22 pictures bring back memories of Heysham Port over the decades

Looking back at the origins of Heysham Port, in 1891, the Midland Railway, which already operated Morecambe Harbour four miles to the north east, gave notice of its intention to develop a new harbour at Heysham, though this idea made no further progress.

In 1895, a much larger Heysham port plan was put forward by Messrs James Abernethy & Son, in conjunction with the Midland Railway's chief engineer.

This formed the basis of the harbour which was built, although there were many changes as work progressed and the full scheme was never completed.

The project cost about £3 million.

The first ship to dock at Heysham was the Antrim, one of the ships that the Midland Railway had ordered for Heysham services.

She came into the harbour on delivery from builders, John Brown at Clydebank on May 31, 1904.

The first passenger sailing was a day trip to Douglas, Isle of Man by the Londonderry on August 13, 1904.

The south jetty was built in 1909 to reduce reduce silt build up in the harbour entrance.

In 1941 a deep-water berth (Ocean Jetty) was built to the north east of harbour entrance.

This was to allow tankers which were too large for the port to berth at the new Trimpell refinery which produced aviation fuel.

Much of the fuel produced would have been for fighter aircraft stationed in Britain during World War Two.

The Ocean Jetty berth was rarely used until its demolition in 1976.

Heysham Port was acquired by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC) in May 2001.

Then in August 2005 the MDHC was bought by and merged with Peel Ports Limited.

The harbour ships mainly roll-on/roll-off freight with one passenger service run by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, which operates a twice daily sailing to Isle of Man.

There are three freight routes run by Seatruck Ferries and Stena Line which all sail to Ireland daily.