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71-602: Spurn is a narrow sand tidal island located off the tip of the coast of the East Riding of Yorkshire , England that reaches into the North Sea and forms the north bank of the mouth of the Humber Estuary . It was a spit with a semi-permanent connection to the mainland, but a storm in 2013 made the road down to the end of Spurn impassable to vehicles at high tide. The island is over three miles (five kilometres) long, almost half

142-599: A Danish (as an old term closer to " Viking ") fisherman. The common toponymic suffix -by is derived from the Old Norse word býr for village (compare with Norwegian : by , Danish : by and Swedish : by ). The legendary founding of Grimsby features in a medieval romance, the Lay of Havelock the Dane , but historians see this account as a myth. In Norse mythology, Grim (Mask) and Grimnir (Masked One) are names adopted by

213-659: A paravane with a cutting jaw through the water in what was known as a "sweep" to bring mines to the surface and allow for their removal. This hazardous work lost the Patrol Service more vessels than any other Royal Navy branch in the Second World War; 2,385 men died. Grimsby's Royal Naval Patrol Service veterans financed a memorial beside the Dock Tower to ensure that the bravery and sacrifice of their comrades were not forgotten. On 14 June 1943, an early-morning air raid by

284-576: A European centre of excellence in producing chilled prepared meals, and the area has Europe's largest concentration of cold-storage facilities. The Port of Grimsby has been in use since the medieval period. The first enclosed dock, later known as the Old Dock , was built in the 1790s by the Grimsby Haven Company . Major expansion came with the railways and construction of the Royal Dock, Grimsby in

355-563: A month after the raid. HMS  Grimsby is a Sandown class minehunter (commissioned in 1999) currently in service in the Royal Navy . After the pressures placed on the industry during the Cod Wars and the European Union 's Common Fisheries Policy , which redistributed fishing quotas to other EU nations, many Grimsby firms decided to cease trawling operations there. The sudden demise of

426-748: A priest, a mill, and a ferry. Grimsby grew in the 12th century into a fishing and trading port, at one time ranking twelfth in importance to the Crown for tax revenue. The town gained its charter from King John in 1201; the first mayor was installed in 1202. Grimsby is noted in the Orkneyinga Saga in this Dróttkvætt stanza by Kali Kolsson : Vér hǫfum vaðnar leirur   vikur fimm megingrimmar; saurs vara vant, er várum,   viðr, í Grímsbœ miðjum. Nú'r þat's más of mýrar   meginkátliga látum branda elg á bylgjur   Bjǫrgynjar til dynja. We have waded in

497-424: A single lighthouse which still stands on the grass of Spurn Head. The 1852 low light also still stands on the sandy shore of the island, though its lantern has been replaced by a large water tank. (Of the old Smeaton high light only the foundations remain; after dismantling, its optic was re-used in the high lighthouse at Nash Point , where it was installed as part of a programme of improvements.) The 1895 lighthouse

568-474: A small town of Roman workers in the area in the 2nd century AD of Roman occupation. Located on The Haven, which flowed into the Humber , the site long provided a location for ships to shelter from approaching storms. It was well placed to exploit the rich fishing grounds in the North Sea . Sometime in the 9th century AD, Grimsby was settled by Danes . Local folklore claims that the name Grimsby derives from Grim,

639-473: A spectacular "fall" of thousands of birds. Many uncommon species have been sighted there, including a cliff swallow from North America, a lanceolated warbler from Siberia and a black-browed albatross from the Southern Ocean. More commonly, birds such as northern wheatears , whinchats , common redstarts and flycatchers alight at Spurn on their way between breeding and wintering grounds elsewhere. When

710-590: A supplier of fish products to the UK food market. The £5.6 million Humber Seafood Institute, the first of its kind in the UK, opened in 2008. Backed by Yorkshire Forward, North East Lincolnshire Council and the European Regional Development Fund, it is managed by the local council. Tenants include the Seafish Industry Authority and Grimsby Institute and University Centre . Greater Grimsby is

