32t41: Swing Bridge over St Andrew's Dock entrance and Lord Line building, 1982 - Docks
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STILL OCCUPIED
Peter Marshall
A view of Hull
Docks
32t41: Swing Bridge over St Andrew's Dock entrance and Lord Line building, 1982 - Docks
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Still Occupied
Images on this site are arranged into rough areas by location as in my book 'Still Occupied', available on Blurb. Eventually this site will contain all the images in that book and more.
The view looking roughly north-east across the swing bridge over St Andrew's Dock Entrance towards the Lord Line building, with signs on it for British United Trawlers Ltd and Marconi Marine. Adjoining it to the right the offices of J Marr & Son. Although the dock was closed to shipping and the fishing fleet moved to Albert and William Wright docks seven years earlier there were still some offices in the area in use, with cars parked around the buildings.
The dock had opened in 1883, and was intended to be used to handle coal, but for almost all of its working life was the fish dock. It was extended in 1894. The extension is now a retail park, retaining the name St Andrew's but with little else to recall its former use. There have been several plans for the redevelopment of the dock, most recently as a 'Heritage Dock'. The scheme would retain the 1949 building for the Lord Line trawler fleet, and the Grade II listed Hydraulic Tower but little else other than the dock itself which would be refilled with water and converted to a marina.
The scheme seems a poor reflection of the heritage, at best half-hearted, when perhaps a more ambitious heritage attraction based on the fishing industry and retaining all existing buildings on the site including the stylish 1932 Hull Steam Trawlers Mutual Insurance Protecting Company building - as well as using a part of the dock area for several museum ships and boats - including Hull's Arctic Corsair, now occasionally open as a museum on the River Hull - representing the different eras of the industry could succeed, if on a smaller scale than Hull's major tourist attraction, The Deep. Albert Dock has the advantage of being only a few feet from the A63 Clive Sullivan Way, with good connections to the motorway system.
Marinas are not good earners, taking up considerable space and offering relatively little in return and are playgrounds for the rich rather than offering any real value to the city. Retaining much of the character of the former dock area does not require keeping the whole of the dock, and a more sensible scheme might involve a more intensive development of the western part of the former dock area.
In 1982, the dock still had some water in it, but it was filled (or silted up) later in the decade.
Peter Marshall
01784 456474