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53°24′22″N2°59′46″W / 53.406°N 2.996°W /53.406; -2.996
| Port of Liverpool | |
|---|---|
_Liverpool_2021.jpg) | |
 Interactive map of Port of Liverpool | |
| Location | |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Location | Liverpool, England |
| Details | |
| Operated by | The Peel Group |
| Employees | 1000 |
| Statistics | |
| Website Port of Liverpool | |
ThePort of Liverpool is the enclosed 7.5-mile (12.1 km)dock system that runs fromBrunswick Dock inLiverpool toSeaforth Dock,Seaforth, on the east side of theRiver Mersey and theBirkenhead Docks betweenBirkenhead andWallasey on the west side of the river.
In 2023, the Port of Liverpool was the UK’s fourth busiest container port, handling around 900,000TEUs of cargo each year, equivalent to over 30 million tonnes of freight per annum. It handles a wide variety of cargo, including containers, bulk cargoes such as coal, grain and animal feed, androll-on/roll-off cargoes such as cars, trucks and recycled metals. The port is also home to one of the largestcruise terminals in the UK which handles approximately 200,000 passengers and over 100 cruise ships each year.[1][2][3][4]
The port has significant links to North America and the rest of Europe via theIrish Sea andAtlantic Ocean. It is the most significant port in the UK fortransatlantic trade.[5][6] The port's history spans over 800 years and at its peak in the 19th century, it was the second most important port in theBritish Empire.[7] In 2016, the port was extended by the building of an in-river container terminal at Seaforth Dock, namedLiverpool2. The terminal can berth two 14,000 containerPost-Panamax ships.
Garston Docks, which are in the city of Liverpool, are not a part of the Port of Liverpool. The working docks are operated byMersey Docks and Harbour Company, while the docks to the south of thePier Head are operated by theCanal & River Trust, the successor to former operatorBritish Waterways.
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Liverpool's first dock was the world's first enclosed commercial dock, theOld Dock, built in 1715. TheLyver Pool, a tidal inlet in the narrows of the estuary, which is now largely under theLiverpool One shopping centre, was converted into the enclosed dock. Further docks were added and eventually all were interconnected by lock gates, extending 7.5 miles (12.1 km) along the Liverpool bank of the River Mersey. From 1830 onwards, most of the building stone was granite fromKirkmabreck nearCreetown, Scotland.[8]
The interconnected dock system was the most advanced port system in the world. The docks enabled ship movements within the dock system 24 hours a day, isolated from the high River Mersey tides.
From 1885, the dock system was the hub of ahydraulic power network that stretched beyond the docks. BothWhite Star Line andCunard Line were based at the port. It was also the home port of many great ships, includingRMS Baltic,RMS Olympic,RMS Mauretania,RMS Aquitania and the ill-starredTayleur,MV Derbyshire,HMHS Britannic,RMS Lusitania, and theRMS Titanic.
Most of the smaller south end docks were closed in 1971 with Brunswick Dock remaining until closure in 1975.[why?]
The largest dock on the dock network,Seaforth Dock, was opened in 1972 and deals with grain and containers, accommodating what were the largest containers ships at that time.
In 1972,Canadian Pacific unitCP Ships was the last transatlantic line to operate from Liverpool.
Many docks have been filled in to create land for buildings: at thePier Head, an arena atKings Dock, commercial estates atToxteth andHarrington Docks and housing atHerculaneum Dock. In the north, somebranch docks have been filled in to create land.Sandon andWellington Docks have been filled in and are now the location of a sewage works. Most ofHornby Dock was filled in to allowGladstone Dock's coal terminal to expand.
Liverpool Freeport Zone was opened in the North Docks 1984, expanding to include some of the Birkenhead Dock system in 1992.[9] The Euro Rail terminal was established at Seaforth Dock in 1994 and the port expanded five years later, including construction of the Liverpool Intermodal Freeport Terminal.[9]
In 2004, UNESCO announcedLiverpool Maritime Mercantile City.Parts of the port were aWorld Heritage Site from 2004 until 2021.[10][11]
In 2020 Liverpool was the United Kingdom's fourth largest port by tonnage of freight, handling 31.1 million tonnes.[12]
| Product | 2004 | 2003 | 2002 | 2001 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grain | 2,289,000tonnes | 2,377,000tonnes | 2,360,000tonnes | 2,455,000tonnes |
| Timber | 295,000tonnes | 391,000tonnes | 406,000tonnes | 452,000tonnes |
| Bulk liquids | 774,000tonnes | 727,000tonnes | 788,000tonnes | 707,000tonnes |
| Bulk cargo | 6,051,000tonnes | 6,296,000tonnes | 5,572,000tonnes | 5,026,000tonnes |
| Oil Terminal | 11,406,000tonnes | 11,406,000tonnes | 11,604,000tonnes | 11,236,000tonnes |
| General cargo | 374,000tonnes | 556,000tonnes | 468,000tonnes | 514,000tonnes |
| Total | 32,171,000tonnes | 31,753,000tonnes | 30,564,000tonnes | 30,501,000tonnes |
| Passengers | 720,000 | 734,000 | 716,000 | 654,000 |
| Containers | 616,000 | 578,000 | 535,000 | 524,000 |
| RoRo (car ferry) | 513,000 | 476,000 | 502,000 | 533,000 |
Liverpool Marina is inCoburg Dock and has 340 berths.[13]
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Cruise ships once sailed fromLangton Dock, part of the enclosed north docks system. Departures and arrivals were subject to tides. Cruise ships returned to Liverpool'sPier Head in 2008, berthing at a newly constructedcruise terminal, enabling departures and arrivals at any time. Until 2012, any cruises beginning in Liverpool still departed fromLangton Dock but, since 2012, the terminal has been used as the start and end of voyages, and not merely a stop-off point.[14] This led to a dispute withSouthampton due to the large public subsidy provided for the new terminal,[15] whichLiverpool City Council has agreed to repay.[16]
Ships which have called at Liverpool Cruise Terminal includeQueen Elizabeth 2 (QE2),Grand Princess,Caribbean Princess andRMSQueen Mary 2. A number of largeRoyal Navy vessels, such asHMS Illustrious andHMS Ark Royal, have also visited the terminal.