781-543: A tenth of the fish consumed in the United Kingdom was landed there, although there were also many smaller coastal fishing ports and villages involved. The demand for fish in Grimsby meant that at its peak in the 1950s it claimed to be the largest fishing port in the world. The population grew from 75,000 in 1901 to 92,000 by 1931. The Great Depression and restructured fishing caused a sharp decline in employment. After that

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852-444: Is a round brick tower, 128 feet (39 metres) high, painted black and white. It was designed by Thomas Matthews . The lantern contained a very large revolving hyper-radiant optic by Chance Brothers & Co . Its white light had a range of 17 nautical miles (31 kilometres) and displayed a flash once every 20 seconds. In addition there were separate sector lights, two of which marked particular shoals or sandbanks, while another indicated

923-462: Is associated with a folk tale of an imp who played tricks in the church and was turned into stone by an angel. (A similar tale is told of Lincoln Cathedral – see Lincoln Imp ). In the mid-14th century, the town benefited from the generosity of Edmund de Grimsby , a local man who became a senior Crown official and judge in Ireland. In the 15th century, The Haven began to silt up, preventing ships in

994-692: Is on foot only, with a warning not to attempt this when exceptionally high tides are due. Spurn has now become a tidal island , as the narrowest part of the sandbank connection to the mainland is flooded with each high tide. Plans to build a new visitor centre for the reserve were unveiled in September 2014 by Yorkshire Wildlife Trust (YWT). Planning consent for the initial plans was refused by East Riding of Yorkshire Council in July 2016 but revised plans were approved in January 2017. These plans face local opposition because of

1065-603: Is one of the largest centres of fish processing in Europe. More than 100 local companies are involved in fresh and frozen fish production, the largest being the Findus Group (see Lion Capital LLP ), comprising Young's Seafood and Findus , with its corporate headquarters in the town. Young's is a major employer, with some 2,500 people based at its headquarters. From this base, Young's has a global sourcing operation supplying 60 species from 30 countries. Traditional Grimsby smoked fish

1136-558: The Great Exhibition of 1851 ). Later, a red sector was added to the high light, which warned ships of hazards to the south ranging from Clee Ness to Sand Haile Flats. The low light, meanwhile, had also been fitted with oil lamps and reflectors in 1816. Then, in 1848, a small Fresnel lens (a fifth-order lenticular dioptric ) had been installed, which was reused when the new tower was built in 1852. In 1895 both this low light and Smeaton's high light were decommissioned and replaced by

1207-483: The Luftwaffe dropped several 1,000-kg bombs, 6,000 incendiary bombs and over 3,000 Butterfly Bombs in the Grimsby area, killing 99 people. In total, Second World War bombing raids in Grimsby and Cleethorpes killed 196, while another 184 were seriously injured. The Butterfly Bombs that littered the area hampered fire-fighting crews trying to reach locations damaged by incendiary bombs. The search for bodies continued for

1278-673: The North Riding of Lindsey . It was reformed by the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 and became a Municipal Borough in that year. In 1889 a County Council was created for Lindsey, but Great Grimsby was outside its area of control and formed an independent County Borough in 1891. The Borough expanded to absorb the adjacent hamlet of Wellow (1889), also the neighbouring parishes of Clee-with-Weelsby (1889), Little Coates (1928), Scartho (1928), Weelsby (1928) and Great Coates (1968). It had its own police force until 1967 when it

1349-660: The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and is a designated national nature reserve , heritage coast and is part of the Humber Flats, Marshes and Coast Special Protection Area . Spurn Head was known to classical authors, such as Ptolemy as Ocelum Promontorium ( Ancient Greek : Ὀκέλον ἄκρον ). In the Middle Ages, Spurn Head was home to the port of Ravenspurn (a.k.a. Ravenspur or Ravensburgh), where Henry of Bolingbroke landed in 1399 on his return to dethrone Richard II . It

