The Yorkshire Film Archive collects, preserves, and shows film made in, or about Yorkshire. Our collections are non-fiction, dating from the 1890s to the present day, and providing a rich and visually compelling record of all aspects of lives, cultures, landscape, industries, major events and everyday activities, many of which are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Stirling Ash
An atmospheric film of a dry dock, the welding of the hull, primitively held by timber supports, before the ship plunges sideways into a river.
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Overview
These are only hints of the work that has gone into the building of the Stirling Ash, as we see its skeleton slowly being prepared as one of the last ships to be launched at Grove Hill Shipyard – best known as Cook, Welton & Gemmell – nine miles up from the Humber at Beverley. A crowd has come to join the shipbuilders to witness the event, and we are left with the incongruous sight of an ocean going ship nearly touching both sides of the River Hull.
This film is one of a collection of films made during the 1970s by Roger Hateley, who taught chemistry education at Hull University and lived in Walkington in East Riding. The Stirling Ash was built by Beverley Shipbuilding and Engineering Co. in Beverley, formerly Cook, Welton & Gemmell until taken over by C. D. Holmes & Co in 1963, and the Drypool Group in July 1973. The launch, in 1976, was presumably before 1 July, when Whitby Shipyard Ltd took it over, followed by Phoenix Shipbuilders in November, before closing the following year with the loss of 180 jobs. Since then Stirling Ash has had several name changes: to Sea Oyster in 1986, to Grampian Sabre in 1992 and from 2003 to Al Mojil 42, under a Saudi Arabian flag.
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