John Timperley

“ On each side of the harbour, for nearly its whole length, there are staiths or platforms, fifteen feet wide, for loading and delivering vessels ; they are private property, and in order not to obstruct the free course of the tide, are (in pursuance of an act of parliament) formed of large piles driven firmly into the ground, upon which are laid transverse beams, covered with close planking. Cranes are fixed on these staiths, and on the town side there is an extensive range of private warehouses for sufferance goods. ”

“ As trade and commerce increased, the harbour became insufficient to contain all the vessels that frequented the port, many of which were therefore obliged to receive and deliver their cargoes whilst lying in the roads, by means of craft, and so crowded was it at times, that even up to the period of the Junction Dock being made, ships have been known to be twenty tides or more in passing from the Humber to the Old dock. ”

“ Tides The time of high water at Hull, at the full and change of the moon, is six o'clock, but the highest tides are generally two or three days after- wards ; the flow or rise of an average spring tide is about 21 feet at the harbour mouth, and 17 feet at the entrance to the Old dock ; that of an average neap tide, 12 feet at the harbour mouth, and 9 feet opposite the Old dock entrance : but it may be observed, that the tides occasionally rise three to four feet higher, and sometimes, though rarely, a little more, and ebb sometimes two feet or more, lower than stated above. ”

“ There is greater regularity in the driving of piles by the ringing than the crab engine, which is attributed principally to the head and point being much less injured, in consequence of the shorter fall of the ram, and its being of wood ; but as the crab has the advantage in point of economy of working, the ringing engine was but little used, and that only for the dock piling. The bearing piles driven by it went down, on an average, 1 1/2 inch in thirty strokes, with a six feet fall, when fully driven ; and the sheeting piles, 1 to 1 1/2 inch with the same fall and number of strokes. ”

“ Locking is begun when there is about the same depth of water, but the sill being 6 feet lower than in that dock, the work can be carried on longer, and fourteen or fifteen pens made at one time. As many as 25 sea-going vessels have passed this lock in a tide, thirteen of the largest when the gates were open for about an hour at high water, and the rest by penning.
There are usually three men to open or shut each gate, which they do in two minutes to two minutes and a half; but frequently two men do the work. ”

“ It is a generally received opinion, that the extreme hardness of the mortar in old buildings is owing entirely to its having been much better tempered in ancient than in modern times ; although there is no doubt that this is a most essential point in all kinds of mortar, it is conceived that the superiority is caused chiefly if not wholly by time and that mortar continues to harden in certain situations probably for centuries. ”

“ There being occasion in the course of the work to draw several of the sheeting piles in the Whitefiiar-gate lock pit, a 4 inch screw was used, and one of the piles, 14 feet long by 12 inches wide, required, on the most moderate calculation, a power of 18 tons to draw it, the soil being nearly a pure sand ; another pile could not be drawn by even a greater force, until a hole was dug round it, but the others, being in softer ground, moved more easily. ”

“ When laden, these boats are linked together in pairs, six usually forming a set, which require ten or twelve men to work them ; they generally go out of dock when the gates are all opened, a little before high water, and are warped 100 or 150 fathoms from the pier-head, where the mud is discharged ; the empty boats then return to the dock, the time occupied being usually from two to three hours, according to the rapidity of the tide, and as the passage is more or less clear of shipping. ”

“ The hollow quoins are of Dundee stone, well squared and dressed, set in pozzuolana mortar, with close heds and joints, the parts in which the gates turn being well ruhbed to a smooth surface, so as to be water-tight ; this very hard durable stone, being of a fine grit, does but little injury to the heel posts, and is therefore very proper for hollow quoins. The south wing walls are also faced with Dundee stone for a short length. The coping is of Bramley-fall stone, 4 feet wide, by 15 inches thick, joggled together in the same manner as that of the dock walls. ”

“ There can be no doubt that a great deal depends upon the state of the head and point, for when these are sound and perfect, the pile will penetrate much deeper by a given stroke, than when soft and bruised ”

