32 CONTEXT 176 : JUNE 2023 EMILIE WALES The Kasbah: where’s that? Perceptions about the future of Grimsby docks’ historic buildings have been transformed, even if the origins of the conservation area’s exotic name are shrouded in mystery. The Kasbah is the name given to a conservation area located within the port of Grimsby, designated in 2017. It is on a small peninsular of reclaimed land built in the mid-to-late 19th century between Royal Dock (listed Grade II) to its west and Fish Dock 2 to its east. The Kasbah is bookended by three impressive landmarks. To its south is the Great Grimsby Ice Factory (Grade II*). To its north, on the edge of the Humber estuary, are Grimsby’s two dock towers. Royal Dock Tower (Grade I) was built in 1851 and stands at 93 metres. Modelled on Sienna’s Palazzo Publico, it was designed by JW Wild. The second, less decorative, is its successor, the Hydraulic Accumulator Tower (Grade II*), built in 1892 and standing at 24 metres tall. The port was purposely built at Grimsby because it sits on the tip of the Humber Estuary, giving quick and easy access to the North Sea. Grimsby’s position on the south bank of the river Humber also offered advantages over its closest rival Hull, as it benefits from more direct land routes to major markets in the midlands and south of England. The creation of this new dock estate was driven by the railways, particularly following the merger in 1845 of the Grimsby Dock Company and the Greater Grimsby and Sheffield Junction Railway Company. The newly invigorated network enabled Grimsby to compete on the global market as never before. In 1848–9 the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway linked Grimsby in stages with Sheffield and the major rail networks in the midlands and the north. At the same time the East Lincolnshire Railway began operating a south-bound service from Grimsby to Louth, which soon became a direct route to London Kings Cross. The new dock, now Royal Dock, was completed in 1851, followed by Fish Dock No 1 in 1857, which doubled the the weight of fish landing in Grimsby in its first year. By 1865 the port had become the fifth largest in the UK, and by 1869 20,000 tonnes of fish. were moving by rail from Grimsby, triggering an extension of the existing fish dock. Expansion continued towards the end of the 19th century with the opening of Fish Dock No 2 in 1877, which itself was later extended to cope with the increased demands of steam-powered trawlers from the 1880s onwards. A further dock, Fish Dock No 3, was built in 1933–4. Fishing in the North Sea had became less secure in the first half of the 20th century due to overfishing, and by the middle of the century fishermen needed to travel further and for longer periods to find their catch, making fishing more expensive and more dangerous, and stirring up tensions with neighbouring countries over territory. These eventually led to the decline of the fishing industry in Grimsby and the abandonment of many of the buildings in the Kasbah area. This culminated with the closure of the Great Grimsby Ice Factory in 1990. In the years which followed, many of the buildings on the Kasbah were left to decay and many were demolished. All this stopped in 2017 with the creation of the Kasbah conservation area. The area is commonly referred to by locals as ‘down dock’. Indeed, many Grimbarians (like me), when asked, have never heard of Grimsby’s Kasbah, and do not know where it is. Often when it is explained they even object to it being called the Kasbah, as if the name is alien to them. Even many of those who worked there at its peak say that they have never heard the docks called by that name. Kasbah is an Arabic word used to describe One of the last remaining dockside smokehouses in the Kasbah conservation area (Photo: Patrick Salmon)
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