Parkeston
Encyclopedia
Parkeston is a North Sea
port in Essex
, England
, situated on the south bank of the River Stour
about one mile (1.6 km) up-river from Harwich
.
In the 1880s, reclaimed land that had been Ray Island was developed by the Great Eastern Railway
Company (GER) as a railway depot for import/export trade with the European mainland. The new port was named Parkeston Quay, after Charles H. Parkes, Chairman of the GER. The existing railway line was re-routed to pass through the port, although the original railway embankment, through an overgrown area known locally as The Hangings, still exists. Most of the terraced housing in Parkeston was built for railway employees. Parkeston is known locally as "Spike Island" or "Cinder City".
From early in the 20th century, major passenger ferry services were developed, mainly to the Hook of Holland (with the slogan "Harwich to the Hook of Holland") and later to Esbjerg
in Denmark. During both World Wars, however, Parkeston served as an important naval base. Parkeston Quay is now named Harwich International Port
and the railway station is named Harwich International. Parkeston is also now faced, across the Stour estuary, by the UK's busiest container port, the Port of Felixstowe
.
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
port in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, England
England
England 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, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, situated on the south bank of the River Stour
River Stour, Suffolk
The River Stour is a river in East Anglia, England. It is 76 km long and forms most of the county boundary between Suffolk to the north, and Essex to the south. It rises in eastern Cambridgeshire, passes to the east of Haverhill, through Cavendish, Sudbury and the Dedham Vale, and joins the...
about one mile (1.6 km) up-river from Harwich
Harwich
Harwich is a town in Essex, England and one of the Haven ports, located on the coast with the North Sea to the east. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the northeast, Ipswich to the northwest, Colchester to the southwest and Clacton-on-Sea to the south...
.
In the 1880s, reclaimed land that had been Ray Island was developed by the Great Eastern Railway
Great Eastern Railway
The Great Eastern Railway was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia...
Company (GER) as a railway depot for import/export trade with the European mainland. The new port was named Parkeston Quay, after Charles H. Parkes, Chairman of the GER. The existing railway line was re-routed to pass through the port, although the original railway embankment, through an overgrown area known locally as The Hangings, still exists. Most of the terraced housing in Parkeston was built for railway employees. Parkeston is known locally as "Spike Island" or "Cinder City".
Esbjerg
Esbjerg Municipality is a municipality in Region of Southern Denmark on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula in southwest Denmark. Its mayor is Johnny Søtrup, from the Venstre political party...
in Denmark. During both World Wars, however, Parkeston served as an important naval base. Parkeston Quay is now named Harwich International Port
Harwich International Port
Harwich International Port is a North Sea seaport in Essex, England. It lies on the south bank of the River Stour one mile upstream from the town of Harwich, opposite Port of Felixstowe...
and the railway station is named Harwich International. Parkeston is also now faced, across the Stour estuary, by the UK's busiest container port, the Port of Felixstowe
Port of Felixstowe
The Port of Felixstowe, in Felixstowe, Suffolk is the UK's busiest container port, dealing with 35% of the country's container cargo. It was developed following the abandonment of a project for a deep-water harbour at Maplin Sands. In 2005, it was ranked as the 28th busiest container port in the...
.
History
- 1883: Parkeston Quay was officially opened by Charles H. Parkes, Chairman of the Great Eastern RailwayGreat Eastern RailwayThe Great Eastern Railway was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia...
Company. - 1914–1918: The 8th and 9th submarine flotillaFlotillaA flotilla , or naval flotilla, is a formation of small warships that may be part of a larger fleet. A flotilla is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same class of warship, such as frigates, destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines, gunboats, or minesweepers...
s of the Royal NavyRoyal NavyThe Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
were based at Parkeston Quay, including all of the E-Class submarinesBritish E class submarineThe British E class submarines started out as improved versions of the British D class submarine. All of the first group and some of the second group were completed before the outbreak of World War I....
. Between 1916 and 1917, four submarines sank as a result of collisions outside the harbour: E4HMS E4HMS E4 was a British E class submarine built by Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness, costing £101,900. E4 was laid down on 16 May 1911, launched on 5 February 1912 and commissioned on 28 January 1913.-Service history:...
, E41HMS E41HMS E41 was a British E class submarine built by Cammell Laird, Birkenhead. She was laid down on 26 July 1915 and was commissioned in February 1916.-Service history:...
, C16HMS C16HMS C16 was a C-class submarine built by Vickers, Barrow-in-Furness for the Royal Navy. She was laid down on 14 December 1906 and was commissioned on 5 June 1908.-First sinking:...
and E36HMS E36HMS E36 was an E-class submarine built by John Brown, Clydebank for the Royal Navy. She was laid down on 7 January 1915 and was commissioned on 16 November 1917....
