From 1890 until the end of the 1960s Swanbridge was connected northward to Penarth and Cardiff and westward to Barry and the South Wales Valleys by an extension of the Taff Vale Railway line. The coastal spur fell victim to the sweeping Beeching Axe in 1968. Swanbridge railway station near the main Lavernock Road junction was closed and is now overgrown with weeds and brambles. The redundant rail track bed has mostly been sold into private ownership and built on, with any unsold stretches being overgrown and impassable as far as the Fort Road bridge at Lavernock. Between Lavernock and Penarth the track bed is a rural greenway and cycle track. When the rail link arrived at the start of the 20th century the bays of Swanbridge, St Mary's Well and Lavernock became popular summer time destination for day trippers from Cardiff, Penarth and the South Wales valleys particularly at weekends and on Bank Holidays. For nearly a hundred years there was a busy and profitable cafe and ice cream parlour, located at the St Mary's Well Bay end of the Swanbridge carpark, that was closed and demolished around 1970 when the through road was blocked off to traffic. Watercolour artist Thomas Frederick Worrall, who lived in Barry from 1913, painted many views of the island. Flora and fauna The noted British biologist Brian J. Ford used to live and write at Swanbridge and explored Sully Island frequently. He also carried out extensive ecological studies, while surveying and mapping both the island and the foreshore. Ford recorded many plants unusual for the area, including the bee orchid, the marine spleenwort and the adder's tongue fern. The island once supported a vast colony of rabbits. When the disease myxomatosis arrived in Britain, during 1953 from France, the mainland population of rabbits was quickly decimated. Mostly because of its remoteness from the mainland the Sully Island rabbits survived for many years until the disease finally arrived on the island, some suspect through a human agency. From time to time new rabbit colonies set up home on Sully Island but at nowhere near the early 1950s levels. The waters around Sully Island are fished for species such as cod, whiting, pouting, dogfish, conger eel and bass. Any trees that grew on the island have been long cut down and even scrubby bushes struggle to gain a foothold on the sandy and loamy surface.