Ports - Great Britain: Books - History and Ships

The Port of Dover Through Time

The Port of Dover is Europe's busiest ferry port and is situated in south-east England. The port is owned and operated by the Dover Harbour Board, which was formed by Royal Charter in 1606 by King James I.

P&O Ferries and DFDS Seaways operate services to Calais and Dunkirk from the Eastern Docks. These docks were used for ship-breaking during the First World War and finally closed in 1964.
In 1966 over 600,000 vehicles travelled through Dover's Eastern Docks to France and Belgium.

The Western Docks are formed by the western arm of the harbour and include Admiralty Pier and other port facilities. They were used as a terminal for the Golden Arrow and other cross-channel train services.

The railway station closed in 1994 and this area of the port was used for cross-channel hovercraft services operated by Hoverspeed, which was declared bankrupt in 2005.

The railway station re-opened as the Dover Cruise Terminal and can accommodate up to three cruise ships at a time. The White Cliffs remain one of the most iconic and memorable parts of the Kent coast and the strategic importance of the town has been recognised throughout its history.

This well illustrated book describes the full history of the Port of Dover.

Maritime Portsmouth

For three centuries Portsmouth has been the leading base of the Royal Navy but the naval heritage of its port can be traced back to the Roman invasion of Britain. From the Roman walls of Portchester to the best-preserved Georgian dockyard in the world and the illustrious HMS Victory, Portsmouth is amongst the most important naval sites in the world.

This fascinating book, in its new and fully revised edition, focuses on the history and present status of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard as well as the magnificent ships Victory, Warrior and Mary Rose that have been preserved and are now on display at Portsmouth.

Drawing on impressive original research and illustrated by a host of colourful photographs, author Paul Brown has created a concise and helpful guide to the key maritime attractions in Portsmouth and Gosport, including the Submarine Museum, the sea forts, the Gunwharf and the commercial port.

Port of Tilbury in the 60s and 70s

The 1960s saw a gradual movement of shipping from central London and the quays, wharves and docks of the upper River Thames down river to Tilbury and Harwich. There was a managed closure of the dock system west of Tilbury and between the early 1970s and 1980s, the Surrey Commercial, India & Millwall Docks and the Royal Docks all closed down.

Down river, Tilbury was booming still, with expansion to cater for container ships and a still-burgeoning passenger traffic from the Tilbury Landing Stage. Tilbury embraced containerisation, which had been the death knell of the upper docks, and has continued to expand. The Landing Stage was a busy place to spot passenger ships, from Greece, Italy, Scandinavia, the USSR and Britain itself. Nowadays, the Port of London, comprising primarily Tilbury and Harwich docks, is still Britain's second busiest cargo port.

Campbell McCutcheon takes us on a tour of the docks in Tilbury, and the Landing Stage, and shows us the ships that called in the days immediately prior to the great containerisation boom of the 1970s and 1980s. The previously unpublished images show Tilbury at its zenith, and the transition from passenger travel to cruising, and from general cargo shipping to container ships, as well as the loss of the ferries that once called regularly at the port from Sweden, the Netherlands and France.