1420-583: The 'protection' was constructed. The now crumbling defences will not be replaced and the spit will continue to move westwards at a rate of 6 feet 7 inches (2 metres) per year, keeping pace with the coastal erosion further north. The second of the Six Studies in English Folk Song composed in 1926 by Ralph Vaughan Williams , the Andante sostenuto in E flat "Spurn Point" celebrates this peninsula. It

1491-461: The 1840s. A Fish Dock was added in 1857, and the fish docks expanded over the next 80 years. The Old Dock was expanded to form Alexandra Dock in the 1880s. The Kasbah is a historic area between the Royal Dock and Fish Dock marked by a network of streets that remains home to many artisan fish-processing businesses. Fishing activities were reduced to a fraction of former levels in the second half of

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1562-441: The 1950s, around chemicals and from the 1990s gas-powered electricity generation. Grimsby is strongly linked with the sea fishing industry that once generated wealth for the town. At its peak in the 1950s, it was the largest and busiest fishing port in the world. The Cod Wars with Iceland , and the European Union 's Common Fisheries Policy sent this industry into decline for many years. In 1970 around 400 trawlers were based in

1633-404: The 20th century. The current port has become a centre for car imports and exports, and since 1975 for general cargo. In the early 21st century, it has developed as a wind-farm maintenance base. High-street shopping is grouped in central Grimsby between the railway and River Freshney, where Victoria Street acts as a central pedestrianised shopping street with an undercover Freshney Place centre to

1704-569: The Council Leader dropped the idea a year later. North East Lincolnshire Council has eight Council wards within the area of Grimsby: The main sectors of the economy are ports and logistics, food processing, specifically frozen foods and fish processing, chemicals and process industries and digital media. Cleethorpes to the east has a tourist industry. To the west along the Humber bank to Immingham, there has been large-scale industrial activity since

1775-575: The Haven of the Town and Port of Great Grimsby". After the dredging of The Haven and related improvement in the early 19th century, the town grew rapidly as the port boomed, importing iron, timber, wheat, hemp, and flax. New docks were needed to cope with the expansion. The necessary works were allowed under the Grimsby Docks Act of 1845. The arrival of the railway in 1848 eased the transport of goods to and from

1846-538: The Holderness coastline washed down the coastline from Flamborough Head . Material is washed down the coast by longshore drift and accumulates to form the long, narrow embankment in the sheltered waters inside the mouth of the Humber Estuary. It is maintained by plants, especially marram grass ( Ammophila arenaria ). Waves carry material along the peninsula to the tip, continually extending it; as this action stretches

1917-620: The Humber from docking. As a result, Grimsby entered a long period of decline until the late 18th century. By 1801, the population of Grimsby numbered 1,524, around the size it had been in the Middle Ages . By 1810 Joseph Smedley was hiring a purpose built theatre for seven Guineas. The Grimsby Haven Company was formed by Act of Parliament in May 1796 (the Grimsby Haven Act) for the purpose of "widening, deepening, enlarging, altering and improving

1988-499: The UK. Food production has been on the rise in the town since the 1990s. The Grimsby–Cleethorpes conurbation acts as a cultural and economic centre for much of north and east Lincolnshire. Grimsby people are called Grimbarians; the term codhead is also used jokingly, often for football supporters. Great Grimsby Day is 22 January. Grimsby is the second largest settlement by population in Lincolnshire after Lincoln . The town

2059-743: The country, according to government statistics. Since the December 2019 general election , Lia Nici ( Conservative ) has been the Member of Parliament for the Great Grimsby constituency, having won the seat from the former MP, Melanie Onn ( Labour ), who had served since 2015. This lost the seat to the Labour Party for the first time in 74 years, not least under Austin Mitchell ( Labour ), who held it from 1977 to 2015. Great Grimsby formed an ancient Borough in

2130-547: The deity Oðin (Anglo-Saxon Woðen ) when travelling incognito amongst mortals, as in the short poem known as "Grimnir's Sayings" ( Grimnismal ) in the Poetic Edda . The intended audience of the Havelock tale (recorded much later as the Lay of Havelock the Dane ) may have taken the fisherman Grim to be Odin in disguise. The Oðinic name "Grimr/Grim" occurs in many English place names in

