Preston Marina and a riverside walk

Just over a week ago a morning full of blue sky and sunshine prompted me to ditch the housework and drive the 20-miles to Preston marina and old dock. It’s a place I hadn’t visited for several years and there was a part of the area which I was keen to explore.

The history of Preston Dock dates back to 1884 and though I’ve written about it previously I think it’s interesting enough to repeat it for anyone who wasn’t following my blog back then. Although Preston itself is 16 miles from the coast boats were travelling along the River Ribble to and from the city for hundreds of years. In 1825 the New Quays, later named Victoria Quays, were constructed but with the river being tidal boats could only get in and out at certain times and as ships gradually got larger the waterway became a problem.

The solution lay in the building of a large dock basin with a set of locks to control the water level and construction began in 1884. The river was moved away from its original line and four million cubic yards of soil were dug out of a 40-acre site, creating a dock basin 40ft deep, 3,000ft long and 600ft wide – it took a month to fill it before it could be used for the first time and it was the largest single dock in Europe. Such a large project required a large investment however and the initial £500,000 budget was soon exceeded, with the council needing a further equivalent amount resulting in a mortgage which would take over sixty years to pay off.

The dock was officially opened in 1892 by Queen Victoria’s son Prince Albert Edward (the future King Edward Vll) and was named after him, and the SS Lady Louise, chartered by E H Booth & Company (now better known as Booth’s supermarkets) was the first ship to unload its freight there. Only four ships used the dock in its first year but by the turn of the century that number had risen to 170 and was still increasing; the main imports were timber, china clay, coal, oil, petrol, bananas, wheat and Irish cattle. In 1936 new Art Deco style dock offices opened nearby and two years later a dock railway was added to the site.

During WW2 the dock was taken over by the military and used as a marshalling post, then in 1948 the first ever roll on/roll off ferry service was introduced, sailing to and from Larne in Northern Ireland using the SS Cedric, a former tank landing ship. Trade increased throughout the 1950s and the port was so successful that the original mortgage repayments were no longer charged on Preston residents’ rate bills. By the 1960s the port was at its peak and holding the record for handling the largest amount of container and ferry traffic, but by the early 1970s it was starting to flounder as nearly half of the income generated was being spent on dredging the river to allow access for increasingly bigger ships. Larger ships meant that fewer could use the port and trade began to fall away; the city lost many of its imports and the Larne ferry stopped running as it was unable to compete with ports such as Liverpool which could offer a faster turn-around time. Preston’s port became uneconomical and in 1979 the decision was made to redevelop the site; the dock finally closed in 1981 with a great number of job losses and a major redevelopment of the area started in 1982.

After dealing with the polluted water and land a new road infrastructure was put in place and over the next several years a huge amount of work was done. The lock gates were repositioned to stop flooding from storms, a boatyard with chandlery facilities was constructed and the original railway line which ran on the north side of the dock was removed, with a new line being laid on the south side between the river and the dock basin. A swing bridge was installed over the dock entrance for the passage of vehicles, trains, pedestrians and boats, and a new Dock Control Centre was built close to it, although industrial railway traffic eventually ceased in 1995 with the line subsequently being operated for leisure by the Ribble Steam Railway Company.

Many modern homes have been built on the strip of land between the river and the south side of the dock with the old Shed No.3 being converted into Victoria Mansions apartments, while the north side of the basin features many retail and leisure developments with Homebase, Morrison’s, Halford’s and Pets At Home now being just a few of the stores along that side. A pleasant promenade runs round three sides of the dock with the swing bridge making the fourth side, and the west end of the basin itself is home to a 350-berth marina which opened in 1987.

My walk started from the free car park overlooking the water on the north side of the dock basin and just across the road was the lighthouse situated outside the Morrison’s store. There seems to be very little information about this, with some sources saying it was built many years ago to guide ships into the dock and others saying it was only built in 1986 during the dock regeneration and the building of the supermarket, but regardless of which version is true it’s an attractive structure and worth a photo or two. Passing Halford’s, Pets At Home and the Ribble Pilot, a modern pub/restaurant established in 1992, the promenade took me round the end of the dock basin and onto the residential south side.

Looking across the old dock basin – at 3,000ft long, 600ft wide and 40ft deep it’s huge

A distance along I came to the sign pointing between two apartment blocks to the Riverside Walk and through a small estate of modern houses with open plan gardens I crossed the access road and a level crossing over the railway line, which brought me down a grass bank and onto a wide tarmac path running between there and the river. The path forms part of the 21-mile circular Preston Guild Wheel walking/cycling route, eventually turning away from the river and crossing the west end of the dock basin via the swing bridge; I’d been that way a few years previously but this time I headed into the unknown along a rough tree lined track which continued to follow the line of the river.

It wasn’t long before I left the trees behind and the path took me onto a pleasant area of open land with a couple of benches to sit and take in the views over the river; this was the Bullnose, part of the entrance to the outer dock basin and now a popular place for fishing. Behind the huge lock gates a narrow pedestrian bridge took me across to the far side of the basin and another section of the Guild Wheel running past the back fences of a few modern houses, and set back on a corner was a huge black painted ‘thing’ which had no information but was presumably something left over from the docks and put there as a feature.

Looking west from the Bullnose

Looking east

The outer basin at low tide

Passing the Ribble Steam Railway Museum and a large warehouse, both of which I could see through the trees, the path took a right turn onto a road but there was a gap in the nearby railings and a rabbit track led me down to the riverside. It didn’t go very far though and as I didn’t want to risk falling into the water I just took a couple of shots looking back towards the Bullnose then retraced my steps. On the corner where the path joined the road was a large and very odd looking red brick building – there was nothing anywhere to tell me what it was but with its close proximity to the railway museum it could possibly be an old engine shed.

Back over on the Bullnose a minor road led from there past the outer basin and a long row of modern houses then across on the far side and not far from the swing bridge was the boatyard. Across the main road a pleasant green and the Dock Control Centre overlooked the entrance to the main basin and on the corner was the huge 100 ton crane built in 1958 to remove the lock gates from the water for refurbishment on dry land. Made of Greenheart timber and Iroko planking the gates weigh 98 tons each – large flotation devices were fixed to each side, enabling them to be floated out of their fittings and brought to the crane for lifting. The crane is still used today but only for lifting and lowering larger boats.

Across the swing bridge and at the start of the promenade on the north side of the basin was the Beach Hut coffee bar and tucked in a nearby corner was something I didn’t expect to see – a row of five brightly painted but very small beach huts. They hadn’t been there on my previous visit to the area and with no indication as to their purpose I assumed they were connected to the nearby Dragon Boat Racing Club. Continuing along the promenade I passed several modern two-storey blocks of office suites and the marina then finally I was back at the car park where I left the van.

It was unfortunate that after the lovely sunny start, where at one point during the walk I was able to shed my jacket for the first time this year, the sky clouded over and the afternoon had turned quite dull. It had been a very enjoyable walk though and it had been good to discover somewhere new – and with Preston being not too far from home maybe it won’t be too long before I do it all again.