Poole is an established port ranked fourteenth in terms of national trade, and has grown continuously during the last twenty years. over that time the total cargo handled has more than doubled to the current level of 2.3 million tonnes per annum. Ferry services were first set up in 1973 and the Cross Channel and Channel islands trades now carry 850,000 passengers per year. The port imports a significant amount of steel, amounting to over half of the total cargo handled, with rail distribution to U.K. steel stockholders and customers. The other imports are timber, bricks, fertilizer, grain, aggregates and palletised cargo, while the exports are clay, sand, grain and scrap metal and steel. The main constraint to port activity remains the limited draft of six metres, as well as the narrow harbour mouth and the distance from the harbour mouth to the quays.

Early History of the Port

Poole Harbour is a drowned ria featuring the large nature reserve island of Brownsea as its centrepiece, with a number of smaller islands including green island, Furzey island, Long island, round island, Stone island, Drove island and Pergin’s island to the south and west of Brownsea island. gigger’s island is at the end of the long Wareham Channel off Swineham Point at the entrance to Wareham. Poole was a supply port for the romans as it is sheltered by the Purbeck Hills to the south, and Poole became part of the new kingdom of Wessex in the seventh century. a Danish viking army captured Wareham in 876 but they were besieged and defeated by a Saxon army led by alfred the great. The Danish fleet retreated through Poole Harbour but most of their longships sank in a violent storm off the coast of Poole Bay and Studland. King Canute led the returning Danes to England in 1015, landing in Poole Harbour and pillaging the surrounding Saxon settlements of Wessex.

The maritime and fishing trade of Poole grew during the 12th and 13th centuries after the Norman Conquest as the importance of Wareham declined. a French and Spanish naval fleet attacked Poole in 1405, burning and looting much of the town in revenge for the exploits of Capt. Harry Paye, a Poole privateer. Paye had frequently led raids against French and Spanish ports all along the Normandy coast and down the Biscay coast to Cape Finisterre. The Newfoundland cod trade was very important for the port from the time of Charles i and oliver Cromwell with large quantities of salt being landed at Poole to preserve the cod. over the next fifty years the Newfoundland cod trade grew steadily to meet the demand for fish from European Catholic countries. The most prosperous period of this trade was from the early 18th century to the early 19th century. it was a triangular trade, with sailing ships outward to Newfoundland loaded with salt and provisions, then catching the fish and salting the cargo for the voyage to French, Spanish, Portuguese and italian ports, and returning laden with wine, olive oil, dried fruit and salt to Poole.

Poole had more ships trading to Newfoundland, the grand Banks and North america than any other English port in the early 18th century, bringing wealth to the merchants of Poole. This prosperity characterised the old Town near Town Quay with many extravagant georgian houses constructed. Examples that survive include the 1746 grade i listed mansion of Sir Peter Thompson designed by John Bastard, and Beech Hurst, a grade II listed mansion built in 1789 on Poole High Street. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1814 completely changed the fortunes of the Poole North american merchants, as French and american merchants now fished the grand Banks and supplied fish at lower cost. Poole suffered heavily with a rapid decline in trade within a few years and most of the merchants went out of business. Two museums in Poole today tell of this flourishing port, the Maritime Museum near Town Quay has very lively displays on such themes as the Spanish armada, while the medieval merchant’s house of Scalpen’s Court shows the life of a very rich merchant and his business, and has domestic and cooking items on display.

The grade II listed Custom House is a three storey georgian building with projecting regal curved stone staircase to its entrance door, and with a large flagpole. This famous building on the Town Quay dates back to 1814 and is now a restaurant and bar. it became the site of the most famous incident in British smuggling history when a gang of thirty smugglers forced an entry into the building and stole two tonnes of contraband tea. The grade i listed Town Cellars are in a medieval building built in the fifteenth century on the foundations of a fourteenth stone building, and today houses a local history centre.

Poole Port from 1850

The coming of the railway to Poole in 1847 did little to help the port as trade now moved over land and the shallow water of Poole Harbour precluded the use of larger sailing ships. The port was still in the hands of local merchants in 1860, and the Corporation of Poole Town did not invest in dredging and new quays. However, the act of Parliament of 1895 gave responsibility to Poole Harbour Commissioners (PHC) to conserve, regulate and improve the port and harbour. The Town Quay was then developed as a long straight quay with facilities to load or unload up to ten coasters or small colliers.

