Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small]
[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small]

To see

FROM Nottingham our route takes us by the Notting- | hoist worked by a powerful hydraulic press.
ham and Lincoln line to Newark-on-Trent, and thence
over the track of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lin-
colnshire Railway, to Great Grimsby on the New
Holland coast. The ride is not without its interest, as
it carries us for the first time into that curious alluvial
district, known as the Great Level of the Fens. Taking
however, our present course by the eastern limb of the
Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire, we shall leave
the peculiar features of that country to be noticed on
our return. Passing by Worksop, busy and dirty,
Redford and Gainsborough, we enter Lincolnshire by
its north-western side, and arrive at the junction of the
New Holland and Barton Branch with the main line.
The former is worth the short time expended in travers-
ing its ten or dozen miles, on account of the remarkable
character of the engineering works at its terminus on
the coast. By its position on the south bank of the
Humber, the station of New Holland was considered by
the railway company capable of being made an impor-
tant emporium of agricultural produce, and the general
exports and imports of the country. With this view,
the railway was carried out some distance over the
marsh land, and beyond high-water mark, on a system
of piles and wood-work of great strength; so that pas-
sengers land at once from the Hull steamboats, on the
very platform of the railway, by the ascent of a few
steps, while goods are lifted up to the same level with a

the latter in action is one of those mechanical exhibit-
tions which, however simple, have always fresh interest
and attraction. There was a shrewd looking north-
country lad, of about 17, standing by us on the last
occasion we were there, and sharing our admiration
silently for about half-an-hour. At length, when the great
platform rose slowly to its place for the last time, he
drew a long breath, and, Lord Burleigh-like, spake
these graphic words, "That's a grand contrivance!"

The result has not, we believe, quite answered the expectations of the company. The passenger traffic from the Hull and Selby and the Bridlington railways district, by the steam ferry from Hull, is very considerable; and immense quantities of fish and timber are conveyed southwards by this route. In other respects the late improvements at great Grimsby, and its superior position as a sea-port, have detracted much from the traffic of New Holland. The journey back from New Holland to Grimsby is singularly dreary; and the commercial stir of Grimsby is a grateful relief to its dullness.

Grimsby is becoming a place of much importance. Large works are in progress ;-piers being built, docks laid out, harbours constructed; and a service of packets of the first class is established with the northern seaports of Europe, to which Grimsby is some twenty miles of troublesome navigation nearer than Hull, besides possessing finer natural advantages.

2 B-OL. I

[ocr errors]

Grimsby is not, like Birkenhead or Fleetwood, a port which has sprung from nothing within the last few years; it has been a recognized port for more than half a century; and the works now in progress are extensions of the port: though they are extensions on such a scale as to amount almost to a re-formation.

There was a company formed in Grimsby, in 1796, called the Grimsby Dock Company; and this body obtained an Act for the construction of a dock and the improvement of the port. The dock was completed. in 1801. (Engraving.) It is situated wholly landward, that is, within the line of high-water mark; and it is supplied with fresh water by streams from the interior. A lock connects it with the Humber. The principal trade of the port is in Baltic produce, such as timber, deals, tar, seed, bones, and iron; and as the dock dues are much lower than those of Hull, and as there are no wharfage dues or corporation dues, the port has always shared a portion of the Humber trade. When, however, the Lincolnshire railways were approaching Grimsby, and the prospect of a new field of enterprize opened, the Dock Company requested Mr. Rendel to examine the port, and draw up a plan for a new dock. This was done; and in the autumn of 1844, a very comptehensive scheme was developed by that engineer.

