30-766: The Royal Portbury Dock is part of the Port of Bristol , in England . It is situated near the village of Portbury on the southern side of the mouth of the Avon , where the river joins the Severn estuary — the Avonmouth Docks are on the opposite side of the Avon, within Avonmouth . The deepwater dock was constructed between 1972 and 1977, and is now a major port for the import of motor vehicles into
60-418: A Freeport , saying they were an "excellent" way to boost investment in left-behind parts of the country. The Bristol Port Company welcomed the news, seeing it having the potential to boost investment opportunities in and around UK ports. However some port and trade experts predicted the main effect would be to divert activity into the port from the surrounding region rather than create new jobs. As of 2010 ,
90-517: A dead end at Netham Weir, with no surviving businesses using it for water access. Few boats have navigated the New Cut since the swing bridges and smaller locks were closed, although there are occasionally inspection trips to check the state of the bridges, and tourist excursions from the Floating Harbour. During the summer of 2009, special trips were run to celebrate the 200th anniversary. The cut
120-554: A gallon of strong beer for each man. When the beer ran out a mass brawl between English and Irish labourers turned into a riot which had to be suppressed by the press gang . As originally envisaged, the New Cut was navigable as far as the Totterdown basin, where barges could enter the Feeder Canal and proceed up river from Netham lock to Bath , Somerset. A second lock further downstream allowed ships to enter Bathurst Basin , and hence
150-497: A new deepsea container terminal is planned in Avonmouth. 51°30′12″N 2°42′58″W / 51.50329°N 2.71621°W / 51.50329; -2.71621 New Cut (Bristol) The New Cut is an artificial waterway which was constructed between 1804 and 1809 to divert the tidal river Avon through south and east Bristol , England. This was part of the process of constructing Bristol's Floating Harbour , under
180-402: A private company owned by Terence Mordaunt and David Ord . The business trades as The Bristol Port Company (BPC). Since then over £600 million has been invested in the docks and the annual tonnage throughput has increased from 4 million tonnes to 14 million tonnes. Up to 2014, the company made several applications to buy the site's freehold but these were rejected. Following
210-403: A referendum in 2012, the city voters created the role of Mayor, subsequently electing George Ferguson . In March 2015 he and his cabinet decided to sell the freehold for £10 million but retain a 12.5% non-voting stake in the company. The city's council members voted on 2 June to object to the decision on the grounds of poor value for money, and referred it back to the mayor. Two weeks later
240-529: A well equipped yard which built a number of early steam ships . The first saw occasional shipbuilding until 1874, but the second passed to John Payne Ltd in 1862 and as the Vauxhall Yard launched dozens of small vessels directly into the New Cut, until they closed in 1925. Until the 1930s, packet boats operated regular services from Bathurst Basin to Cardiff and Swansea across the Severn Estuary , so
270-478: Is no evidence to support this. A report to the company stated that in the first year of excavation 780,625 cubic yards (596,831 m ) of earth and rock had been removed at a cost of £120,138 12s. 1d. The initial estimates of £300,000 for the whole docks scheme proved insufficient and further acts had to be passed to raise the capital to £600,000. The Avon was diverted into the New Cut in January 1809 and on 2 April
300-502: Is now operated by The Bristol Port Company, which also operates Avonmouth Docks , and has done since 1991 when it purchased a 150-year lease from Bristol City Council. Between 2000 and 2002 the Portishead Railway was repaired and extended to the dock at a cost of £21 million. Motor vehicles are both loaded and discharged, and stored on paved quay areas and storage compounds. In 2004, over 650,000 vehicles were handled. During 1996,
330-516: The Avon Gorge which connects the city with the Severn Estuary and Bristol Channel . This part of the port was known as the Bristol City Docks, and is now more usually known as Bristol Harbour . The Avon and Frome are small, shallow rivers incapable in themselves of accommodating ocean-going ships, even those of the age of sail, as can still be seen by inspecting the branch of the Avon known as
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#1732844733174360-524: The City Corporation and the Merchant Venturers . The engineer William Jessop had originally proposed a smaller scheme, which would have involved a shorter cut from Prince Street, near the city centre, to Rownham. However this would have meant that ship owners could have avoided using the new Floating Harbour and the scheme was amended to include a greater area of the river Avon, thus necessitating
390-616: The Floating Harbour , from the New Cut. Shipyards sprang up on the New Cut in the 19th century. Acraman's had a yard built in St Philip's Marsh near the Feeder Canal in 1839, where they built chain-propelled floating bridges for the Gosport – Portsmouth crossing which were too wide to pass through the floating harbour. The next year Acraman's opened a second more expansive yard in Bedminster,
420-512: The New Cut at low tide. The harbour depended on the extreme tides (14 m, 46 ft) experienced in the Bristol Channel. Ships that wished to enter the harbour waited for the tide to begin to rise and floated up the river, through the Avon Gorge , and into the harbour on the tide. Ships leaving the harbour set out at the high tide, and floated down to the sea with the ebbing tide. In the 1800s
450-622: The UK . The M5 motorway runs nearby, and the huge car storage compounds around the dock are visible from the Avonmouth Bridge . A waste industrial area west of the port is being developed as the Portbury Ashlands Nature Reserve. The Royal Portbury Dock has the largest entrance lock into any UK port, accommodating vessels up to 41 m (135 ft) beam, 290 m (951 ft) length and 14.5 m (48 ft) draft. The dock