The great War brought an increase in traffic with Channel islands potatoes and tomatoes needed to feed the troops. The opening of a royal Naval Cordite factory nearby saw imports of iron pyrites from Spain and Norway, which continued until 1938. The Poole Harbour Commissioners invested in two small craft in 1925, named Dum and Dee, for towage and other duties. Hamworthy Quay, opposite to Town Quay, was further developed from 1935, and by the outbreak of war in September 1939 both quays were very busy with 280 stevedores employed in the port on a casual basis. imperial airways transferred its flying boat services away from the ‘blitz’ bombing of Southampton Docks to Poole Harbour, returning to Southampton in 1947.

The Dorset Lake Shipyard at Hamworthy constructed minesweepers during World War ii, and Poole Town Quay was an important embarkation point for american troops for omaha Beach of the Normandy D-Day landings of 6th June 1944. The coal trade returned to normal after peace returned in 1945, and an oil storage terminal for J. r. Wood & Company, trading as Hamworthy Coal, was built on Ballast quay in 1950, this later became known as Corralls. Three overhead coal transporters were constructed in the port, two on the Town Quay and one on Hamworthy Quay. one overhead transporter was built on the Town Quay in 1963 to unload coal for the Southern gas Board works across the road from the Town Quay, and another to unload coal for allen coal merchants further along the quay. Timber was unloaded for Norton Ltd., and grain for the W. H. Yeatman victoria Mills on Hamworthy Quay and Christopher Hill’s grain Store.

The gas Works was served by at least one collier per day. The main vessels were those of Stephenson Clarke, but ships of F. T. Everard, Wm. robertson’s gem Line, Comben Longstaff, and onesimus Dorey were also regular visitors.

The busy Town Quay had rail access, and steam tugs such as Wendy ann ii owned by Harry rose of the Poole Harbour Tug Service were on hand to tow the steam colliers into and out of port. The PHC operated the steam tug Peter Joliffe in the 1950s and 1960s. This tug was of 80 grt and built in 1940, and later the tug Wendy ann was purchased from Harry rose to operate for the PHC from 1981 to 1996, followed by the tug Kingston Lacy from 1984 to 1998.

By 1964, some 400,000 tonnes of cargo was being unloaded from 1,500 coasters and small colliers every year. Ninety stevedores were employed by the PHC on a casual basis, but casual labour ended in 1968 when the Devlin act required ports to employ a permanent workforce, which reduced the Poole workforce to only 48 stevedores in 1968. The last year that the excursion steamers of Cosens and Company of Weymouth were seen at Poole and Bournemouth was the summer season of 1966, with Embassy built back in 1911 then sold for breaking up in Belgium in the following year.

Poole Power Station

This very large and imposing power station was constructed between 1945 and 1950 on the Hamworthy side upstream from Poole Bridge as a brick building with bricks manufactured by the local Upton Brick Works. The power station buildings and quay required the driving of piles of thirty to forty feet in length into mud. Two tall chimneys of 325 feet in height dwarfed the surrounding area, and were in fact the tallest chimneys in Dorset. The station burnt exclusively coal until 1955, with six quarterdeck type colliers ordered from Sunderland yards by Coastwise Colliers Ltd. to bring Yorkshire and Tyne coal to Poole. They were completed in 1949 as Poole Channel, Poole Harbour, Poole Sound, Poole island, Poole Quay and Poole river of 1,700 dwt. The first two delivered carried the colours of Coastwise Colliers Ltd. but by the time the last vessel entered service in october 1949, the company had been wound up and ownership vested in the British Electricity authority (BEa), later renamed the Central Electricity authority (CEa) and Central Electricity generating Board (CEgB). The sextet were designed with a maximum beam to negotiate the locks at goole and the narrow Poole Bridge before reaching the power station. Long queues of vehicle traffic built up on either side of Poole Bridge when a collier was moving through the bridge.

