The
Port of Liverpool is the name for the enclosed 7.5 mile
dockA dock is a man-made feature involved in the handling of boats or ships. However the exact meaning varies between different variants of the English language.-History:...
system that runs from
Herculaneum DockHerculaneum Dock was part of the Port of Liverpool in Liverpool, England. It was situated at the southern end of the Liverpool dock system, on the River Mersey. To the north it was connected to Harrington Dock. The dock was named after the Herculaneum Pottery Company that had occupied the site...
to
Seaforth DockSeaforth Dock is a purpose-built dock and container terminal, on the River Mersey, England, at Seaforth, to the north of Liverpool. As part of the Port of Liverpool and Liverpool Freeport, it is operated by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company...
, in the city of
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on the east side of the
River MerseyThe River Mersey is a river in North West England. It is around long, stretching from Stockport, Greater Manchester, and ending at Liverpool Bay, Merseyside. For centuries, it formed part of the ancient county divide between Lancashire and Cheshire....
. It is combined with the dock facilities built around the
Great FloatThe Great Float, is a body of water on the Wirral Peninsula, England formed from the natural tidal inlet, the Wallasey Pool. It is split into two large docks, East Float and West Float, both part of the Birkenhead Docks complex. The docks run approximately inland from the River Mersey, dividing...
of the
Wirral PeninsulaWirral or the Wirral is a peninsula in North West England. It is bounded to the west by the River Dee, which forms the boundary with Wales, and to the east by the River Mersey. Both terms "Wirral" and "the Wirral" are used locally , although the merits of each form are the subject of local...
, located on the west side of the river.
The working docks are operated by
Mersey Docks and Harbour CompanyThe Mersey Docks and Harbour Company , formerly the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board , owns and administers the dock facilities of the Port of Liverpool, on the River Mersey, England...
, the docks to the south of the
Pier HeadThe Pier Head is a riverside location in the city centre of Liverpool, England. It is part of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was inscribed in 2004.-Buildings:...
are operated by
British WaterwaysBritish Waterways is a statutory corporation wholly owned by government. It is the navigation authority in England, Scotland and Wales for the vast majority of the canals, and also some rivers and docks...
.
At one point the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company railway totalled 104 miles (166km) of line, with connections to many other railways.
The
Port of Liverpool is the name for the enclosed 7.5 mile
dockA dock is a man-made feature involved in the handling of boats or ships. However the exact meaning varies between different variants of the English language.-History:...
system that runs from
Herculaneum DockHerculaneum Dock was part of the Port of Liverpool in Liverpool, England. It was situated at the southern end of the Liverpool dock system, on the River Mersey. To the north it was connected to Harrington Dock. The dock was named after the Herculaneum Pottery Company that had occupied the site...
to
Seaforth DockSeaforth Dock is a purpose-built dock and container terminal, on the River Mersey, England, at Seaforth, to the north of Liverpool. As part of the Port of Liverpool and Liverpool Freeport, it is operated by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company...
, in the city of
LiverpoolLiverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...
,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, on the east side of the
River MerseyThe River Mersey is a river in North West England. It is around long, stretching from Stockport, Greater Manchester, and ending at Liverpool Bay, Merseyside. For centuries, it formed part of the ancient county divide between Lancashire and Cheshire....
. It is combined with the dock facilities built around the
Great FloatThe Great Float, is a body of water on the Wirral Peninsula, England formed from the natural tidal inlet, the Wallasey Pool. It is split into two large docks, East Float and West Float, both part of the Birkenhead Docks complex. The docks run approximately inland from the River Mersey, dividing...
of the
Wirral PeninsulaWirral or the Wirral is a peninsula in North West England. It is bounded to the west by the River Dee, which forms the boundary with Wales, and to the east by the River Mersey. Both terms "Wirral" and "the Wirral" are used locally , although the merits of each form are the subject of local...
, located on the west side of the river.
The working docks are operated by
Mersey Docks and Harbour CompanyThe Mersey Docks and Harbour Company , formerly the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board , owns and administers the dock facilities of the Port of Liverpool, on the River Mersey, England...
, the docks to the south of the
Pier HeadThe Pier Head is a riverside location in the city centre of Liverpool, England. It is part of the Liverpool Maritime Mercantile City UNESCO World Heritage Site, which was inscribed in 2004.-Buildings:...
are operated by
British WaterwaysBritish Waterways is a statutory corporation wholly owned by government. It is the navigation authority in England, Scotland and Wales for the vast majority of the canals, and also some rivers and docks...
.