2201-467: The docks, but industry and demographic changes have led it to struggle since the late 1970s. Previously the town centre area was rivalled by the Freeman Street shopping area, located closer to the docks. Freeman Street retains its covered market. Grimsby town centre has re-emerged in prominence as the docks declined and shops such as Marks and Spencer relocated to central Grimsby. Other developments near

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2272-491: The first floor by ramps at the western end, which can accommodate even large vehicles. The ramp also provides access to the car park on the roof of the indoor market, which is operated by the local council. Freshney Place won a design commendation in the Refurbishment Category of the 1993 BCSC awards. In the town centre Bethlehem and Osborne Street are also mixed in use, hosting retail, legal and service functions to

2343-407: The formation of Spurn Head. He suggests that the spit head has been a permanent feature since the end of the last ice age , having developed on an underwater glacial moraine . As the ice sheets melted, sea level gradually rose and longshore drift caused a spit to form between this and other islands along the moraine. Under normal circumstances, the sea washes over the neck of the spit taking sand from

2414-513: The historical Danelaw and elsewhere in Britain. Examples are numerous earthworks named Grimsdyke . Other British place names with the element Grim are explained as referring to Woðen / Oðin (e.g. Grimsbury, Grimspound, Grime's Graves, Grimsditch, Grimsworne), and Grimsby is likely to have the same derivation. Grimsby is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086 as having a population of around 200,

2485-549: The industry brought an end to a way of life and community that had lasted for generations. The loss of the fishing industry brought severe economic and social problems for the town. Huge numbers became redundant, highly skilled in jobs that no longer existed, and struggled to find work ashore. As with the Ross Group , some firms concentrated on expanding industries within the town, such as food processing. Grimsby's trawling days are remembered through artefacts and permanent exhibits at

2556-616: The keepers therefore moved out and their cottages were demolished. Due to improvements in navigation, the light was discontinued in 1985; the main optic was removed the following year. The combined acetylene lamp and gas-powered optic were subsequently put on display, first in the Trinity House National Lighthouse Museum , then in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall . Since 1986, the lighthouse remained empty, but in 2013, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust

2627-541: The largest concentrations of such firms in Europe. The local council has promoted Grimsby as Europe's Food Town for nearly 20 years. In 1999, the BBC reported that more pizzas were produced than anywhere else in Europe, including Italy. Grimsby is recognised as the main centre of the UK fish-processing industry; 70 per cent of the UK's fish-processing industry is located there. In recent years, this expertise has led to diversification into all forms of frozen and chilled foods. It

2698-510: The main channel along the Humber. Initially oil-lit, the lighthouse was converted to electricity in 1941 to enable the light to be lit briefly (as and when requested by allied ships and convoys) and then extinguished. Then, in 1957, the lighthouse was converted to acetylene gas operation. A new, smaller, gas-driven revolving optic was installed, which flashed once every fifteen seconds; and the subsidiary lights were provided with occulting mechanisms, also gas-driven. The new systems were automated;

2769-495: The mire for five terrible weeks; there was no lack of mud where we were, in the middle of Grimsby. But now away we let our beaked moose [ship] resound merrily on the waves over the seagull's swamp [sea] to Bergen . Grimsby had no town walls. It was too small and felt to be protected by the marshland around it. However, the town dug a defensive ditch. Grimsby in medieval times had two parish churches, St Mary's and St James . Only St James, now Grimsby Minster , remains. It

2840-518: The newcomers came from Barking in East London and other Thames-side towns. In 1857 there were 22 vessels in Grimsby. Six years later there were 112. The first two legitimate steam trawlers built in Britain were based in Grimsby. A gale in February 1889 resulted in the loss of fifteen smacks and 70 to 80 lives. At that time it was thought to be one of the most serious losses to a single port. By 1900,