The ‘Poole’ sextet continued to bring coal into Poole for ten years until the power station was totally converted to oil burning in 1959. a maximum number of four hundred people were employed at the power station, which was a twin fuel power station burning coal or fuel oil. The power station closed in 1988 with the tall chimneys demolished on 2nd February 1993, the coal bunkers following at the end of 1993 with the main turbine building demolished in March 1994. Today, the site is deserted except for the access road to the new Twin Sails Bridge, a double leaved bascule bridge, that cuts through the site. This forms a second road link into Hamworthy and the Ferry Terminal from Poole Town Centre, and was opened by the Princess royal in March 2012 with traffic crossing the bridge from 4th April 2012.

Poole Ferry Services

Timber imports for the timber sheds of J. T. Sydenham & Co. Ltd. on the Hamworthy side and located just upstream of Poole Lifting Bridge began to increase in the early 1970s. Trade continued to increase at Poole with the opening of a grain plant and silo. However, yacht owners and tourists on the Town Quay were beginning to cause problems as this was a busy working environment with potential hazards to the casual observer. Hamworthy Quay had already been developed by the PHC as New Quay with better cranage, and in 1971 the PHC formulated a plan to move all imports and exports away from the Town Quay to New Quay. Extra land was reclaimed to the south of New Quay to accommodate a new ro-ro berth with eight acres of land forming the terminal. The linkspan had a bridge width of seven metres and there was also a side loading ramp.

A ro-ro service from Poole to Cherbourg was then introduced by Truckline Ferries of Cherbourg and roscoff, and established Poole as a ferry port. The ro-ro Poole antelope inaugurated the service on 29th June 1973 and was joined later by the Cotentin. Some 25,000 Citroen cars and two thousand tractors were handled during the two year period of 1974 and 1975. The growth of driver accompanied lorry traffic saw the introduction of chartered vessels such as rof Beaver, and the Cherbourg trade was worth almost £200 million per year by 1976.

Elder Dempster operated a service delivering cars and heavy goods vehicles from Poole to Lagos between 1972 and 1978 using the 1,160 grt Clearway. The round voyage took 29 days, the vessel returning to Poole light. The cost of loading cars at Poole was 20 pence each compared to the Union fixed rate of £3.80 at London Docks.

Two new sister ro-ros named Coutances and Purbeck were introduced by Truckline Ferries in 1978 with capacity for over one hundred trailers on two decks plus trade cars on a lower deck, and this increased to 171 trailers when they were lengthened by sixteen metres by ateliers et Chantiers La rochelle in 1985. They were built by the Societe Nouvelle des ateliers et Chantiers du Havre and had both bow and stern ramps and doors. They were twin screw and powered by twin nine cylinder MaK diesels of 6,000 bhp to give service speeds of 18 knots.

A second linkspan was opened by the PHC in 1984 to give an increased terminal waiting area of 44 acres and a new linkspan of width ten metres. a year later, Truckline Ferries was purchased by Brittany Ferries, which began a passenger service to Cherbourg with the small ferry Cornouailles which carried 48,300 passengers and 14,500 vehicles in the 1986 season. This passenger service was joined in 1989 by the ferry Corbiere and the larger ferry Tregastel, both of these ferries running out of Poole until the end of the 1991 summer season.

A third ro-ro berth was opened in 1990 and the terminal waiting area was increased to sixty acres. Two short term freight services operated in 1989/90, these were vasco Line to Portugal and Torbay Seaways small ferries to the Channel islands. British Channel island Ferries (BCiF) moved to Poole in January 1989 from Portsmouth and carried passengers, freight and trade cars to the Channel islands and St. Malo. guernsey had also been served by a temporary hydrofoil service from Poole using Condor 7 in october 1986 during a strike by the crews of Sealink Channel islands ferries operating from Weymouth. Unfortunately, the BCiF ferry service ceased on 22nd January 1994 when BCiF was taken over by Condor Ferries, which used Weymouth as its South Coast port.

