Briton Ferry Floating Dock and Railway Company

The Briton Ferry Floating Dock Company was incorporated under an 1851 act of Parliament to build docks handling coal and goods for the Vale of Neath Railway where the River Neath meets Swansea Bay in Wales, opening in 1861 with an outer tidal basin and a 5.3 hectare inner floating dock enclosed by masonry walls, its unique floating caisson gate designed by Marc Isambard Brunel. The company went bankrupt and the Great Western Railway took control under an 1873 transfer act; the docks were nationalized along with the railway and closed in 1959, though the inner basin has since been redeveloped and the outer basin remains in recreational and fishing use.