According to the plan proposed, the engineer will avail himself of that large, useless, unsightly mass of mud which intervenes between high and low-water mark. Covered with water twice every day, and laid bare twice every day, such a strip of semi-dry land is an eyesore to most ports, except where the soil is a fine smooth sand, or a clear shingle beach. Mr. Rendel proposes to include or enclose an area of no less than 132 acres of this sort of no-man's-land, which on the margin of the Humber is invariably soft mud; part of which, when reclaimed, will form a dock, warehouses, ship-yards, &c. The water area of the dock will be 27 acres (more than the united area of all the Hull docks, except the new Victoria Dock); there will be 20 acres for wharfs and quays; and 85 acres for various building purposes. There will be upwards of 5,000 feet in length of dock wharfage, and 6,000 feet of river frontage-all formed by masonry, where there is now nothing but sand at low-water. There is to be a basin of eleven acres, to connect the dock with the Humber; and two piers will bound this basin on the east and west, each about 600 feet long. The piers are to be built of open pile-work, to allow the river to flow uninterruptedly beneath them; and they are to have slips and stairs suitable for the accommodation of steamers and other vessels. Between the basin and the dock are to be two communications: one by a lock, large enough for the largest class of steamers, and the other of smaller dimensions, for vessels of less burden. No communication will be kept up with the Humber except through these locks; and the dock will be supplied with fresh water from land streams, in the same way as the old dock. This arrangement will occasion extra trouble in lockage; but advantages more than equivalent are expected to be derived in these three respects—

the water is so clean that the dock will rarely require dredging; the water will cleanse the copper bottoms of ships lying in the docks; and the water will also be available for cleaning the boilers of steam-vessels. The new dock will extend north-eastward, quite beyond the river limits of the old dock; and there will be a channel of communication from one to the other. The breadth of the Humber opposite Grimsby is about two miles and a half at low-water; and exactly opposite the new dock, near the middle of the river, is a bank called the Burcom Sands, formed by a deposit of stiff fine sand, rising nearly to the level of highwater. This bank, instead of being an obstruction, is expected by Mr. Rendel to be an advantage: he proposes to construct such works upon it as will convert it into a kind of breakwater, protecting the port from unfavourable winds and storms, and scouring out the channel between the bank and Grimsby. The whole of these great works were contemplated by Mr. Rendel to involve an outlay of half a million sterling; but he showed how the works might be prosecuted by degrees, according as the traffic grew; so as to spread the outlay over a wider period.

Such was the plan proposed by Mr. Rendel; and such was, in substance, the plan for which an Act was obtained in 1845. Other Acts of Parliament were obtained in 1846 and 1848, to facilitate the establishment of steam-ferries across the Humber from Grimsby to Hull.

It was a busy day for Grimsby, when, on April 17, 1849, Prince Albert laid the first stone of the new docks. The preparatory works had been in hand for two years; and in the mean time the Sheffield and Lincolnshire, the East Lincolnshire, and the Great Northern Railway Companies, had so advanced their respective undertakings, that Grimsby was brought into easy connexion with Boston and Peterborough, with Lincoln and Nottingham, with Gainsborough and the Trent, and with the Ferries opposite Hull. The processions and the feastings, the trowel and the case of coins, the toasts and the congratulations, were all duly described and recorded in the journals of the period. It has been up-hill work, and will yet be so for some time, to provide the means for these costly engineering constructions; but for the sake of the townsmen, of the county, of commerce in general, and of the shareholders in particular, we heartily wish success to the project.

These noble improvements suggested by Mr. Rendel have only been partially carried out. The extension of railways to the eastern coast must, however, eventually cause Grimsby to assume the position of a firstclass port. The facility with which goods brought into Grimsby can be transported to various parts of the country, by means of the Manchester, Sheffield, and Lincolnshire railways, is not one of its least advantages.

Grimsby does not appeal much to our admiration as a town. (Engraving.) If we see if at low-water, the broad expanse of mud is annoyingly monotonous. It reminds us of Captain Basil Hall's capital description

[graphic][merged small]

of a tide-harbour; but Mr. Rendel's works, when carried out, will greatly change the aspect both of the town and of the harbour.

We have now to turn our face westward, and glance at a rising port situated some miles up the Humber.