By april 1991, the annual port traffic amounted to 781,000 passengers, 219,000 cars, 41,067 trade cars and 96,759 lorries and trailers to give a total of 2.35 million tonnes of cargo. The new larger Brittany Ferries’ Barfleur arrived at the port for the first time on 4th april 1992 for the year round Truckline Ferries service to Cherbourg after the approach channel to the ro-ro berths had been deepened by dredging. an upper deck linkspan at roro berth 3 was also constructed for Barfleur to use, the new ferry of 20,133 grt had been completed by the Kvaerner Masa yard at Helsinki on dimensions of length 146.35 metres, beam of 23.3 metres and depth of eight metres. She had both bow and stern doors and capacity for 1,212 passengers and 590 vehicles on two decks with a lane length of 2,530 metres. When 112 trailers were being carried the car capacity dropped, but with a service speed of 19.3 knots from four eight cylinder Wartsila diesels of 16,303 bhp the voyage time to Cherbourg was only four hours and fifteen minutes and she could quickly reduce a backlog on her two round voyages per day.

Condor Ferries passenger services to Cherbourg and the Channel islands were transferred from Weymouth to the port in early 1997, with the large 41 knot passenger and vehicle catamaran Condor Express arriving for the first time at Poole on 26th January 1997. The passenger only Condor 9 also began to operate to the Channel islands in March 1997. ro-ro berth 2 was improved at this time by the addition of hundreds of tonnes or rocks on either side of the berth to resist the thrust from these powerful catamarans when berthing. in 1999, the Truckline Ferries branding was dropped for passenger services to Cherbourg, and Barfleur was repainted in the brighter white, red and blue Brittany Ferries livery with ‘Brittany Ferries’ and their logo in big letters on both sides of the hull.

The striking black and yellow hull and funnel of freight ferry Coutances was repainted in the white hull colours of Brittany Ferries in 2004. She served the route from Poole to Cherbourg for thirty years except for a very brief period in the early 1990s when replaced by the ferry Normandie Shipper. She was withdrawn from service on 1st May 2008 after a short spell operating on the Portsmouth to Caen, Plymouth to roscoff, and Plymouth to Santander routes from November 2007. She also sailed from Portsmouth to the Channel islands on 13th December 2007 on charter to Condor Ferries to cover for the damaged Commodore goodwill. She was then sold in 2008 to Conferrys of venezuela and renamed rosa Eugenia for a service between Puerto la Cruz to Margarita island.

Purbeck, sister of Coutances, served briefly on the Portsmouth to Caen route in 1987 and the Plymouth to roscoff and Santander route in 1992 before returning to the Poole to Cherbourg service until laid up at Cherbourg in 1993. She was then chartered out until 2006 to several ferry companies e.g. British Channel islands Ferries, Commodore Lines, Sally Ferries, irish Ferries, gaelic Ferries, Falcon Seafreight, and Tranzrail of New Zealand. She was then sold in September 2006 to Conferrys of venezuela and renamed Maria rosario with a white hull and a yellow funnel and arrived at Curacao from New Zealand via Panama on 25th November 2006. She began a new service from Puerto La Cruz to Margarita island in the following month, and was joined by her sister in 2008.

The shipping channel into Poole Harbour was deepened in 2006 to eight metres in order to safely operate the modern ferries and catamarans that brought large numbers of passengers, cars and trailers into and out of the port. Brittany Ferries new large freight ferry Cotentin of 22,542 grt arrived at the port for the first time in November 2007 from aker Finnyards at rauma to operate alongside the similar sized passenger vessel Barfleur, and made the long serving Coutances redundant. Cotentin began to operate a new service from Poole to Cherbourg with a weekend link to Santander, and has capacity for 140 heavy goods lorries on a lane length of 2,200 metres, and 160 drivers in two berth en-suite cabins. She cost €80 million to build and has dimensions of length 167 metres, beam of 26.8 metres, a crew of fifty, and a service speed of 23 knots from powerful MaK diesels. She was sold in 2013 to Stena Line and renamed Stena Baltica.

LD Lines has recently operated a service from the port to Santander and gijon in Spain, but the services were curtailed on 7th September 2014 with the ferry Norman asturias making the last crossing. The busy Poole passenger ferry services remain at five sailings per week to Cherbourg, six sailings per week to St. Malo, and seven sailings per week to guernsey and Jersey.

