Wtf is underneath Penarth Moors??

[Col_Buendia]

Penarth Moors, according to Multimap, is the name of that area of land between the Ely River and Ikea/Asda's etc. We stopped there on the way home tonight and had a wander over the hill. But on the way in there's a big sign warning people that it is dangerous to "enter manholes", and the hillside is dotted with little chimney-type ventilation pipes, as well as loads of padlocked manhole covers.

So... what the feck is underneath it all? My imagination goes mad with stuff like this, and I start assuming it is Rhodri's own personal nuclear bunker. I suppose it'll be something dull like a seweage pumping station, but anyone know for sure?

Peter Finch writes that

The ancient Penarth Moors became a dump for city garbage. By the 1990s the hollows were full, capped with three-feet of impervious clay and redeveloped as Grangemoor Parc with the Cardiff Bay Retail Park alongside. South East lay the Ferry Road peninsula, the Red House, the Cardiff Bay Yacht Club, and the site for the in-coming Sports Village and attendant housing. To the south west, up Dunleavy Drive, are Ely Fields. Ely Fields? Secret, gated Cardiff. A thirty-acre triangle of land with the river front on its long side and the elevated Grangetown Link and Cogan Spur roadways on the others. Peer into it as you drive past, most you'll see are trees.

We didn't see any trees. But there's slugs galore

So, what's under it?

 

[King Biscuit Time]

I reckon them tubes are venting methane from an old rubbish dump.
Try lobbing a match down 'em.

NB - Do not under any circumsrabces chuck a match down em

 

[phildwyer]

That's where the Red House used to be, right? It is rumoured that there is a network of tunnels underneath there, something to do with connecting Penarth to Cardiff docks. No idea if its true.

 

[1927]

It is the old city dump. ferry Road,where Asda etc are used to be a tip and lots of scrap dealers. scrap dealers were moved to Rover Way and the plan was to excavate the tip back in the eighties/nineties and transport it by trains to a new site that they had identified as far away as Surrey iirc. As housing had already started to be built it was decided to keep the tip in place and it was capped.First a bentonite wall was constructed all the way round it to some considerable depth and then clay was imported and the whole area was sealed,but they added the chimneys to vent the methane. same as over at Penarth marina and the new site where they are building sports village.

 

[1927]

That's where the Red House used to be, right? It is rumoured that there is a network of tunnels underneath there, something to do with connecting Penarth to Cardiff docks. No idea if its true.

here

 

[Col_Buendia]

I reckon them tubes are venting methane from an old rubbish dump.
Try lobbing a match down 'em.

NB - Do not under any circumsrabces chuck a match down em

That's glorifying terrorism, that is

OFFICER!!!

 

[Col_Buendia]

The tunnel runs from the end of the road which used to run past the Red House-where the Yacht Club is, and emerges the other side of the river in Penarth Marina. It is till there but not sure if its still accessible,I doubt it is as it has probably been infilled during construction works,it used to be shown on old maps.

Red House has been demolished, hasn't it? I was trying to spot it from the hillside, to no avail.

Another piece of history wiped out in the headlong charge for more money I never made it down there for a pint... I take it it was something of an experience?

 

[phildwyer]

Red House has been demolished, hasn't it? I was trying to spot it from the hillside, to no avail.

Another piece of history wiped out in the headlong charge for more money I never made it down there for a pint... I take it it was something of an experience?

Yeah, it was a nice place. "The Red House" was just a nickname, its real name was something else, and it was called "the Red House" long before they actually painted it red. It was all on its own in the middle of the moor, quite a strange setting for a pub, it must have been for the dockers originally. A sad loss--I think there was a bit of a campaign to save it but it was evidently unsuccessful.

 

[Brockway]

Yeah, it was a nice place. "The Red House" was just a nickname, its real name was something else, and it was called "the Red House" long before they actually painted it red. It was all on its own in the middle of the moor, quite a strange setting for a pub, it must have been for the dockers originally. A sad loss--I think there was a bit of a campaign to save it but it was evidently unsuccessful.

It had a reputation for being a place you took someone who wasn't your wife/hubby. A hotbed of infidelity. Shocking.

 

[Col_Buendia]

It had a reputation for being a place you took someone who wasn't your wife/hubby. A hotbed of infidelity. Shocking.

And I bet "a friend" told you this, eh?

 

[phildwyer]

It had a reputation for being a place you took someone who wasn't your wife/hubby. A hotbed of infidelity. Shocking.

The fact that it was the only building in a half-mile radius of barren, impenetrable wilderness probably had something to do with that...

 

[Brockway]

And I bet "a friend" told you this, eh?

You must have psychic powers....

Nah, it was legendary.

 

[King Biscuit Time]

The Red House Regulars all drink in the Bute Dock Hotel now I think.
I popped in the BDH for a Friday afternoon pint and ended up bang in the middle of a Red House Reunion.

 

[neprimerimye]

It is rumoured that there is a network of tunnels underneath there, something to do with connecting Penarth to Cardiff docks. No idea if its true.

Yes it is true sort of. But the chimneys have nothing to do with the tunnel. They are to vent methane as another poster has explained.

As for the tunnel its still there and does run beneath Cardiff Bay connecting Penarth and Cardiff. I'm not altogther sure when it was shut, perhaps as late as the 1950's, but any old OS map will show its course clearly marked.

 

[neprimerimye]

Yeah, it was a nice place. "The Red House" was just a nickname, its real name was something else, and it was called "the Red House" long before they actually painted it red. It was all on its own in the middle of the moor, quite a strange setting for a pub, it must have been for the dockers originally. A sad loss--I think there was a bit of a campaign to save it but it was evidently unsuccessful.

Sadly I'm old enough to remember it when it was not isolated. Twas indeed a dockers boozer.

The campaign to save it was funny all these people writing letters to save a pub they never bothered to use. Everyone of them with an address in Whitchurch or Rhiwbina. And all talking bollocks about their childhoods in a 'community' they left asap.

 

[kakuma]

sounds like an underground mi5/cia/kgb bunker

 

[neprimerimye]

sounds like an underground mi5/cia/kgb bunker

Don't be such a berk it was open to the public. My Father recalled using it as a child prior to WW2. It's purpose was to keep labour costs down by making dockers from Cardiff and Penarth compete with each other.

 

[phildwyer]

It's purpose was to keep labour costs down by making dockers from Cardiff and Penarth compete with each other.

What, at racing up and down the tunnel?

 

[1927]

Why do people on these boards always insist in contributing to threads without reading the fuckin links provided? read my link above and you will know the dates and location of the tunnel etc, don't be so fucking lazxy or is oit just the truth gets in the way of a good argument.

By the way the reason it was known as The Red House was because as a pub which was popular with sea Captains, who could view the docks from the bar and so row out to their ships as they left the docks there was a brothel in the cellar.

 

[neprimerimye]

Why do people on these boards always insist in contributing to threads without reading the fuckin links provided? read my link above and you will know the dates and location of the tunnel etc, don't be so fucking lazxy or is oit just the truth gets in the way of a good argument.

By the way the reason it was known as The Red House was because as a pub which was popular with sea Captains, who could view the docks from the bar and so row out to their ships as they left the docks there was a brothel in the cellar.

Friend I did not need to read the link. For the good reason that I've known where the damn thing was my entire life. As any Cardiffian with family links to seafaring or the docks surely must.

 

[phildwyer]

Do you remember the hermit bloke who used to live there? You could see his shack, and sometimes him, from the train.