2911-467: The north. Freshney Place is visited by 14 million shoppers a year and employs over 2,000 staff. The centre houses over 100 stores, including Marks and Spencer and House of Fraser . Constructed between 1967 and 1971 in a joint venture between the old Grimsby Borough Council and developers Hammerson's UK Ltd. , it was known as the Riverhead Centre (so named as the development was adjacent to where

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2982-451: The northern ones are particularly interesting as coastal erosion has partly toppled them onto the beach, revealing the size of the concrete foundations very well. As well as a road, the peninsula also used to have a railway , parts of which can still be seen. Unusual ' sail bogies ' were used as well as more conventional light railway equipment. Following a tidal surge in December 2013 the roadway became unsafe, and access to Spurn Point

3053-409: The past 30-odd years" and a town which "seemingly shuns the notion of heritage." Redevelopment was planned as part of Yorkshire Forward 's Renaissance Towns Programme, but the scheme was abandoned in 2012. In the early 21st century, the town faced the challenges of a post-industrial economy on top of the decline in its fishing industry. The East Marsh ward of the town is the second most deprived in

3124-426: The peninsula it also narrows it to the extent that the sea can cut across it in severe weather. When the sea cuts across it permanently, everything beyond the breach is swept away, only to eventually reform as a new spit pointing further south. This cycle of destruction and reconstruction occurs approximately every 250 years. More recently, Dr. John Pethick of Hull University put forward a different theory to explain

3195-460: The perceived feeling of commercialisation of the reserve by YWT, with plans to build extensive car park facilities, no longer free. The new visitor centre was officially opened by Simon King on 20 March 2018. A February 2023 inspection of the RNLI launch jetty revealed structural issues, as a result the station was moved to Grimsby . The spit is made up from sand, shingle and boulder clay eroded from

3266-490: The population was fairly stable for the rest of the 20th century. The Royal Dock became the UK's largest base for minesweepers patrolling the North Sea . The Admiralty requisitioned numerous trawlers to serve the purpose of the Royal Naval Patrol Service . Often the crew was ex-trawlermen, alongside Royal Naval Reserve and Royal Navy volunteers. Trawlers used the winches and warps from fishing operations to tow

3337-523: The port to markets and farms. Coal mined in the South Yorkshire coalfields was brought by rail and exported through Grimsby. Rail links direct to London and the Billingsgate Fish Market allowed fresh "Grimsby fish" to gain nationwide renown. The first true fish dock opened in Grimsby in 1856, and the town became central to the development of the commercial fishing industry. The Dock Tower

3408-532: The port, but by 2013 only five remained, while 15 vessels were being used to maintain offshore wind farms in the North Sea. The town still has the largest fish market in the UK, but most of what is sold is brought overland from other ports or from Iceland by containerisation . Of the 18,000 tonnes of fresh fish sold in Grimsby fish market in 2012, almost 13,000 tonnes, mainly cod and haddock, came from Iceland. Grimsby houses some 500 food-related companies, as one of

3479-490: The seaward side and redepositing it on the landward side. Over time, the whole spit, length intact, slips back – with the spit-head remaining on its glacial foundation. This process has now been affected by the protection of the spit put in place during the Victorian era . This protection halted the wash-over process and resulted in the spit being even more exposed due to the rest of the coast moving back 110 yards (100 metres) since

3550-475: The second largest built-up area in Lincolnshire . A little under half of the population of Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes reported a religious affiliation in the 2021 Census, mainly Christian, with Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Jewish and other minorities making up around 3% of the population. In Grimsby town, 95.7% of the population identified with a white ethnic group. There is archaeological evidence of

3621-532: The sites of fortresses because of the natural barrier created by the tidal channel . Grótta in Seltjarnarnes , the Capital Region 43 (unbridged) tidal islands can be walked to from the UK mainland. Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire , Lincolnshire , England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to