Bolson’s Shipyard and Excursions

The shipbuilding and repair yard of J. Bolson and Son Ltd. was established in 1922 on the Hamworthy side of the port below Poole Bridge as a repair yard. The vast demand for landing craft and small naval vessels of all types during World War ii started their shipbuilding work. This size of construction continued with the iranian oil barges Karpan and Kung, both 299 grt built in 1947, and the small isle of Wight motor barges Covert, Crop and Field of 133 grt built in 1949 for the British Transport Commission. The yard had six berths for the repair and construction of small craft such as yachts, and the hopper Hop of 209 grt built in 1955 to operate with the dredger C. H. Horn when completed in 1968 for Poole Harbour Commissioners (PHC).

The yard began the construction of larger sand dredgers, coasters and coastal tankers in 1959 with the sand dredgers Sand grebe, Sand Snipe, Sand Lark, Sand gull, Sand Swift, Sand Swan and Sand Skua for the South Coast Shipping Co. Ltd. of Southampton. The coastal tankers Esso Tynemouth and Esso Dover were completed in 1960/61, with the similar tanker Banco for Beagle Shipping Ltd. of London. The oil rig supply vessel Bay Shore was completed in 1971, and dry cargo coasters included Petrel in 1965 for the general Steam Navigation Co. Ltd. of London. The last coaster to be completed was Parkesgate of 798 grt for the Hull gates Shipping Co. Ltd. of grimsby. The Bolson yard continued in business as ship repairers, and was purchased by the PHC in 1994. The yard employed eighty men and eventually closed four years later with the last vessel to be built being the small tug Herbert Ballam for the PHC, and this tug can be seen today at her berth opposite the yard that built her. She is used for towing the dredger C. H. Horn around Poole Harbour to maintain the channel depth.

The land at Hamworthy was then redeveloped as a building yard for big luxury yachts built by Sunseeker international Ltd., and it occupies all of the land from the New Quay to Poole Bridge. There are many covered building units today for large yachts costing several millions of pounds, with up to twenty completed yachts visible in the water or standing on the quay. Sunseeker employs 1,800 people and generates £160 million for the local economy. Bolson’s also built and operated small Brownsea island excursion vessels until the 1960s, including the very fast ‘Speedlark’ power boats and the slower but larger capacity ‘Skylark’ excursion vessels. They also operated the larger excursion vessel Channel Belle in the 1950s and 1960s, and today this busy tourist trade is handled by four sister vessels of Brownsea island Ferries in Maid of Poole, Maid of the Harbour, Maid of the islands and Maid of the Lakelands, all of 185 grt and completed between 1989 and 2001. This quartet and flotillas of similar tourist excursion vessels circle Poole Harbour all through the summer season.

John Carter (Poole) Ltd.

visitors to Town Quay will have noticed a grade ii listed white painted building with the following words written in black on the front ‘grace House – John Carter (Poole) Ltd. established here in 1887’. The house was originally built as a four storey Flemish bonded warehouse in brickwork and stucco with a slate roof and red ridge tiles in the mid 1850s. Today it sells sweets and ice cream to the tourists on the ground floor, but acted for a century as a warehouse and office for John Carter (Poole) Ltd., the local shipping and forwarding agents and coaster owners.

The company was managing the german coaster Weser of 208 grt built in 1908 on behalf of the British government during and after the great War, as well as trading the owned coaster alford of 100 dwt built back in 1877. During the interwar years, the motor coaster Barrett of 200 dwt was traded in the coal trade into Poole, the Portland stone trade from Weymouth, the Channel islands potato and tomato trade, the stone chippings trade from St. Sampson’s on guernsey, the china clay trade from Par with outward cargoes of fertilisers for the farms in the West Country. Barrett had been built in 1916 by the South Shields yard of J. T. Eltringham & Co. Ltd. and was fitted with a Bolinders oil engine. in 1936, the company took delivery of a new motor coaster of 240 dwt under the Scrap and Build Scheme to encourage the building of new ships. The Bristol yard of Charles Hill & Sons Ltd. completed the new Purbeck in June 1936, with the old coaster Lancashire built in 1892, purchased from T. G. irving Ltd. of Sunderland, as the ‘Scrap’ part of the transaction. in 1937, a similar motor coaster of 290 dwt was purchased as Apollinaris III and was renamed Parkstone after a suburb of Poole. She had been built at Zalt-Bommer in Holland in November 1929 by the J. Meyer yard and was fitted with a four cylinder diesel engine built at Appingedam.