“ In the summer of 1829, a slip, for repairing the mud boats and the lock gates, was built on the west side of the entrance basin, abutting upon the Humber. The length is 66 feet, the width 28 feet 6 inches, and the depth 11 feet at the lower end, diminishing upwards in the proportion of six horizontal to one vertical ; the side walls are of brickwork, with stone coping ; the bottom floor is covered with 3 inch fir plank, spiked to transverse sleepers, supported upon piles. ”

“ The space for 18 inches below the sleepers is filled up with brick rubbish, or Hessle-cliff stone, puddled in with hot lime and sand, and a similar concrete is laid at the foot of the wall, and covered with earth as an additional protection to the foundation.
The wall is of brickwork, faced in part with stone, and built in mortar consisting, for the backing, of one part of unslaked blue Warmsworth or Weldon lime to three parts and a half of sharp, clean, fresh water sand, and, for the front, two parts and a half of sand ”

“ There are two cast iron sluices to every gate, each 3 feet square in the clear, worked hy a wrought iron screw, with a sluice rod reaching to the top. The machinery for opening and shutting consists of a 6 inch pinion, working into a cog-wheel 4 feet diameter, on the axis of which is a cast iron roller 2 feet 9 inches long by 10 1/2 inches diameter for the gate chain to wind on. The other parts of the gates and their append- ages are so much like those of the Old dock lock, that it is deemed unneces- sary to repeat the description. ”

“ In all buildings resting on piling, it is important that the piles should be well driven, so as to carry the weight of the superstructure, and also to resist the lateral pressure, which in dock walls like the present is very consi- derable, and in alluvial soils of a loose and yielding nature, more than ordinary strength is necessary in this direction. ”

“ It will be under- stood, from the principle of this bridge, that as it is raised, the outer end descends into a quadrantal pit or cavity, which, to ensure proper working, it is essential should be kept clear of water. The machinery is similar to that of the Junction Dock bridges, which will be more particularly described afterwards ; one man can raise or lower each leaf in half a minute, but two men with the greatest ease. ”

“ All round the dock, to protect the walls, there are oak fenders 12 inches square, let 4 inches into the brick work, and projecting 8 inches before the face, dovetailed into stone corbels at foot, as before mentioned, and secured by oak ties with wrought iron fastenings near the top, which is covered with a cast iron cap. There are also two rows of horizontal fir fenders, 7 inches square, let into the upright ones by short tenons, with angle pieces to prevent vessels catching underneath or riding upon them, as the tide rises and falls. ”

“ Each gate is hung at top with a wrought iron collar in a cast iron anchor let into the stonework ; and fitted to the lower extremity of the heel-post is an iron socket, which turns on a brass pivot fixed in the platform, the outer end of the gate being supported by a brass roller, 12 inches diameter by 4 inches wide, fitted with an adjusting screw, revolving on a brass segment let into a cast iron one screwed down to the platform ”

“ The mud boats are flat-bottomed and sharp at each end, and draw, when fully laden, about 4 feet water. Six of them, which were formerly used exclusively for the Old dock, are 48 feet long at top, 17 feet 6 inches wide in midships, by 5 feet 6 inches deep, and carry 40 tons on an average ; the six Humber dock boats are rather larger, carrying 48 tons each. ”

“ The entrance basin is 213 feet long by 80 feet 6 inches wide at the top, 71 foot at the bottom, and the same depth as the dock. The walls are of brick with a Bramley-fall stone coping, a through course 14 feet from the bottom, and oak fenders on the same plan as the Humber dock ; the walls are supported at foot by means of brick inverted arches across the bottom 6 feet wide by 18 inches deep, with spaces ten feet wide between, and the whole is covered with earth to nearly the level of the lock sills. ”