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3692-548: The south of Victoria Street. Many local independent stores operate, several at the Abbeygate Centre off Bethlehem Street. Once the head office of local brewers Hewitt Brothers , the building was renovated in the mid-1980s and now houses restaurants and designer clothing stores. The town has two markets, one next to Freshney Place and the other in Freeman Street (B1213). This was a dominant shopping area with close ties to

3763-564: The south-east forming a conurbation . Grimsby is 45 mi (72 km) north-east of Lincoln , 33 mi (53 km) (via the Humber Bridge ) south-south-east of Hull , 28 mi (45 km) south-east of Scunthorpe , 50 mi (80 km) east of Doncaster and 80 mi (130 km) south-east of Leeds . In 2021 it had a population of 86,138. Grimsby has notable landmarks including Grimsby Minster , Port of Grimsby , Cleethorpes Beach and Grimsby Fishing Heritage Centre . Grimsby

3834-655: The town centre since the 1980s include the Alexandra Retail Park and Sainsbury's to the west of Alexandra Dock, an Asda store between the town centre and Freeman Street, and the Victoria Mills Retail Park off the Peaks Parkway A16 , which has several chain stores, including Next and close to a Tesco Extra (the second in the area. B&Q opened a large store off the Peaks Parkway to the east of

3905-518: The town's Fishing Heritage Centre . A preserved 1950s trawler, Ross Tiger , is located here. Few fishing vessels still operate from Grimsby's docks, but the town maintains a substantial fish market important in Europe. Grimsby was struck by an F1/T3 tornado on 23 November 1981, as part of a record-breaking nationwide tornado outbreak that day. From the mid-1980s, the former Humber ferry PS Lincoln Castle has been moored in Alexandra Dock. She

3976-455: The two local rivers, the Freshney and the Haven, meet). Hammerson's UK Ltd began a £100 million redevelopment of the retail centre, doubling it in size. The expanded centre was covered in a glass roof. Two multi-storey car parks were constructed at each end of the centre; with this development, the old Top Town area of Grimsby was effectively privatised and roofed over. Stores are serviced at

4047-442: The width of the estuary at that point, and as little as 50 yards (45 metres) wide in places. The southernmost tip is known as Spurn Head or Spurn Point and was, until early 2023, the home to an RNLI lifeboat station and two disused lighthouses. It forms part of the civil parish of Easington . Spurn Head covers 280 acres (113 hectares) above high water and 450 acres (181 hectares) of foreshore. It has been owned since 1960 by

4118-495: The wind is in the right direction migrants are funnelled down Spurn Point and are counted at the Narrows Watchpoint, more than 15,000 birds can fly past on a good morning in autumn with 3,000 quite normal. The earliest reference to a lighthouse on Spurn Point is 1427. From the 17th century there are records of a pair of lighthouses being maintained as leading lights : a high light and a low light. In 1767, John Smeaton

4189-419: Was abolished in 1996. The former Great Grimsby district merged with that of Cleethorpes to form the unitary authority of North East Lincolnshire . The town does not have its own town council, instead just a board of Charter Trustees . In 2007, in the struggle for identity, it was suggested that the district be renamed Great Grimsby and Cleethorpes , but this did not meet with favour among local residents, and

4260-603: Was also where Sir Martin de la See led the local resistance against Edward IV 's landing on 14 March 1471, as he was returning from his six months' exile in the Netherlands. An earlier village, closer to the point of Spurn Head, was Ravenser Odd . Along with many other villages on the Holderness coast, Ravenspurn and Ravenser Odd were lost to the encroachments of the sea, as Spurn Head, due to erosion and deposition of its sand, migrated westward. The lifeboat station at Spurn Head

4331-548: Was awarded a Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) in 2009 by the European Union. The traditional process uses overnight cold smoking from sawdust in tall chimneys, roughly 1 by 2 m (3 ft 3 in by 6 ft 7 in) square and 10m high. Other major seafood companies include the Icelandic-owned Coldwater Seafood , employing more than 700 across its sites in Grimsby; and Five Star Fish ,

