Driving up through the Isle of Axholme in pouring rain yesterday, I decided to cut my losses and make for where I thought the sun was. This turned out to be Goole in East Yorkshire, and it was raining here also. I knew nothing about this east coast port except that Auberon Waugh came here once with a BBC crew and talked to the women who drove freshly-imported Renaults from the docks to, presumably, a large car park. But on entering the town in the afternoon my eyes came out onto my cheeks like those comic ones on springs when I saw this structure towering over the docks. I stared at it for ten minutes, hoping for at least a ray of sunshine to illuminate it for its portrait. I was rewarded by a single patch of blue approaching from the west, and here it is. So. It's a coal hoist, built some time between 1880-1910, and once bodily lifted 'Tom Pudding' compartment boats into the air so that the contents could be deposited into freighters. It was one of five, but, wait for it, this one was able to be floated to wherever it was wanted. It's screwed down now, Grade II Listed and a roost for at least two hundred pigeons. The little iron lighthouse was the control room. Thankyou to the Yorkshire Waterways Museum who were so patient and kind to an excitable man first thing this morning. Oh, and one more thing. When I put Goole Port into Google, it very quickly gave up and gave me 'Google' and 'port' instead.
7 comments:
Lovely. I especially like the control room perched up there like a fez on a fat man.
When I think of Goole I always think of Douglas Adams' Meaning Of Liff definition
GOOLE (n.): The puddle on the bar into which the barman puts your change.
Brilliant, yes, like 'Kettering' being the marks left on a naked bottom after sitting on a wicker chair. (That's enough 'Liff' definitions- Ed.)
A truly remarkable object. I didn't know what Tom Puddings were, but when I Googled them, things came full circle and I got Goole, so all was revealed.
Woah ...pretty amazing stuff ...not quite as amazing as the Cardington in Bedfordshire amazing stuff...and not quite as amazing as the unused power station at the bottom of my street that Im gonna super blog anyday now...but amazing anyway ..y'know ..like amazing
Like WOW amazing ...just tell me to shut up please
Humphrey Littleton died on Friday ...thats less than amazing
A wonderful shot....such colour. WPB's right about Cardington airship hangers, and right to mention Humph. As someone far wittier than me put it: "and as the garden strimmer of fate runs over the electricity cable of life...we say farewell Humphrey Lyttleton". Peace and love man.
Glad you like it WPB. Look forward to the Oz Power Station. But talking of warm beer, it's probably worth (yet another shameless plug) taking in my comments on page 36 of More From Unmitigated England.
Yes, I shall have three pints of Everard's Beacon tonight in remembrance of Humph. He said something on the Sunday lunchtime programme a couple of months ago that was so outrageously funny I literally drove across a muddy grass verge in amazement that he got away with it. But then Humph always got away with it, which was part of the fun.
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