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Industrial Wales - South and Mid Glamorgan
Cardiff and the South Coast
From Cardiff City to Barry, Aberthaw and the Coast.
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The industrial history and archaeology of Cardiff, South and Mid Glamorgan

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Cardiff City

Quick links to :-     Cardiff City     Penarth, Lavernock and Dinas Powis     Barry, Porthkerry and Rhoose
Aberthaw Pebble Limeworks     Out and About in South Glamorgan

Curran Road, Cardiff

The West side of Curran Road, along the banks of the River Taff, is ripe for re-development. Luckily it's still a jumble of old warehouses and industrial units with a lot of embedded track that led off the Riverside branch. The locations in the captions refer to the 1954 OS maps.

From the City centre to the docks

Other interesting odd spots around the City centre

Caerphilly Tunnel and Cefn Onn caves

From ukCaving.com :-
The gated entrance did have a padlock on it, but not only was this padlock not attached to anything, the hole underneath the gate was more than large enough to get through. The shaft was straight and about 75-80 metres long, with a number of drill holes, so obviously man made, ending when you arrive at a curved brick wall, obviously another ventilation shaft for the railway. We could hear a significant (small waterfall size!) amount of water through a hole in the shaft wall, but couldn't see down to where it came from.

The little hole that I had crawled into as a lad was less interesting. We moved a boulder and dropped into it (tight and steep, much much harder to get out than to get in!) and there was probably about 7-8 metres of standing room passage that abruptly ended. We wondered if the railway workers had started to dig here before stopping for some reason.

Llandaff North - Railways and the Canal

Outskirts of Cardiff

Old photos around Cardiff

Some 1960s photos at Cardiff General and Cardiff Canton Open Day in August 1985

Tickets and Totems around Cardiff

Ray Weavin has shared these photos of his souvenir tickets and station totems,also the Barry Railway signal box nameplate spelt 'Dynas Powis'.

East Moors Steelworks in the 1950s

Ray Weavin 's uncle, Ivor Evans, worked as a crane driver at East Moors Steelworks, after serving in the Merchant Navy during the war, including Russian convoys. He took these photos of his workmates in the mid-1950s.


Penarth, Lavernock and Dinas Powis

Quick links to :-     Cardiff City     Penarth, Lavernock and Dinas Powis     Barry, Porthkerry and Rhoose
Aberthaw Pebble Limeworks     Out and About in South Glamorgan

The Taff Vale Railway (TVR)

The Taff Vale Railway (TVR) ran from Penarth to Sully and Barry and now makes a good footpath towards Lavernock.

South Wales Portland Cement Works, Cosmeston - ST 1783 6933

Lavernock Point gun battery - ST 1804 6791

St Mary's Well Bay WW2 anti-aircraft gun battery was built on the site of a Victorian gun emplacement. It was armed with four 3.7" guns and a 40mm Bofors gun and consisted of gunpits, command post, magazine and workshops. It was unusual because gunpits 1 and 2 had steel doors so they could engage shipping if needed but pits 3 and 4 only had earth banks and no magazine. A searchlight position at St Mary's Well Bay, ST 1782 6775, assisted a coastal battery that is now under the caravan site. The pillbox at ST 1740 6750 is on the opposite side of the bay. A similar searchlight was on Lavernock Point itself (ST 1870 6814) but is very overgrown. There is a ruined building at ST 1855 6905 which may be connected with the coastal defence system.

Dinas Powis limekiln - ST 1396 7328.

A very decrepid limekiln from the mid 1800s.


Barry, Porthkerry and Rhoose

Quick links to :-     Cardiff City     Penarth, Lavernock and Dinas Powis     Barry, Porthkerry and Rhoose
Aberthaw Pebble Limeworks     Out and About in South Glamorgan

Woodhams Yard in the 1960s and 1975

Barry Island and harbour - ST 1067 6681

The limekilns and activity and inactivity in the harbour with the breaking up of the 'Morning Dawn' as the 'Alisa' awaits removal.