Purbeck survived the war and was sold in 1950 to Lockett, Wilson Ltd. of London and continued trading as Lady Sonia until scrapped in 1977. Coasters named after Dorset villages ending in ‘borne’ were then traded in the post-war years, the first being purchased as Jolly Nights in 1946 and renamed Cranborne.

She was followed by the new coaster Wimborne 368/49 of 450 dwt built by Philip & Son Ltd. of Dartmouth, and the purchased Empire Creek 332/41 of 430 dwt in 1951 renamed Milborne, and the purchased german coaster ransel in 1954 renamed Sherborne 465/50 of 610 dwt, built at Foxhol and fitted with a six cylinder diesel engine built at appingedam. The last coaster in the fleet was the Dutch built Cranborne (2) of 439 grt and 610 dwt completed in 1958 by the Bodewes yard at Hoogezand. These motor coasters traded in all of the British coastal trades, and to the Continent and the Bay of Biscay, with one of the fleet taken on charter by Blue Star Line for their feeder liner services into the major British ports. However, this small Poole fleet had all been sold off by 1970, with the company continuing in business as forwarding agents for a few more years.

Cruise Ships

The port is well equipped to offer a full range of cruise call services including shore side security, passenger transfer, check-in facility, baggage handling, ships stores. Several cruise ships use the port each year and the number is growing all the time.

Poole Harbour Commissioners (PHC)

Poole Harbour Commissioners today operate the port as a Trust Port, and its constitution of 1st November 2001 meets the national standards for the operation of Trust Ports. The stakeholders of the Trust Port consist of all those who use the harbour and port, including yacht owners and shipping companies, as well as the 220 employees of the port, and all of the organisations that have an interest in the operation of Poole Harbour. The PHC is responsible for the safe navigation and depth of the Swash Channel from the Bar Buoy to the Chain Ferry, the Haven Channel from the Chain Ferry to number 16 buoy, the Middle Ship Channel from number 16 buoy to Stakes, the Turning Basin off the ferry port, and the Little Channel from Stakes to Poole Bridge. The New Quay at Hamworthy and the ro-ro berths have the use of fixed and mobile cranes of up to 100 tonnes capacity. Fuel oil, provisions and water are available for all yacht and ship users of the port.

The Town Quay has been transformed in recent years with a stone breakwater built to form a calm water large marina for hundreds of yachts. The Poole Pottery has built a large new showroom and outlet unit across the road for the large numbers of tourists now flocking tothe quay. The PHC has also opened in 2011 the new Port of Poole Marina at Hamworthy, developed from a disused ferry berth. The PHC actively participates in the Poole Harbour aquatic Management Plan in conjunction with the Poole Harbour Steering group for all water users and particularly the huge numbers of yachts that sail from the port.

Postscript

When i visited Poole in 2007 the massive changes in the port over the last forty years were interesting to see. The fleet of four tugs based at the Sydenham Timber Sheds berth of griffin Towage and Marine (J. a. Evelegh) was also very interesting. The company specialises in the sea towage of barges and ships as well as contract and emergency towage. it has been based at Poole since 1999, and the four tugs are named Kingston (ex Sun XXiv built in 1962), Princeton (ex Kapitan Engler built at Emden in 1965), Knighton, and goliath (ex MSC Sceptre built in 1956) with red and yellow funnels.

The Sandbanks to Shell Bay (Studland) chain ferry is operated by the Bournemouth, Swanage Motor road Company using the 1993 built Bramble Bush Bay of 125 grt on dimensions of 242 feet by 53.6 feet with capacity for four hundred passengers and four dozen cars. The chain ferry link was begun in July 1923 when an act of Parliament gave the royal assent. This chain ferry is a delight to use on its very short journey across the harbour mouth and significantly cuts the journey to Swanage and old Harry rocks from Bournemouth. The present chain ferry replaced a similar steam powered chain ferry that i used many times in the 1960s and 1970s when i was a regular visitor to the Port of Poole. Sandbanks is one of the most expensive chunks of real estate in the world, however one does not have to be a millionaire to enjoy the gorgeous views around the Sandbanks area or the shallow paddling water at the edges of Poole Harbour. These will always remain as they are now for all to enjoy in the future.