Goole, in its origin, as well as in its features as a port, may be deemed a rival to Hull. The rivalry is modest, it is true; but it has very likely been instrumental in stirring up the merchants of Hull to increased activity and enterprise. The Humber, as we have explained, is formed by the junction of the Ouse with the Trent; and about ten miles above, or westward of this junction, at a point where the Dutch river enters the Ouse, stands the town of Goole. This Dutch river is a remarkable work. It is a sort of canal to furnish an improved outlet for the river Don, which flows thither from Sheffield to Doncaster. In the reign of Charles II., a Dutchman named Van Muden, undertook to make a new channel from the Don, about seven miles in length, which should shorten the ancient circuitous course of the river: he effected it, but at the expense of his peace of mind, of his fortune, and ultimately of his life. It is very rarely that the inhabitants of a district are prepared to receive, in a friendly spirit, a foreigner who, possessed of a more intelligent and enterprising character than themselves, seeks to introduce new commercial or industrial arrangements among them, which might possibly affect some of the old usages of the place. Van Muden found this to his cost. Seeing, as we may at the

present day, a canal whose deep shelving banks, ample width, and ebbing and flowing tide, give it almost the appearance of a natural river, we cannot refuse to thank the man who made it; but in Van Muden's case, "unable," as it has been said, "to stem the torrent of opposition raised by interested persons against him-in spite of his able plans, their vigorous execution, and the liberal appropriation of the whole of his private means to support them-notwithstanding the thousands of acres of land reclaimed by drainage, and that he may fairly be said at least to have added one to the navigable rivers of the country-in return for all these benefits, poor Van Muden first fell into discredit, then into debt, and ultimately perished in gaol." The immediate object in view was not so much to facilitate internal navigation, as to drain the fenny tracts in the northern part of Lincolnshire; for the Dutch river was, in the first instance, merely two parallel drains. Poor Van Muden was made a knight; we read of him as "Sir Cornelius;" but his fate was luckless. His successors, however, now called the participants, still levy an acreage rent on the lands benefited by the drainage.

Van Muden, by the terms of his arrangement, was to receive one-third of all the land he might reclaim; and as fast as the reclamation took place, he located some of his countrymen in the drained land. Hence the Dutch-looking houses, windmills, dykes, and embankments, and the Dutch names of many of the inhabitants, met with in this district. According to one

[graphic][merged small]

account of this enterprise, it seems as if Van Muden did only one half of the work, and an unexpected visitation of Nature the other half, in the formation of this river; for he left it in the form of two parallel drains; but a terrible flood, in the year 1688, carried away the sluices and the division between the two drains; so that, as nothing but the outward banks remain, the cut assumes the appearance of a very wide canal, which at high tides is navigable for brigs of so large a size as 300 tons burden. There are three drawbridges over this wide canal, which are kept in repair by the Don Navigation Company, and for which a certain pontage or bridge-toll is paid in respect to every vessel which makes the transit. While this Dutch river is kept in a good state, the bed of the lower portion of the old river Don has received gradual accumulations of alluvial soil and vegetation, so as now to have become filled up and scarcely discernible. The same cause which has filled up this deserted river has rendered available the valuable process of warping agricultural land,-a process which Dutchmen know more about than any other persons.

Although Dutch River joins the Ouse near Goole, yet it has not had the effect of making Goole a port of any importance. The Trent on the one side, and the Aire and the Calder on the other, have had more commerce than the Don, to which Dutch River belongs. Indeed, until within the last few years, Goole seldom found a place in maps of England.

When we look at the great estuaries or river-mouths of our island, as laid down on a map, we cannot fail to see how invitingly they appeal to the energies of man.

It is to one of these estuaries that we are about to invite the reader's attention,-the Humber, which flows into the German Ocean by such a noble expanse of river-mouth; which receives the contributions of so many rivers from Yorkshire as well as from the midland counties; which occupies so admirable a position in respect to the commercial ports of Norway, the Baltic, Denmark, and Holland.

THE EARLY DAYS OF HULL.

Hull-or, as it is more formally and correctly designated, Kingston-upon-Hull (Hull itself being the name of a river)-lies on the northern shore of the Humber, at the point where the two rivers Hull and Humber join. It has on its eastern side that singular flatlooking peninsula called Holderness, which stretches out to the German Ocean at Spurn Point. The coast of Lincolnshire spreads out for many miles opposite Hull; but it is a flat uninteresting coast, presenting none of those landmarks which hills or cliffs furnish. Indeed there is scarcely a hill visible from Hull in any direction.

Hull is not one of those towns which interest us by their relics of bygone ages. It tells of the present much more than of the past. It once had its Augustins, its Carmelites, and its Carthusians; it once had a

« ZurückWeiter »