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The Port of Barrow refers to the enclosed dock system within the town of Barrow-in-Furness, England. Morecambe Bay is to the east of the port and the Irish Sea surrounds it to the south and west. The port is currently owned and operated by Associated British Ports Holdings although some land is also shared with BAE Systems Submarine Solutions, currently consisting of four large docks, the Port of Barrow is one of North West England's most important ports. The docks are as follows: Buccleuch Dock, Cavendish Dock, Devonshire Dock and Ramsden Dock. The port of Barrow is the country's only deep water port between the Mersey and the Clyde.〔()〕 Barrow shipyard is one of the largest in the United Kingdom (having constructed well over 800 vessels in its history), rivalled only by those in Belfast, Birkenhead and Govan. It is also home to the country's only submarine production facility. The port of Barrow itself is heavily involved with the transportation of natural gases and other forms of energy from local sites such as Sellafield, Barrow Offshore Windfarm, Ormonde Wind Farm, Rampside Gas Terminal and Roosecote Power Station. Barrow is also coming increasingly popular as a port of call for cruise liners visiting the town and the Lake District.〔 James Fisher & Sons are the main company to operate out of the port. ==History== Barrow has a long and complex history of shipbuilding and trade via the sea. In the late 19th century, the town was home to the largest steelworks on earth and the Port of Barrow was the primary location used to transport the steel produced in the town.〔(Barrow Steelworks )〕 Historically, the Port of Barrow and BAE cover a large area, resulting in Barrow being one of the country's largest shipbuilding centres. Hundreds of warships, aircraft carriers, cruise liners, ferries and submarines have been constructed in Barrow, which to this day remains the only operational submarine production facility in the UK.〔(Effects on employment of the closure of VSEL or YSL )〕 A 1936 LMS advert said their of water and of quays handled 375,000 tons of cargo a year.〔Railway Magazine August 1936 page vii〕 The port's busiest year occurred in 1956, when 1,155,076 tonnes of iron ore alone were exported.〔http://www.cumbria-industries.org.uk/ports.htm#barrow〕 In 1839 Henry Schneider arrived at Barrow-in-Furness as a young speculator and dealer in iron, and he discovered large deposits of haematite in 1850. He and other investors founded the Furness Railway, the first section of which opened in 1846 to transport the ore from the slate quarries at Kirkby-in-Furness and haematite mines at Lindal-in-Furness to a deep water harbour near Roa Island.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 History of the Furness Railway Company )〕 The docks built between 1867 and 1881 in the more sheltered channel between the mainland and Barrow Island replaced the port at Roa Island. The increasing quantities of iron ore mined in Furness were then brought to Barrow to be transported by sea. The sheltered strait between Barrow and Walney Island was an ideal location for the shipyard. The first ship to be built, the ''Jane Roper'', was launched in 1852; the first steamship, a 3,000-ton liner named ''Duke of Devonshire'', in 1873. Shipbuilding activity increased, and on 18 February 1871 the Barrow Shipbuilding Company was incorporated. Barrow's relative isolation from the United Kingdom's industrial heartlands meant that the newly formed company included several capabilities that would usually be subcontracted to other establishments. In particular, a large engineering works was constructed including a foundry and pattern shop, a forge, and an engine shop. In addition, the shipyard had a joiners' shop, a boat-building shed and a sailmaking and rigging loft. The Barrow Shipbuilding Company was taken over by the Sheffield steel firm of Vickers in 1897, by which time the shipyard had surpassed the railway and steelworks as the largest employer and landowner in Barrow. The company constructed Vickerstown, modelled on George Cadbury's Bournville, on the adjacent Walney Island in the early 20th century to house its employees. It also commissioned Sir Edwin Lutyens to design Abbey House as a guest house and residence for its managing director, Commander Craven.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=The Rotary Club of Furness )〕 By the 1890s the shipyard was heavily engaged in the construction of warships for the Royal Navy and also for export. The Royal Navy's first submarine, ''Holland 1'', was built in 1901,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 title=Submarine History of Barrow-in-Furness )〕 and by 1914 the UK had the most advanced submarine fleet in the world, with 94% of it constructed by Vickers. Well-known ships built in Barrow include the ''Mikasa'', Japanese flagship during the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, the liner SS ''Oriana'' and the aircraft carriers HMS ''Invincible'' and HMAS ''Melbourne''. During World War II, Barrow was a target for the German air force looking to disable the town's shipbuilding capabilities (see Barrow Blitz). Barrow's industry continued to supply the war effort, with Winston Churchill visiting the town on one occasion to launch the aircraft carrier . After a rapid decline in the town's steelworks industry, shipbuilding quickly became Barrow's largest and most important industry. From the 1960s onwards it concentrated its efforts in submarine manufacture, and the UK's first nuclear-powered submarine, HMS ''Dreadnought'' was constructed in 1960. HMS ''Resolution'', the ''Swiftsure''-class, ''Trafalgar''-class and ''Vanguard''-class submarines all followed. The end of the Cold War in 1991 marked a reduction in the demand for military ships and submarines, and the town continued its decline. The shipyard's dependency on military contracts at the expense of civilian and commercial engineering and shipbuilding meant it was particularly hard hit as government defence spending was reduced dramatically.〔 〕 As a result, the workforce shrank from 14,500 in 1990 to 5,800 in February 1995. The rejection by the VSEL management of detailed plans for Barrow's industrial renewal in the mid-to-late 1980s remains controversial. This has led to renewed academic attention in recent years to the possibilities of converting military-industrial production in declining shipbuilding areas to the offshore renewable energy sector. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Port of Barrow」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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