“ The sheeting piles under the front of the dock walls, driven by a crab engine, with a 10 1/2 cwt. iron ram, the fall varying from 8 to 18 feet, or 12 feet on an average, went down, at the end, about an inch at a stroke ; the bearing piles, with a 20 feet average fall, about 1 2/3 inch, except in particularly hard ground, where they did not go down more than half the above at a stroke. The piles of the dock walls all battered about 2 1/2 inches to a foot. ”

“ These sluices are both alike, and of cast iron, 3 feet 3 inches wide by 3 feet high inside, sliding in a cast iron groove in the face of the dock wall, and worked by a screw : their bottoms are 9 feet below the coping, and there is an oak frame with folding doors on the outside to protect the sluices, which communicate with the main sewers by a culvert, 3 feet square. The sewer at Postern gate is provided with two of these sluices, by opening one and shutting the other of which, the scour is to the north or south as may be required. ”

“ In most cases the decayed wooden moorings have been replaced by stone ones, either of Peterhead granite, or a sort of free stone from near Rotherham, about 2 feet 6 inches above ground, 18 to 20 inches diameter at top, and 15 to 17 inches at the surface : by being thus tapered downwards, they have been so weakened, as to be occasionally broken off by the shipping in very windy weather. The part of the stone in the ground is about 2 feet square, and 6 to 8 feet long, set upon oak plank, and secured by land ties similar to the wood posts.
Sheds, warehouses and cranes. ”

“ The piers of the entrance basin were begun soon after the dock was opened : their construction will be better understood from the drawings than by description. They are wholly of fir, of the scantlings stated on the plan No. 7, and the filling up or hearting is of Hessle-cliff stone ; the sheet piling on both sides was grooved. The passage between the heads is 105 feet at the top. ”

“ It should be observed, that the largest quantity of mud is deposited on this side of the basin, and that, before the making of this sluice, it had accumulated to a great height, and become so exceedingly hard and tenacious, that it was found necessary to remove it into the stream by workmen with spaddles. In this manner about 12,000 tons of mud were removed in eight weeks after the sluice was set to work. ”

“ The ends or meeting parts of the bridge are not described from the centre pivot or axis of motion, but from a point a little on one side thereof, whereby these parts, in shutting into a tongue and grooved joint, do not come into actual contact till the bridge is shut ; it is then completely fast, being closely wedged to the abutments on each side and kept in place by two keys at the meeting, thus making the whole firm and secure. ”

“ By the disposition and mode of adapting the sluices to the spaces between the bars, a capacious opening is obtained without weakening the gates, and one man can perform the work of two in the ordinary way, in less than half the time,- an important consideration where economy and despatch are required. ”

“ The head, or north end of the basin, is partly scoured by water from the lock, conveyed 130 feet in two cast iron pipes laid close behind the wall, and 4 feet diameter next the lock, diminishing to 2 feet 6 inches at the outer end ; these pipes are in 9 feet lengths, each 30 to 35 cwt., with flanches at the ends bolted together, and resting on a cap-sill, supported by two piles at each joint. ”

“ A cast iron plate, about 12 feet long by 5 inches wide, was secured to the top of each sill near the middle of the lock, to prevent injury from deeply laden vessels, and as a further security, there is a strong sill at each end of the lock, laid level with the pointing sills. ”

“ It is well known that in piling, the ground, particularly if soft, becomes much consolidated, the first piles driving more easily than those after ; on this account it was found advisable to drive the sheeting piles first, as they then went easier and were truer than when driven after the bearing piles ; and this was more particularly the case in the lock pits, in some parts of which, espe- cially under the platforms, where a great number of piles are inserted in a small space, the ground with the piles, after they were driven, rose together several inches. ”

“ Dredging machines. The dredging machine is worked by a steam-engine fixed on board a square flat-bottomed vessel, 80 feet long, 20 feet wide, and drawing 5 feet water. The engine is 6 horse power, and works a 2 feet stroke forty strokes per minute, giving motion, by means of a bell crank, to four cog wheels, on the axis of the upper of which is a square tumbler, with one corre- sponding at the lower end of the bucket frame. ”