St. Andrew's Dock was originally designed for the coal trade but by the time it opened in 1883 it was earmarked solely for the use of the fishing industry which, with the development of steam powered trawlers and of the railway network, was undergoing a period of rapid expansion. The dock extension was opened in 1897. By the 1930s road transport was challenging rail and the last fish train ran in 1965. The last boom period in the industry was in the early 1970s, but by this time the fish market buildings on the north side of the dock were in need of repair. With the expansion of the freezer trawler fleet it was decided to move the fish docks to new buildings at Albert Dock in 1975 and St. Andrew's Dock was closed. This move unfortunately coincided with the declaration by Iceland of a 200 mile limit, the outbreak of the last Cod War, and a decline in the industry from which it has never recovered.

During the 1980s several factors led to changes in the use of land in the St. Andrews Dock and Dock extension areas, such as containerisation and the concentration of port activities in King George and Queen Elizabeth Docks to the east, the construction of Clive Sullivan Way as the major road into the city from the west and the sudden prominence that this gave to the western docks area, and the trend with increased car ownership towards out of town shopping and leisure uses previously concentrated in the City Centre. Filling of the dock itself began in the late 1980s.

The small dock-related industries located mainly on the south side of the dock either followed the fishing industry to Albert Dock or closed altogether, although a small nucleus of industries remained for some time at the eastern end of the dock, associated mainly with the ship-repair activities still taking place in William Wright Dock. As buildings become vacant they were quickly vandalised, tendering to encourage the remaining firms to move out.



Anyway, here are my pictures (and a few historical shots) of the place:


A trawler "stella polaris" leaves for open sea sometime in the 1960's:


The trawler "arctic cavalier" also leaving:


The opposite side from seafish:


A historical shot, looking from the top of the seafish building into the dock:


The now filled in dock, looking towards the Lord line building:


A capstan (full strength i believe):


Moored up(lordline in background):


Lordline:


My shots inside lordline:















A derelict photographers studio sits on the dock too:















A final shot of the day, with the sunrays piercing the cloud- the Humber Bridge in the distance: