Chain Locker Bar at the Barry Dock Hotel

[Administrator]

This is not a pic of the famous Chain Locker Bar at the Barry Dock Hotel itself but of the main hotel bar or posh bar,
of the hotel on Dock view Road that the Chain Locker was part of.



The Chain Locker was the first pub that seaman from all over the world would see on arrival and as they left the Docks.

Barry Dock was once the Busiest coal Port in the World due to the Industrial revolution and coal setting a world record in 1913
for most tons of coal shipped in a calendar year. The Chain locker is mentioned in multiple seafaring memoirs and novels.

VIA: Old Barry in Pictures



The Barry dock Hotel , home of the world famous "chainlocker bar"

[Administrator]

Interesting read:

Chapter 1
Barry November 1934

I never liked Barry. I had the misfortune to spend too much time there in between ships. It was the biggest coal port in Britain during the Great War, and even though it had never really recovered after the Depression, there was still coal everywhere. Rail wagon loads of it squealing and rumbling their way to the docks. Great black mounds of it looming over the grimy rows of the dockside terraced houses. And the perpetual cloud of smelly, choking coal dust. Settling everywhere, getting into everything and turning into a sticky, black slime when it rained.

There were ships too, of course, dozens of them crowding the docks, waiting for their turn under the coal tips, while their crews crowded into the grimy dockside pubs to wash away the taste of coal dust. The Chain Locker was one of them. Not the worst place I’d ever drunk in, but it had seen better days. The side bar of Culley’s Hotel on Dock View Road, it was where sailors and dockers went to fill up on Brains

LINK

After the fight with Rhys, Rowden walked Olwyn to Holton Road. This is how it looked at the time.

The following morning Rowden left his digs in Thompson Street and walked to the Mercantile Marine Office. The photo below, taken early last century from the rooftop of the Barry Docks Board Building, shows the railway and Barry Town station in the foreground. Dock View Road runs along the top of the rise above the railway and the Mercantile Marine Office is the large grand building top left. At the time of the photo, it was a labour exchange, which explains the crowd of men gathered outside. In the far-left centre, marked by Vim signs is the path leading down under the railway that Rowden walked on his way to join Portneath.

LINK

[Administrator]

Barry Dock Hotel opened in 1891 as Culleys Hotel and Restaurant, with free drinks for all customers. The hotel was extended twice in its lifetime by the addition of further rooms. The sidebar used by seamen and dockers was known the world over as the 'Chain Locker' and was immortalised by Alexander Cordell in his book 'Rogues March'. The building was demolished in 1983 and Phillipa Freeth Court was built there.