoins of the entrance. The stone dam was removed before all the work was completed.[20] Water was let into the docks on 29 June 1889. The water was first admitted into the basin and dock by opening the sluices in the culvert at the entrance on a rising tide. The sluices in the culvert at the west end were also opened. On the first tide the basin and dock were covered with 5 feet (1.5 m) of water, on the next with 18 feet (5.5 m), and on the tide that followed with 23 feet (7.0 m).[20] On 13 July 1889 the caisson was floated and taken into the basin by a tug, and the tide could flow freely through the entrance.[30] The ceremonial opening by David Davies with 2,000 guests took place on 18 July 1889.[31][32] The first vessel, S.S. Arno sailed into the dock shortly after the ribbon was cut. Six tips were ready for the opening, and loaded coal into six ships.[33]

In the first phase 5,000,000 cubic yards (3,800,000 m3) had been excavated. 200,000 cubic yards (150,000 m3) of rubble masonry had been used, 10,000 cubic yards (7,600 m3) of brickwork, 110,000 cubic feet (3,100 m3) of ashlar, mostly granite, and 220,000 cubic feet (6,200 m3) of timber work.[34] The docks had a water surface of 107 acres (43 ha) with 242 acres (98 ha) of adjacent quay roads and lands, and 208 acres (84 ha) of land covered by tide, for a total of 557 acres (225 ha).[35] The cost of the first phase of dock construction was about £850,000, including gates and machinery.[16] The total cost of the first phase was £2 million.[9]

No. 2 Dock, to the east of the first dock, was authorised in 1893. Work began in 1894 and was completed in 1898.[36] A further expansion to the docks were completed in 1914.[9] The Docks Office was built in 1897-1900 by the architect Arthur E. Bell at the cost of £59,000. A statue of David Davies by Alfred Gilbert stands in front, unveiled in 1893. The roof and clock tower wer

red farmer of Barry island, proposed a Glamorgan Coast Railroad to link Pencoed, Llansannor, Cowbridge and Aberthaw with Barry, and a further line to Cogan, where the Penarth Dock and the Grangetown line was already under construction to Cardiff.[10] Thomas proposed building a dock accessed by the railway for export of coal, iron and limestone, and import of hay, grain and vegetables for the mining districts. The idea was also attractive to railway developers of the period. The Ogmore Valley Railway Company wanted to increase revenue by carrying coal for shipment to the docks at Cardiff and Penarth. H. Voss, the engineer of the Ely Valley Railway Company and the Great Western Railway, also saw its commercial potential, and made a proposal to Jenner of Wenvoe Castle to build a dock at Barry, the largest in the district, which would be connected by rail to Peterston-super-Ely on the main South Wales line.[10]


The docks in Barry today
Jenner succeeded in being granted permission to extend the railway through a series of acts in 1866, including the Barry Railway Alteration Act and the Barry Railway Extension Act which authorised the building of a narrow-gauge line from Barry to Cogan, joining the line to Cardiff. The third act, the 1866 Barry Harbour Act, authorised another company to build a 600 yards (550 m) quay extending from where Buttrills brook now enters the old dock to near the northwest end of the present dock. The act granted the permission of the deepening of the Cadoxton River, which enters the sea at Cold Knap, to allow for large ships to reach the quay, and the Barry Railway Company and the Barry Harbour Company were established. However, the plan was never realised. Jenner's made another attempt in 1868. It failed because he did not attract support from the coal traders, who preferred to operate in Cardiff.[11]

Jenner dropped the idea after the Bute Dock Act of 1874 allowed an additional dock at Cardiff, but the movement to build a dock at Barry continued to gain momentum, this time by the Plymouth Estate trustees, major landowners in Glamorgan who advocated the building of the railway from Barry to Cogan. They proposed the Penarth, Sully and Cadaxton Railway Bill, which was approved by Parliament as the Penarth Extension Railway Act in 1876. They extended the line privately, opening it on 20 February 1878.[12]


David Davies
Construction[edit]
Project launch[edit]

 mortar. Three 12 inches (300 mm) pipes with valves ran through the lowest part of the concrete wall, allowing the water to drain to this level while excavation proceeded. The remaining water was pumped out.[19]

Gunpowder was used to loosen the marl, which was then removed by steam shovels. Various other steam-powered devices were used to remove mud, clay and rock. All the hard material was used for embankments and quay roads around the docks. The mud was placed behind these, and in trenches to seal the works from water, using special side-tipping wagons.[20]


Restored locomotive 6024 King Edward 1 crosses the Porthkerry viaduct near Barry in May 2007
Railways and docks[edit]

The docks in 1901. The west pond, later filled in, is visible to the left of the No. 1 Dock. The No. 2 Dock is to the right.
Railways totalling 27 miles (43 km) were completed before the docks opened to connect them to the coal fields. At peak, there were 88 miles (142 km) of running tracks and 108 miles (174 km) of single-track sidings, over 1,000 yards (910 m) of viaducts and 2,500 yards (2,300 m) of tunnels, with seventeen stations.[21] The lines had gentle gradients, no more than 1 in 400 against the load on the main line.[7] The main Barry railway from the docks to the coalfields joined the Rhondda Fawr line of the Taff Vale Railway near Hafod. There were branch lines that joined the Taff Vale line at Treforest and the Great Western Railway at Peterston-super-Ely and St Fagans. A branch line mainly used for passenger traffic connected Barry to the Taff Vale Railway near the Penarth dock station.[22] The railway had two long tunnels and four huge viaducts of steel and masonry. The viaducts at Llanbradach, Penyrheol, Penrhos and Walnut Tree on the line from St Fagans to Barry Junction have all been demolished.[23]