480-631: The Avon Gorge always presented a challenge, and became more and more difficult as ships got larger. In 1877, Avonmouth Old Dock, the first of the Avonmouth Docks , was opened, and in 1884 the Bristol Corporation acquired both the Avonmouth and Portishead Docks by the Bristol Dock Act 1884 ( 47 & 48 Vict. c. cclv). In 1908 the Royal Edward Dock was built at Avonmouth to the north of
510-482: The Floating Harbour (Bathurst and Totterdown) were in-filled and decommissioned during World War II , as the authorities were worried that bombs falling on either lock would cause all of the water in the harbour to drain out. The remains of these locks are still visible, now permanently infilled with dirt and partially covered by modern roads. The New Cut is thus still navigable for medium-size craft due to its tidal depth and high (albeit fixed) bridge clearances, but
540-519: The Mayor's cabinet resolved to sell the freehold. Following criticism by the editor of Money Week magazine, George Ferguson told the Financial Times the deal was exceptional value for the city. First Corporate Shipping donated £25,000 to both Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt during the 2019 Conservative party leadership contest. The Port of Bristol is one of the six sites Boris Johnson proposed for
570-529: The Underfall sluices to the mouth of the Entrance lock at Cumberland Basin , the overall watercourse length is 3.2 miles (5.1 km). No ships have navigated the cut on a regular basis since the 1930s, but it is still possible for boats to proceed as far as Netham weir with care. The Bristol Docks Company was formed to construct the Floating Harbour following the passage of an Act of Parliament in 1803, sponsored by
600-486: The centrepiece of many leisure, residential and retail developments in and around Bristol city centre . A sand company was the last to use the docks commercially in 1991. The closure of the power stations at Portishead also made the Portishead Dock redundant, and it was finally closed in 1992. In 1991, Bristol City Council sold a 150-year lease of the Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks to First Corporate Shipping Ltd,
630-598: The city of Bristol in England. The Port of Bristol Authority was the commercial title of the Bristol City , Avonmouth , Portishead and Royal Portbury Docks when they were operated by Bristol City Council , which ceased trade when the Avonmouth and Royal Portbury Docks were leased to The Bristol Port Company in 1991. The Port of Bristol grew up on the banks of the Rivers Avon and Frome , at their confluence upstream of
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#1732844733174660-479: The first ships passed up the cut and entered the harbour at the Bathurst Basin . On 1 May 1809 the docks project was certified as complete and a celebratory dinner was held on Spike Island for a thousand of the navvies , navigational engineers who had worked on the construction, at which "two oxen, roasted whole, a proportionate weight of potatoes, and six hundredweight of plum pudding" were consumed, along with
690-528: The first two bridges built across the cut below this point (the Vauxhall Bridge and Ashton Swing Bridge ) were originally swing bridges to allow for the passage of seagoing steamers . The third bridge across this stretch of the cut, the Gaol Ferry Bridge , was not built until 1935, and at about the same time the two swing bridges were permanently fixed. The two smaller locks linking the New Cut to
720-578: The harbour was enclosed by locks , together with a diversion of the River Avon, resulting in its alternative name of the Floating Harbour , the Float, taken from the fact that the ships were able to float at all times, rather than resting in the mud at low tide, as had previously been the case. Shipping Masters appointed under the Merchant Shipping Act included Henry Hellier Peters. The navigation of
750-477: The longer cut which is in existence today. Work commenced on the construction on 1 May 1804 at 5am at a ceremony conducted by the directors of the Bristol Docks Company. Excavation was made through the predominant Redcliffe Sandstone, a Triassic rock that can be seen in cuttings all along the New Cut. There is a persistent local myth that the labour force included French prisoners of war , but there
780-712: The motor vehicle trade was awarded the International Quality Standard ISO 9002 . Royal Portbury Dock can accommodate up to six RoRo vessels simultaneously. Aviation fuel tankers up to 120,000 dwt can discharge at the Bristol Aviation Fuel Terminal which opened in 2003, and feeds directly into the UK's pipeline and storage network. Coal and other bulk cargoes can be discharged with two continuous ship unloaders and two gantry grab cranes, allowing for 5,000 tonne per hour throughput. Since 2013
810-421: The mouth of the River Avon and with direct access to the Severn estuary and Bristol Channel . In 1972, the large deep water Royal Portbury Dock , across the river mouth from the Royal Edward Dock was constructed, again with direct access to the Bristol Channel. These developments rendered the old Bristol City Docks in the Floating Harbour redundant as a commercial dock, and they have since been redeveloped as
840-563: The supervision of engineer William Jessop . The cut runs from Totterdown Basin at the eastern end of St Phillip's Marsh , near Temple Meads , to the Underfall sluices at Rownham in Hotwells and rejoining the original course of the tidal Avon. The length of the cut is approximately 1.8 miles (2.9 km) and with the addition of short sections of the original course of the river Avon at either end, connecting Netham weir and Totterdown basin, and
870-577: The wings for the Airbus A400M Atlas have left Portbury on three specialised ferries (one called the Ville De Bordeaux ) after travelling from the factory at Filton . They go via St Nazaire to Seville . This is part of the Itinéraire à Grand Gabarit transportation system. Containers and forestry products are also handled at the dock. The port experiences the second largest tidal range in
900-419: The world. The Portbury Dock, like Avonmouth Dock across the river, is impounded and the water level within each dock is maintained by lock gates and impounding pumps. The pumps maintain a minimum water level in the dock when water is lost to the sea through ships entering/exiting the dock. Port of Bristol The Port of Bristol comprises the commercial, and former commercial, docks situated in and near
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