Connections
At one point the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company railway totalled 104 miles (166km) of line, with connections to many other railways. A section of the line ran, unsegregated from other road traffic, along the dock road. Today only the
Canada Dock BranchThe Canada Dock Branch is a 4 mile 59 chain long railway line in Liverpool, England. The line runs from the large Edge Hill rail junction in the east of Liverpool to Seaforth Dock to the north. The line was originally built by the London and North Western Railway terminating at Canada Dock, with...
is used.
For passengers disembarking from the new cruise liner terminal, city centre circular buses call at the terminal directly, while
MoorfieldsMoorfields station is an underground railway station in Liverpool, England. It is situated on both the Northern and Wirral Lines of the Merseyrail network and is one of two stations on the network which has services to all other Merseyrail stations....
and James Street are the nearest
MerseyrailMerseyrail is the name given to the electric commuter rail network, centred on Liverpool in the metropolitan county of Merseyside in England. The system has 67 stations spread across 75 miles of track, and runs underground and overground, carrying over 100,000 passengers each day...
stations.
History
The interconnected dock system, entailing ship movements within the dock system 24 hours a day, isolated from the high River Mersey tides, were the most advanced port system in the world. Parts of the system are now a
World Heritage SiteA UNESCO World Heritage Site is a site that is on the list that is maintained by the international World Heritage Programme administered by the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, composed of 21 state parties which are elected by their General Assembly for a four-year term.A World Heritage Site is a...
.
Both
White Star LineThe Oceanic Steam Navigation Company or White Star Line of Boston Packets, more commonly known as the White Star Line, was a prominent British shipping company, today most famous for its ill-fated luxury flagship, the RMS Titanic, and the World War I loss of her sister ship, Britannic...
and
Cunard LineCunard Line is a British-American-owned British-operated shipping company that has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...
were based at the port. It was also the home port of many great ships, including
RMS BalticThe RMS Baltic was the second ship of that name belonging to the White Star Line. At 23,876 gross tons, she was the largest ship in the world until 1905...
and the ill starred
Tayleur,
MV DerbyshireThe MV Derbyshire was an Ore-bulk-oil combination carrier built in 1976 by Swan Hunter, as the last in the series of the Bridge-class sextet. She was registered at Liverpool and owned by Bibby Line....
,
HMHS BritannicHMHS Britannic was the third and largest of the White Star Line. It was the sister ship of and , and was intended to enter service as a transatlantic passenger liner. However, it was launched on the eve on the First World War and was quickly put to use as a hospital ship...
,
RMS LusitaniaRMS Lusitania was an ocean liner owned by the Cunard Line and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland, torpedoed by a German U-boat on 7 May 1915. The ship sank in 18 minutes, eight miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland, killing 1,198 of the 1,959 people aboard...
and the
RMS TitanicThe RMS Titanic was an Olympic-class passenger liner owned by British shipping company White Star Line and built at the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, United Kingdom...
.
In 1971 what would be the last transatlantic liner for over 30 years sailed from Liverpool. Cruise liners returned to Liverpool in 2008, where they dock at the new cruise liner terminal. Ships to have called at Liverpool include
RMS Queen Elizabeth 2RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, often referred to simply as the 'QE2', is a retired Cunard ocean liner, now owned by Nakheel, a division of Dubai World. She was named after the earlier Cunard liner , and served as the flagship of the line from 1969 until succeeded by in 2004...
(QE2) and the
Grand PrincessGrand Princess is a large cruise ship owned by Princess Cruises. Built in 1998 by Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani in Monfalcone , Italy, at a cost of approximately US$450 million, she was the largest and most expensive civilian ship ever built at the time, a distinction now carried by Royal...
from
BermudaBermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, it is situated around 1,770 kilometres northeast of Miami, Florida, and 1,350 kilometres south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada...
, along with a number of large Royal Navy ships. As well as being a calling point, cruises also set out from Liverpool. Liverpool is one of the few cities in the world where ocean going liners can berth in the city centre, providing a spectacular addition to the waterfront skyline.
The
Liverpool Dockers' StrikeThe Liverpool Dockers' Strike lasted from 1995 to 1998.Although referred to as a strike it was strictly a dispute because the employers, the MDHC had actually used the opportunity to sack the dockers who were caught up in a separate dispute.The Liverpool Dockers refused to cross a picket line set...
in 1995 was a pivotal point for the Port of Liverpool. The dispute ended in 1998.