Barry West and Steamer Piers - ST 1220 6665

Some rails are still surviving on the West breakwater at Jackson's Bay.

Porthkerry Quarries - ST 0753 6595

Between c1912 and c1931 a 3'0" gauge railway ran around these quarries. The bridge abutments and stonework may be connected with this line but have standard gauge rails embedded. The limeworks had two chimneys at one time, one by the kilns which seems to have gone by 1962 and one at the rear which was still standing in 1972 along with the works itself.

Rhoose Quarries - ST 0660 6570


Aberthaw

Quick links to :-     Cardiff City     Penarth, Lavernock and Dinas Powis     Barry, Porthkerry and Rhoose
Aberthaw Pebble Limeworks     Out and About in South Glamorgan

Aberthaw Pebble Limestone Company

Lime-making at Aberthaw had been in production since the 1750s on a fairly small scale producing a good quality hydraulic lime that could set underwater. So in 1888 the Aberthaw Pebble Limestone Company was formed to take full advantage of the limestone pebbles on Aberthaw beach. There were originally two kilns and a further two were added c1895 after the opening of the TVR branch from Cowbridge. The works closed down in 1926.

General views of the limeworks

The three-storey mill building

The boiler house

The original 1888 kilns

The new kilns built after the TVR branch from Cowbridge was opened, c1895

Around the outside

The Taff Vale Railway at Aberthaw


Out and About in South Glamorgan

Quick links to :-     Cardiff City     Penarth, Lavernock and Dinas Powis     Barry, Porthkerry and Rhoose
Aberthaw Pebble Limeworks     Out and About in South Glamorgan

St Fagans Folk Museum

The Llantrisant No.1 Railway at ST 1196 7907

The Llantrisant No.1 Railway ran from Waterhall Junction to Llantrisant. A footpath crosses under the line near Rhydlafr and planning notices show that no less than 5970 houses are to be built here very soon!

Tresilian, Llantwit Major - SS 9473 6777

There are four World War 2 pillboxes surrounding Tresilian, a large seaside house, near Llantwit Major. Two are on the clifftop either side of the bay and two are in each corner of the bay itself.

St Donats Castle - SS 9345 6800
Dunraven Castle - SS 8893 7345

St Donats Castle once boasted an outdoor swimming pool and this chimney and flue appear to have been part of the heating system, unusual with the chimney some way away from the pool like the old lead-smelting flues.
There's not much left of Dunraven Castle itself but the gardens are very pleasent. There's an old barn not far away with cast-iron pillars supporting the roof.

Monknash and Marcross

Monknash Corn Mill appears to a c19th century mill at SS 9088 7028 with one wall and the wheelpit left. The windmill or dovecot is more prominent at SS 9086 7060. Old maps show it as a windmill but latterly it's been used as a dovecote. The base of Marcross windmill is at SS 9269 6898.

St Brides Major, Duchy Quarry - SS 9060 7575

Duchy Quarry first opened in 1920 and the adjacent Lancater Quarry in 1928, owned by the 'Lancaster Lime & Limestone Co'. Sidings ran into each quarry from the Vale of Glamorgan line, the Lancaster siding closing in 1953 and the Duchy siding in 1958.

St Brides Major, limekiln - SS 9129 7520
'Ffynnon-y-Pant' - SS 8809 7570

Another very ruinous limekiln near Castle-upon-Alun, St Brides Major.
A rather elaborate old well in the dried-up valley of Pant Mari Flanders, in existence by 1877

Duffryn, Wenvoe, limekiln - ST 1060 7210

A small ruined limekiln near Goldsland Wood, between Duffryn and Wenvoe.


Acknowledgments, sources and further reading

Thanks for the use of their photographs and information to :- Wayne Gaskell, Brian Mills, Mike Stokes, Ray Weavin


A Guide to the Website


All rights reserved - Phil Jenkins