Hotel. Very few visitors arrived by car until the 1960s with the majority travelling by the half-hourly steam trains that stopped at Lavernock and Swanbridge Halts on the busy Taff Vale Railway Line en route to Barry Island. Lavernock started settling back to quiet seclusion in the late 1960s when the railway line closed down under the Beeching Axe. Some modern day trippers arrived by car, to the degree that the lanes and the Swanbridge car park were often jammed, but visitor numbers had dropped off to such a degree that falling profit margins meant all the food outlets, the Golden Hind pub and eventually even the Bay Hotel closed down and the decline was accelerated even further. Lavernock Point Lavernock Point () is a headland on the South Wales coast, overlooking the Bristol Channel with views across to the Somerset Coast. A line drawn between Lavernock Point and Sand Point, Somerset marks the lower limit of the Severn estuary and the start of the Bristol Channel. Because of the extreme tidal range there are very strong currents or rips close inshore to the point with speeds that exceed 7 knots (13 km/h) for several hours at each tide. Various proposals have been put forward to construct a Severn Barrage for tidal electricity production from Lavernock Point to Brean Down in Somerset and the provision remains under discussion by the various agencies. Geology In June 2015 it was announced that the fossil remains of a new species of dinosaur had been discovered on the beach by brothers Nick and Rob Hanigan who were searching for ancient marine reptiles called ichthyosaurs. The fossilised skeleton belonged to a dog-sized creature, a theropod dinosaur, and was described as a "cousin of the giant tyrannosaurus rex". Now named Dracoraptor hanigan meaning "dragon robber". It is believed to be the earliest specimen of a Jurassic period dinosaur to have walked the earth. Lavernock Fort On the point in the late 1860s Lavernock Fort gun battery was built by the Royal Commission. It was completed in 1870, with three 7" muzzle loading cannons to protect the channel approaches to Cardiff and Bristol shipyards. Sometime before 1895 the gun battery was reinforced with a fourth cannon, only for all four guns then to be replaced eight years later by two rapid fire six inch (152 mm) former naval guns in 1903. A two unit searchlight battery was