. Although the first three craft were salvaged, only 15 crew survived. - 1917: Section II of the wartime Board of Invention and Research established a research station at the Quay under Sir William BraggWilliam Henry BraggSir William Henry Bragg OM, KBE, PRS was a British physicist, chemist, mathematician and active sportsman who uniquely shared a Nobel Prize with his son William Lawrence Bragg - the 1915 Nobel Prize in Physics...
and Sir Ernest RutherfordErnest RutherfordErnest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford of Nelson OM, FRS was a New Zealand-born British chemist and physicist who became known as the father of nuclear physics...
to investigate the use of ASDIC and electro-magnetism to detect submarines. - 1918: 113 submarines of the GermanGerman EmpireThe German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
fleet surrendered to the Royal Navy Submarine ServiceRoyal Navy Submarine ServiceThe Royal Navy Submarine Service is the submarine element of the Royal Navy. It is sometimes known as the "Silent Service", on account of a submarine being required to operate quietly in order to remain undetected by enemy sonar...
at Parkeston Quay on 20 November, a day before the High Seas FleetHigh Seas FleetThe High Seas Fleet was the battle fleet of the German Empire and saw action during World War I. The formation was created in February 1907, when the Home Fleet was renamed as the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz was the architect of the fleet; he envisioned a force powerful enough to...
surrendered at Scapa FlowGutter SoundGutter Sound is an inlet of the vast anchorage of Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands of Scotland. Gutter Sound was the site of the mass-scuttling of the interned German Imperial High Seas Fleet in 1919.-Scuttling of the fleet:...
. - 1939: Parkeston Quay was again requisitioned by the Admiralty for naval purposes, during which time it was known as HMS BadgerHMS Badger (shore establishment)HMS Badger was commissioned on 13 September 1939 as the headquarters of the Flag Officer In Charge, Harwich and was decommissioned on 21 October 1946, although the Operations Room remained as the Emergency Port Control for the Harwich area...
, until 1945. - 1946: The quay suffered extensive damage in air raids during the Second World War.
- 1953: The Danish passenger liner Kronprins Frederik caught fire while docked and capsized.
- 1964: The CarlessPetrochem Carless Ltd-History:* 1859: Carless, Capel & Leonard was formed by Eugene Carless. It was later renamed Carless Refining and Marketing Ltd.* 1870: Carless started selling a volatile inflammable petroleum distillate tradenamed 'Petrol'. That is where the word "petrol" came from...
oil refinery opened next to the port, adding oil tankers to the traffic. - 1974: The 130-metre ro-ro ship St Edmund came into service and remained on the Hook route until being requisitioned by the UK Ministry of Defence in 1982 as a troop ship during the Falklands WarFalklands WarThe Falklands War , also called the Falklands Conflict or Falklands Crisis, was fought in 1982 between Argentina and the United Kingdom over the disputed Falkland Islands and South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...
. - 1983: The St Nicholas, the largest superferrySuperFerrySuperFerry, founded as Aboitiz SuperFerry, is a shipping company based in Manila, Philippines. It is the country’s largest shipping company,with its main hub located in Pier 15 in Manila South Harbor...
on the North SeaNorth SeaIn the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...
at that time, commenced service from Harwich. - 1986: More than 2 million passengers annually passed through the port for the first time.
- 1989: Last call of the MS Braemar and end of the summer service to KristiansandKristiansand-History:As indicated by archeological findings in the city, the Kristiansand area has been settled at least since 400 AD. A royal farm is known to have been situated on Oddernes as early as 800, and the first church was built around 1040...
, NorwayNorwayNorway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
, which had been operated by Fred. Olsen Cruise LinesFred. Olsen Cruise LinesFred. Olsen Cruise Lines is a UK based, Norwegian-owned cruise shipping line with four cruise ships. The company headquarters are in Ipswich, Suffolk, United Kingdom and is owned by Bonheur and Ganger Rolf. The company is part of the Fred...
since 1967. - 1992: Construction of No.2 linkspanLinkspanA linkspan or link-span is a type of drawbridge used mainly in the operation of moving vehicles on and off a RO-RO vessel or ferry.Linkspans are usually found at ferry terminals where a vessel uses a combination of ramps either at the stern, bow or side to load or unload cars, vans, trucks and...
was completed, in readiness for vessels of 200 metres loa. - 1994: The annual number of trade vehicles moving through the port peaked at nearly 270,000.
- 1997: A £12 million development was completed to accommodate the Stena Discovery high-speed ferry.
- 1998: Harwich International Port became part of Hutchison Ports (UK) Ltd, a subsidiary of the multinational conglomerate Hutchison WhampoaHutchison WhampoaHutchison Whampoa Limited or HWL of Hong Kong is a Fortune 500 company and one of the largest companies listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. HWL is an international corporation with a diverse array of holdings which includes the world's biggest port and telecommunication operations in 14...
Ltd (HWL), which also owns through subsidiaries the Port of FelixstowePort of FelixstoweThe Port of Felixstowe, in Felixstowe, Suffolk is the UK's busiest container port, dealing with 35% of the country's container cargo. It was developed following the abandonment of a project for a deep-water harbour at Maplin Sands. In 2005, it was ranked as the 28th busiest container port in the...
.