Barry (Welsh: Y Barri) is a town in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. Located just a few miles from Cardiff, the capital of Wales, Barry lies on the south coast and is a popular seaside resort, with attractions including a beach, and the Barry Island Pleasure Park (currently closed - May 2007).
Barry is currently home to roughly 50,000 people. It is the administrative centre of the Vale of Glamorgan, and home to Barry Town F.C..
The road from Bonvilston was originally the B4266, as only Pontypridd Road within the town still is, and the road from Highlight Park right through the Vale to Bridgend was the B4265, as beyond the airport it still is. Since the 1970s, parts of these roads are numbered A4226, with the result that the A4226 radiates from Weycock Cross roundabout in three directions.
A chicken-and-egg situation afflicts the town's name. Sometimes, including in travel information, Barry is pedantically called "Barry Dock", and "Barry" considered to be just the western district of the town of "Barry Dock", the "Barry" district's existence requiring the town centre to be called "Barry Dock" to assert that it is not Barry and to distinguish it from Barry! Yet unofficially it is Barry, and if officially it is not Barry, whence would it come to be called Barry Dock ?
Originally Barry was a small village neighbouring the larger villages of Cadoxton and Barry Island. Today, Barry has swallowed both of these villages and the area is know as Barry with small areas or parishes known as Cadoxton and Barry Island.
The town was originally a fishing port, and grew when it was developed as a coal port in the 1880s. The coal trade was growing faster than the facilities at Cardiff Docks ever could and so a group of colliery owners formed the Barry Railway Company and chose to build the dock at Barry. Work commenced in 1884 and the first dock basin was opened in 1889 to be followed by two other docks and extensive port installations. The Barry Railway brought coal down from the valleys to the new docks whose trade grew from one million tons in the first year to over nine million tons by 1903. The port was crowded with ships and had flourishing ship repair yards, cold stores, flour mills and an ice factory. By 1913, Barry was the largest coal exporting port in the world.
Behind the docks rose the terraced houses of Barry which, with Cadoxton. soon formed a sizeable town. The railways which had played a major part in the development of the dock did a great deal, too, to make Barry Island a popular resort.
Although still a port, Barry is more important now as a manufacturing town and as a service centre for the Vale of Glamorgan. Barry Docks and the adjoining industrial area form the largest employment centre in the town. The docks, whose road links were dramatically improved with the opening of the Docks Link Road in 1981, now have direct road access with the M4 motorway. The docks can handle vessels up to 23,000 tons and the first-class tidal position close to the deep-water channel of the Severn Estuary, allows for regular scheduled sailings. With its extensive transit sheds, warehouses and open storage, the docks are well equipped to handle hulk cargoes for which the batteries of high capacity grab cranes are invaluable. Two roll on/roll off berths are available and have been extensively used by routes to Eire and West Africa. These and the other port facilities have seen an increasing variety of traffic in recent years.
The great majority of industrial firms are located in the dock area. By far the largest are the chemical producing concerns such as Cabot Carbon and Dow Corning who have just completed the development of the largest silicones plant in Europe. Other main employers in Barry Docks are Jewson Builders' Merchants, Western Welding and Engineering, Bumnelly, Rank Hovis and, of course, Associated British Ports who, since 1982 have run the docks as successors of the British Transport Docks Board.
The name of Barry derives from St. Baruc who was drowned in the Bristol Channel and buried in Barry Island. Cadoxton, too, takes its name from an early saint, St. Cadoc, and it is around the Medieval church of St. Cadoc that the old village grew up. The church still survives, as do some of the older village houses.
Barry hosted the National Eisteddfod in 1920 and 1968.
The town is often associated with Woodhams' Scrapyard, a business that helped over 200 historic steam locomotives survive into preservation. |
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