The Porthkerry viaduct was built for the Vale of Glamorgan Railway (VoGR), and still stands. The stone structure has sixteen arches and is 110 feet (34 m) at the highest point. After some construction difficulties it opened in 1900.[24] The VoGR was a branch line connecting the Barry Railway to the Great Western Railway at Bridgend.[25] A link to the Brecon and Merthyr Railway at Dyffryn Isaf in the eastern Rhymney Valley was authorised in 1898, and opened in 1905,[26] by which time the railway had been extended to 47 miles (76 km) of route.[27]

The dock layout that was originally planned was adjusted as the work progressed to ensure that the foundations rested on hard rock.[28] The basin entrance and passage were sited so that their foundations rested on hard rock. After the tide had been excluded, pits and borings were made to determine the nature of the bottom. A much narrower dock had been planned, but it was decided to move the south wall further south. A mole

The western dam caused much more trouble, since it rested on mud that varied in depth to upwards of 40 feet (12 m). The ends of the dam were formed by tipping earth from wagons run out from the mainland and the island. In the centre, the earth sank into the deep mud and slid away with it. A viaduct of timber piles was built across the gap, to carry loaded trucks from which the earth was thrown out. As the ends approached each other, the tide current was too fast. The contractor twice tried to close the gap with earth at low-water neap tide, but each time the water broke through to make a gap 80 feet (24 m) wide through which the tide poured at 5 miles per hour (8.0 km/h).[18]

The problem was solved in July 1885 by dropping shutters between horizontal timbers attached to the viaduct piles when the tide had receded, then backing up the shutters with as much stone and earth as could be delivered from pre-loaded trucks. This worked. A cast iron pipe 40 inches (1,000 mm) in diameter had been laid through the dam to form a sluice, with a flap on the outside that was closed at high tide and opened as the tide receded. By this means the west part of the works were drained to the level of the pipe, and the remaining water was pumped out at an average rate of 150,000 US gallons (570,000 l; 120,000 imp gal) per hour by a Cornish engine taken from the Severn Tunnel works.[19] The causeway along the dam permanently linked Barry Island to the mainland.[3]

The eastern dam was made of piers of masonry with marl foundations, backed up with earth, leaving four 15 feet (4.6 m) openings through which the tide flowed. It included a temporary stone dam where the entrance to the docks would be built.[19] In March 1886 the openings in the eastern dam were quickly closed with planks, backed with concrete. Later the planks were removed and the concrete faced with brickwork in cement mortar. Three 12 inches (300 mm) pipes with valves ran through the lowest part of the concrete wall, allowing the water to drain to this level while excavation proceeded. The remaining water was pumped

ill, which was approved by Parliament as the Penarth Extension Railway Act in 1876. They extended the line privately, opening it on 20 February 1878.[12]


David Davies
Construction[edit]
Project launch[edit]

Lord Windsor (later Earl of Plymouth) holds out spade to cut the first sod of Barry Dock on Castleland Point in 1884
In 1883 a group of mine owners applied for parliamentary permission to build a dock at Barry and a new railway to serve it.[8] Barry Sound was a natural choice for the dock site since comparatively little excavation was needed.[13] David Davies and John Cory were spokesmen for the group.[9] Davies, son of a small farmer in Montgomeryshire, was founder of the Ocean Coal Company.[14] He was the leader of the Rhondda mine owners, and was already experienced in railway construction.[15] Cory was establishing a network of coal bunkering depots around the world.[14] At first rejected, the group won permission for the port and railway in August 1884.[8] On 14 November 1884 a group of ship and mine owners "trudged out to Castleland Point—near the later Dock Offices—to dig a small hole in the ground with the aid of a ceremonial spade, a wheelbarrow and a plentiful supply of planking to keep the autumn mud off their shoes".[2]

The lead engineer was John Wolfe Barry, assisted by Thomas Forster Brown and Henry Marc Brunel, son of the famous engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel. John Robinson was the resident engineer and the works were built by T.A. Walker.[16] Barry was son of the architect Charles Barry, and was the engineer of Tower Bridge, Surrey Commercial Docks, Natal Harbour and many other major works.[17] Houses were built for the construction workers that would be used by the dock workers after the docks had been opened.[3] Laborers and shopkeepers began to flood into the area.[2]

Dams and excavation[edit]

No.1 Dock under construction
Before construction could start the site of the dock and quays, covering 200 acres (81 ha), had to be clear of water. Three dams were built from the island to the mainland. The center dam divided the dock area in half, another was further west and a third dam extended east across what would be the entrance. The two outer dams completely closed off the site from the sea. The center dam was built without much difficulty by simply tipping material to form an embankment, although some of the earth sank into the mud, so more had to be added.[18]

The western dam caused much more trouble, since it rested on mud that varied in depth to upwards of 40 feet (12 m). The ends of the dam were formed by tipping earth from wagons run out from the mainland and the island. In the centre, th