page_title: Port of Hull
section_title: Alexandra Dock
hierarchical_section_title: Port of Hull / Docks / Alexandra Dock
caption_attribution_description: Railway Junctions in Hull pre grouping
context_page_description: The Port of Hull is a port at the confluence of the River Hull and the Humber Estuary in Kingston upon Hull, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
  Seaborne trade at the port can be traced to at least the 13th century, originally conducted mainly at the outfall of the River Hull, known as The Haven, or later as the Old Harbour. In 1773, the Hull Dock Company was formed and Hull's first dock built on land formerly occupied by Hull town walls. In the next half century a ring of docks was built around the old down on the site of the former fortifications, known as the Town Docks. The first was The Dock, followed by Humber Dock and Junction Dock. An extension, Railway Dock, was opened to serve the newly built Hull and Selby Railway.
  The first dock east of the river, Victoria Dock, opened in 1850. Docks along the banks of the Humber to the west were begun in 1862 with the construction of the West Dock, later Albert Dock. The William Wright extension opened in 1880, and a dock further west, St Andrew's Dock, opened in 1883.
context_section_description: The Alexandra Dock was built between 1881 and 1885 on land reclaimed from the Humber as part of developments built by the Hull Barnsley & West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company. Its design was by James Abernethy, and carried out by a partnership of engineers James Oldham and George Bohn, with A. C. Hurtzig as resident engineer. The contractors were Lucas and Aird. The dock machinery, including lock gates and unloading equipment, was hydraulically powered and supplied by Armstrong, Mitchell & Company. Pumping machines for the dry docks, and to regulate the water level of the main dock were supplied by Gwynne and Company (London)—two 400 horsepower (300 kW) high pressure condensing engines drove centrifugal pumps, the engines powered by six Lancashire boilers.
  The dock was built to the east of Victoria Dock with an outlet to the Humber. Water to fill the dock came from the Holderness Drain, which was intended to minimise the silting up of the dock that would be caused by ingress of water from the Humber. The dock had an area of 46.5 acres (18.8 ha), on a site of 192 acres (78 ha) of which 152 acres (62 ha) was on land within the tidal range of the Humber, requiring the construction of a 6,000 foot (1,800 m) embankment to reclaim the land. Steam and hydraulically powered equipment was used to aid the construction of the dock. Blows (or "Boils") were encountered during the construction of the lock foundations, and at a point in the dock wall, which threatened to undermine the foundations and required remedial work. The dock walls were planned to be built of chalk rubble faced with ashlar. A strike by masons led to some lower sections of the walls being built using portland cement. The tops of the dock walls were faced with granite. Dredged material from the creation of a channel from the entrance to the deep water channel in the Humber was used to infill parts of the made walls in the dock and to embank the foreshore to the east of the dock.
  The dock was opened on 16 July 1885 and named after Alexandra, Princess of Wales. The cost of the works was £1,355,392.
  The entrance lock was 550 feet (170 m) long and 85 feet (26 m) wide. Two graving docks, one 500 feet (150 m) long and 60 feet (18 m) wide, the other a little larger, were built at the north-east corner of the dock. The dock's primary purpose was the export of coal.
  In 1899, the dock was expanded by 7 acres (2.8 ha), officially opened on 25 September 1899. The extended area added approximately 0.5 miles (0.8 km) of quayside and was built to the same depth as the earlier dock, with the dock walls now constructed of concrete. The contractor was Whitaker and Sons of Horsforth, Leeds,  under R. Pawley of the H&BR. The extension was originally fitted for the handling of coal and pit props, with four coal hoists.
  A pier onto the Humber Estuary (West Wharf) was added in 1911, the pier was 1,350 feet (410 m) long with a 18 feet (5.5 m) minimum depth of water at spring tides and was equipped with electric conveyors for the transportation of coal.
  Alexandra Dock closed in 1982, at which time the connection to the rail network was removed. In 1991, the dock re-opened but without a rail connection.
  In the early 1990s, part of the port land was developed as a dredged aggregate marine terminal and plant, operated as Humber Sand and Gravel Co. (est. 1993), a joint venture between Hanson (formerly ARC) and CEMEX. a concrete batching plant was built on the dock land in the late 1990s for Ready Mix Concrete Ltd. (later CEMEX UK Materials).
  In the 1990s, development of a riverside container terminal, Quay 2000, was proposed. The scheme, later named Quay 2005, was to be built at the site of the West Wharf. A public enquiry was required, due to objections from residents of the Victoria Dock Village. The inspector recommended refusal of the scheme, but the decision was over-ruled by the Department of Transport, and the project gained approved in December 2005. The Associated British Ports (Hull) Harbour Revision Order 2006 allowing the work came into effect in 2006. Construction of the
caption: Map of 1914 showing the Alexandra Dock, extended Victoria Dock, Town and West Docks, and the rail systems of the H&BR and the NER
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