At one point the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company freight railway totalled 104 mi (167 km) of rail track, with connections to many other railways. A section of freight rail line ran under theLiverpool Overhead passenger railway, with trains constantly crossing the Dock Road from the docks into the freight terminals. Today, only theCanada Dock branch line is used to serve the docks, using diesel locomotives.
The first rail link to the docks was the construction of the 1830Park Lane railway goods station opposite the Queen's Dock in the south of the city. The terminal was accessed via the 1.26 mi (2.03 km)Wapping Tunnel from Edge Hill rail junction in the east of the city. The station was demolished in 1972. The tunnel is still intact.
Until 1971,Liverpool Riverside railway station served the liner terminal at the Pier Head. Today, for passengers disembarking from the newcruise terminal, city centre circular buses call at the terminal directly, whileMoorfields andJames Street are the nearestMerseyrail stations.
On the opposite side of the river, theBirkenhead Dock Branch served the docks between 1847 and 1993. This route remains intact, albeit disused.
"For more than six weeks, the ship Highlander lay in Prince's Dock; and during that time, besides making observations upon things immediately around me, I made sundry excursions to the neighbouring docks, for I never tired of admiring them.
Previous to this, having only seen the miserable wooden wharves, and slip-shod, shambling piers of New York, the sight of these mighty docks filled my young mind with wonder and delight...
In Liverpool, I beheld long China walls of masonry; vast piers of stone; and a succession of granite-rimmed docks, completely inclosed, and many of them communicating, which almost recalled to mind the great American chain of lakes: Ontario, Erie, St. Clair, Huron, Michigan, and Superior. The extent and solidity of these structures, seemed equal to what I had read of the old Pyramids of Egypt...
For miles you may walk along that river-side, passing dock after dock, like a chain of immense fortresses: Prince's, George's, Salt-House, Clarence, Brunswick, Trafalgar, King's, Queen's and many more."
— Herman Melville,Redburn - his first voyage, 1849
"It is a region, this seven-mile sequence of granite-lipped lagoons, which is invested ... with some conspicuous properties of romance; and yet its romance is never of just that quality one might perhaps expect ... Neither of the land nor of the sea, but possessing both the stability of the one and the constant flux of the other—too immense, too filled with the vastness of the outer, to carry any sense of human handicraft—this strange territory of the Docks seems, indeed, to form a kind of fifth element, a place charged with daemonic issues and daemonic silences, where men move like puzzled slaves, fretting under orders they cannot understand, fumbling with great forces that have long passed out of their control ..."
— Walter Dixon Scott,Liverpool, 1907[17]
"...Liverpool is the biggest port ... there was something to see from Dingle up to Bootle, and as far again as Birkenhead on the other side. Yellow water, bellowing steam ferries, white trans-atlantic liners, towers, cranes, stevedores, skiffs, shipyards, trains, smoke, chaos, hooting, ringing, hammering, puffing, the ruptured bellies of the ships, the stench of horses, the sweat, urine and waste from all the continents of the world ... and if I heaped up words for another half an hour, I wouldn't achieve the full number, confusion and expanse which is called Liverpool."
— Karel Čapek,Letters from England, 1924[17]
"...Old photographs and even the print of Liverpool Docks as seen from the overhead railway would fail to convey the powerful reality of the Port of Liverpool in the 1950s. This was at the time when every berth had a ship alongside, vessels were waiting off the Port to enter, and they were waiting off the locks on both sides of the river. There were seemingly endless queues of lorries on the Dock Road stretched as far as the eye could see. Delivering exports right up to closing day."
— Francis Major,Ports of Liverpool, The Memoir Club
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