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4402-639: Was awarded a £470,500 grant to restore the lighthouse with a view to its being reopened as a visitor centre. This was scheduled to take place in 2015, with work starting in April 2015. The work was completed in March 2016, and opened to the public for the Easter weekend. Tidal island Because of the mystique surrounding tidal islands, many of them have been sites of religious worship , such as Mont-Saint-Michel with its Benedictine abbey . Tidal islands are also commonly

4473-672: Was built in 1810. Owing to the remote location, houses for the lifeboat crew and their families were added a few years later. By the 1870s a room in the high lighthouse was being used as a chapel for the small residential community on Spurn Head, serving 'the keepers, coast-guardsmen and fishermen who live at the Point'. During the First World War two coastal artillery 9.2-inch (230 mm) batteries were added at either end of Spurn Head, with 4-and-4.7-inch (100 and 120 mm) quick-firing guns in between. The emplacements can be clearly seen, and

4544-423: Was commissioned to build a new pair of lighthouses. Smeaton's high light (a 90-foot [27 m] tower) remained in use until 1895, but there were problems (as there had been in previous years) with maintaining the low light; within a short time it had been washed away by the sea. A series of more-or-less temporary replacements were used in the years that followed, until a more solid lighthouse designed by James Walker

4615-409: Was completed in 1851, followed by the Royal Dock in 1852. No.1 Fish Dock was completed in 1856, followed by No.2 Fish Dock in 1877. Alexandra Dock and Union Dock were completed in 1879. During this period, the fishing fleet was much expanded. In a rare reversal of usual trends, large numbers of fishermen from the south-east and Devon travelled north to join the Grimsby fleet. Over 40 per cent of

4686-514: Was constructed in 1852 under the supervision of engineer Henry Norris . Unlike its predecessor this low light was built the estuary side (i.e. to the west) of the high light, rather than on the seaward side. Initially both lighthouses were coal-fired. In 1819 Smeaton's high light was equipped with 24 Argand lamps and reflectors ); later, in 1853, it was fitted with a new Fresnel lens : a large ( first-order ) fixed optic by Henry Lepaute of Paris. (Prior to installation this lens had been exhibited at

4757-443: Was featured on the television programme Seven Natural Wonders as one of the wonders of Yorkshire. The landward-side mud flats are an important feeding ground for wading birds , and the area has a bird observatory , for monitoring migrating birds and providing accommodation to visiting birdwatchers. Their migration is assisted by east winds in autumn, resulting in drift migration of Scandinavian migrants, sometimes leading to

4828-622: Was merged into the Lincolnshire force. In 1974, the County Borough was abolished and Great Grimsby was reconstituted with the same boundaries as Grimsby non-metropolitan district in the new county of Humberside , under the Local Government Act 1972 . The district was renamed Great Grimsby in 1979. In the early 1990s, area local government came under review from the Local Government Commission for England ; Humberside

4899-424: Was named "Great Grimsby" to distinguish it from Little Grimsby , a village about 14 mi (23 km) to the south, near Louth. It had a population of 88,243 in the 2011 census and an estimated population of 88,323 in 2019. It forms a conurbation with Cleethorpes and the villages of Humberston , Scartho , Brigsley and Waltham . The 2011 census recorded the population of the conurbation as 134,160, making it

4970-450: Was once the home port for the world's largest fishing fleet around the mid-20th century, but fishing then fell sharply. The Cod Wars denied UK access to Icelandic fishing grounds and the European Union used its Common Fisheries Policy to parcel out fishing quotas to other European countries in waters within 200 nmi (370 km) of the UK coast. Grimsby suffered post-industrial decline like most other industrial towns and cities in

5041-447: Was used during this time as a pub\restaurant, but despite her design and status as Britain's last coal-fired paddle steamer, the catering no longer yielded a profit. The ship was broken up in 2010. Berthed in Alexandra Dock is the Ross Tiger , the last survivor of what was once the world's largest fleet of sidewinder trawlers. The town was described in The Daily Telegraph in 2001 as one "subjected to... many crude developments over

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