Do YOU remember the Paddle Steamers across the River Humber?

...I do, many moons ago. My stepfather, then courting my mother used to take us across the river to New Holland for a day trip. The car and the dog would come too. We always had a fun time but I never did travel very well, queasy tummy over that short stretch of water. Often the ferry would lurch to a stand still hitting a sand dune on the way. Sometimes stuck for ages. We always returned home in the dark on the last ferry, it seemed so late to us as children.

The ferry was a coal-fired paddle steamer and was the last paddle steamer to cross the Humber and the last operational paddle steamer in the UK before it was withdrawn in 1978. Her resting place is Grimsby and apparently a floating restaurant.

Now, of course the Humber Bridge crosses the divide, but has become a 'White Elephant', costing huge amounts of money to the local tax payers. Perhaps its time to bring back the paddle steamers as an alternative mode of crossing the River Humber?

PS Lincoln Castle

This photograph courtesy of Ted Gator

Victoria Pier still remains in Hull, decked and flowered for visitors, a nice spot to look up and down the River Humber. Look left and you can see North Sea Ferries, look right and you see the Bridge. This picture was taken from the top deck of "The Deep".

Now the ferries have stopped the pier looks rather empty, the water distinctly dirty and hardly a soul insight. The cafe seems to stay dormantly closed all too quiet.

Bleak now but I have fond memories of this place, the smells and the noises. The men shouting to guide the cars onto the ferry. Rushing upstairs to get the best seats... packed like sardines! Fighting the howling wind that beat your face when going on deck!!

The seats look wet and lonely.


The once vibrant busy brewery and the world famous toilets stand empty and silent. Brewing commenced here in 1985 and ceased 1989, then restarted in 1994 and ceased again in 1998. The brewery has since been removed and is now part of the pub.

Just a few of my nostalgic experiences, I have no photographs of my trips across the River Humber all those years ago but there are a few to be found on the web.

Have you been on any of the 3 ferries that crossed the Humber?

Do you use that expensive bridge 7 miles upstream, or do you drive the entire way round across Goole bridge?

I miss the ferries do you?