Recent activity
In 2007 Liverpool was the United Kingdom's seventh largest port by tonnage handled.
| Product |
2004 |
2003 |
2002 |
2001 |
| Grain Cereals, grains or cereal grains, {as a collective} are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their fruit seeds - the endocarp, germ and bran...
|
2,289,000 tonnes |
2,377,000 tonnes |
2,360,000 tonnes |
2,455,000 tonnes |
| Timber Timber may refer to:*Lumber, i.e. wood materials* Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S. state of Oregon* Timber , a 1984 arcade game by Bally Midway* An alternative spelling for Timbre...
|
295,000 tonnes |
391,000 tonnes |
406,000 tonnes |
452,000 tonnes |
| Bulk Liquids |
774,000 tonnes |
727,000 tonnes |
788,000 tonnes |
707,000 tonnes |
| Bulk Cargo Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities. These cargos are usually dropped or poured, with a spout or shovel bucket, as a liquid or as a mass of relatively small solids , into a bulk carrier ship's hold, railroad car, or tanker truck/trailer/semi-trailer body...
|
6,051,000 tonnes |
6,296,000 tonnes |
5,572,000 tonnes |
5,026,000 tonnes |
OilPetroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds.The term "petroleum" was first used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in...
Terminal |
11,406,000 tonnes |
11,406,000 tonnes |
11,604,000 tonnes |
11,236,000 tonnes |
| General Cargo |
374,000 tonnes |
556,000 tonnes |
468,000 tonnes |
514,000 tonnes |
| Total |
32,171,000 tonnes |
31,753,000 tonnes |
30,564,000 tonnes |
30,501,000 tonnes |
| Passengers |
720,000 |
734,000 |
716,000 |
654,000 |
| Containers Containerization is a system of intermodal freight transport using standard intermodal containers that are standardised by the International Organization for Standardization...
|
616,000 |
578,000 |
535,000 |
524,000 |
RoRoRoll-on/roll-off ships are vessels designed to carry wheeled cargo such as automobiles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, trailers or railroad cars that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels...
|
513,000 |
476,000 |
502,000 |
533,000 |
Quotes about Liverpool docks
'For more than six weeks, the ship Highlander lay in Prince's Dock; and during that time, besides making observations upon things immediately around me, I made sundry excursions to the neighboring docks, for I never tired of admiring them.
Previous to this, having only seen the miserable wooden wharves, and slip-shod, shambling piers of New York, the sight of these mighty docks filled my young mind with wonder and delight...
[I]n Liverpool, I beheld long China walls of masonry; vast piers of stone; and a succession of granite-rimmed docks, completely inclosed, and many of them communicating, which almost recalled to mind the great American chain of lakes: Ontario, Erie, St. Clair, Huron, Michigan, and Superior. The extent and solidity of these structures, seemed equal to what I had read of the old Pyramids of Egypt...
For miles you may walk along that river-side, passing dock after dock, like a chain of immense fortresses:—Prince's, George's, Salt-House, Clarence, Brunswick, Trafalgar, King's, Queen's, and many more.'
Herman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist and poet who is often classified as part of dark romanticism...
,
Redburn - his first voyage, 1849
'It is a region, this seven-mile sequence of granite-lipped lagoons, which is invested ... with some conspicuous properties of romance; and yet its romance is never of just that quality one might perhaps expect ... Neither of the land nor of the sea, but possessing both the stability of the one and the constant flux of the other--too immense, too filled with the vastness of the outer, to carry any sense of human handicraft--this strange territory of the Docks seems, indeed, to form a kind of fifth element, a place charged with daemonic issues and daemonic silences, where men move like puzzled slaves, fretting under orders they cannot understand, fumbling with great forces that have long passed out of their control ...' Walter Dixon Scott,
Liverpool 1907, 1907
'...Liverpool is the biggest port ... there was something to see from Dingle up to Bootle, and as far again as Birkenhead on the other side. Yellow water, bellowing steam ferries, white trans-atlantic liners, towers, cranes, stevedores, skiffs, shipyards, trains, smoke, chaos, hooting, ringing, hammering, puffing, the ruptured bellies of the ships, the stench of horses, the sweat, urine, and waste from all the continents of the world ... And if I heaped up words for another half an hour, I wouldn't achieve the full number, confusion and expanse which is called Liverpool.'
Karel CapekKarel Čapek was one of the most influential Czech writers of the 20th century. He introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. in 1921...
,
Letters from England, 1924
See also
- Isle of Man Steam Packet
The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company is the oldest continuously operating passenger shipping company in the world, celebrating its 175th anniversary in 2005....
- List of Liverpool Docks
- Port of Liverpool Building
The Port of Liverpool Building , is a Grade II* listed building located in Liverpool, England. It is sited at the Pier Head and along with the neighbouring Liver Building and Cunard Building is one of Liverpool's Three Graces, which line the city's waterfront...
External links