THE CHAPTER HOUSE
The abbey was a very magnificent one, occupying 100 acres. Henry VIII. was so well entertained there in 1541 that when he had suppressed the abbey he bestowed the greater part of the land on a new foundation in the same building, a college of the Holy Trinity; but a few years later, either in 1547 or 1553, that in turn was dissolved, and the land granted to the pitifully subservient Bishop Henry Holbeche. Inside the gateway is a large square, on the east side of which stood the chapter-house, a handsome octagonal building, of which two sides remain, as does also a fragment of the beautiful south transept, and, still further south, the abbot’s lodging, now in use as a farmhouse. The church was 235 feet long and sixty-two feet wide, the transepts being double of that. The architecture was mainly of the best Decorated period. There are many slabs with incised crosses still to be seen, one of Robert Girdyk, 1363.
Remains of Chapter House, Thornton Abbey.
East Halton lies east of the abbey, whence the road runs through North and South Killingholme, at the corner of which is a picturesque old brick manor-house of the Tudor period, with linen-pattern oak panelling and grotesque heads over the doors inside, and outside a remarkably fine chimney-stack and some fine old yew trees. The church has a very large Norman tower-arch, an interesting old roof and the remains of a delicately carved rood-screen. From here we go to Habrough and Immingham, where some curious paintings of the Apostles are set between the clerestory windows.
IMMINGHAM DOCK
Immingham village is more than two miles from the haven, and here the most enormous works have long been in progress. Indeed, at Immingham a new port has sprung up in the last five years, and to this the Great Central Railway, who so utterly neglect the convenience of passengers with vehicles at the Hull ferry, have given the most enlightened attention, and by using the latest inventions and all the most advanced methods and laying out their docks in a large and forward-looking way to cover an enormous area, have created a dock which can compete successfully with any provincial port in England.
A deep-water channel leads to the lock gates on the north side of what is the deepest dock on the east coast, with forty-five acres of water over thirty feet deep. It runs east and west, and it is about half a mile long. A quay 1,250 feet long, projects into the western half of this, leaving room for vessels to load or unload on either side of it, direct from or into the railway trucks. A timber-quay occupies the north-west side of the dock, and the grain elevator is at the east end, while all along the whole of the south side runs the coaling quay. There are at least twenty-seven cranes able to lift two, three, five, ten, and one even fifty tons on the various quays, and on the coaling-quay eight hoists, on to which the trucks are lifted and the coal shot into the vessels, after which the truck returns to the yard by gravitation automatically. Each of these hoists can deal with 700 tons of coal an hour, and as each hoist has eight sidings allotted to it there are 320 waggons ready for each. One of these hoists is moveable so that two holds of a vessel can be worked simultaneously. The means for quick and easy handling of the trucks, full and empty, by hydraulic power, and light for the whole dock also is supplied from a gigantic installation in the power-house, near the north-west corner of the dock; and this quick handling is essential, for the many miles of sidings can hold 11,600 waggons, carrying 116,000 tons of coal or more, besides finding room for empties. The coal is brought from Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Notts, and Lincolnshire, and not far short of 3,000,000 tons of coal will be now sent out of England from this port alone.[9] It seems to the writer that to send away at this tremendous rate from all our big coaling ports the article on which all our industries virtually depend is a folly which no words are too strong to condemn. With coal England has the means of supplying all her own wants for many generations, but it is not inexhaustible, and when it is gone, where will England be? Will anything that may be found ever take its place? And, unless we are able to reassure ourselves on this point, is this not just a case in which a wise State would step in and prohibit export, and not allow the nation to cut its own throat like a pig swimming? Large store sheds are now (1914) being built for wool to be landed direct from Australia. Thus Immingham will compete with Liverpool, where I have seen bales so tightly packed that when you knock with your knuckles on the clean-cut end of one it resounds like a board.
STALLINGBOROUGH
Going on south from Immingham village we come, after three miles, to Stallingborough.