Heritage Open Days 2022: Rare chance to tour historic Goole Docks with an expert and visit coal hoists

Goole Civic Society have organised a tour led by an expert on Goole Docks for Heritage Open Days Festival on Sunday September 11 from 1.30-3pm.

The route of the walking tour includes the South Dock and Grade II-listed No5 Coal Hoist - where access may be arranged for visitors.

The port's coal hoists were invented to speed up the transfer of coal from barges to steamers on the River Ouse.

The docks, 50 miles inland from the North Sea, were purpose-built, excavated by the Aire and Calder Navigation Company in the 1820s to link its canals and waterways to the Ouse. When the railways threatened the river trade, a local engineer invented a unique method of transporting coal along the navigation and hoisting it into ships.

The tour begins at the Lowther Hotel and is free to attend.

Back in the 1950s, Goole Docks were a major employer and barge captains included boys as young as 15. The tub boats carrying coal from Yorkshire's pits were nicknamed 'Tom Puddings'. Their cargo would eventually be moved over to large seagoing vessels for export out of the country via the Humber.

Boats would return from ports such as Copenhagen carrying goods such as butter and bacon.

The dockers and seamen were the working-class 'elite' at the time and the men who worked there were seen as 'catches' for the local girls who married them.

The 1960s proved the last great heyday of Goole, as the introduction of containerised shipping had a profound effect on the labour market. Dockers were previously employed to pile cargo onto wooden pallets that were then lifted into a ship's hold to be packed. Yet after a series of industrial disputes, the dock workers remained well-paid and there were still around 600 of them.

Today Goole Docks employs only around 60 people.

It handles around 1.5 million tonnes of goods per year - from agricultural products (wheat, barley and fertiliser) to construction materials and liquid bulks, including vegetable oil.