Goole is a port town and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

on the River Ouse in the

East Riding of Yorkshire The East Riding of Yorkshire, often abbreviated to the East Riding or East Yorkshire, is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and west, S ...

, England. The town's historic county is the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

. At the 2021 UK census, Goole parish had a population of 20,475. It is north-east of

Doncaster Doncaster ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England. Named after the River Don, Yorkshire, River Don, it is the administrative centre of the City of Doncaster metropolitan borough, and is the second largest se ...

, south of

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

and west of Hull. The town has the United Kingdom's furthest inland port, being about from the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...

. It is capable of handling nearly 2 million tonnes of cargo per year, making it one of the most important ports on England's east coast. Goole is twinned with Złotów in Poland. Goole was informally twinned with

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

in the 1960s; at that time, Gibraltar Court was named in Goole and Goole Court was named in Gibraltar.

History

Etymology

Goole is first attested in 1306, as ''Gull Lewth'' (where ''lewth'' means 'barn', from

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

''hlaða''), and then 1362 as ''Gulle in Houke (referring to the nearby, and then more significant, village of

Hook A hook is a tool consisting of a length of material, typically metal, that contains a portion that is curved/bent back or has a deeply grooved indentation, which serves to grab, latch or in any way attach itself onto another object. The hook's d ...

). The name is first attested in its shorter, modern form, from the 1530s. It comes from the

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

word ''goule'' (or an

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

ancestor), meaning 'a channel made by a stream'. The word has sometimes been taken to imply that Goole is named after an open sewer, but there is no strong basis for this. There were no sewers in the area in that etymological period but there were many land drains because of the flat terrain: cf.: "gully".

Background

The Dutch civil engineer Cornelius Vermuyden diverted the River Don northwards to the River Ouse in 1626–1629 in order to drain the marshland of Hatfield Chase at the behest of King Charles I. It made the new lower Don – known as the Dutch River – navigable for

barge A barge is typically a flat-bottomed boat, flat-bottomed vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. Original use was on inland waterways, while modern use is on both inland and ocean, marine water environments. The firs ...

s so that

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

from the South Yorkshire Coalfield could be transported to the new confluence for transfer to seagoing vessels. There the engineers built a new wooden bridge – rebuilt in iron in the 1890s and now known as the Dutch River Bridge – to the east of which a new village called 'Goole' formed.

Development

In the 1820s the

Aire and Calder Navigation The Aire and Calder Navigation is the River engineering#Canalization of rivers, canalised section of the River Aire, Rivers Aire and River Calder, West Yorkshire, Calder in West Yorkshire, England. The first improvements to the rivers above Kn ...

company proposed development of a new canal to transport coal from the existing broad canal from Knottingley in the northern sector of the coalfield in 1826. Once it reached Goole the company proposed development of a new floating dock capable of handling larger sea-going vessels. Chief engineer Thomas Hamond Bartholomew was instructed to build the canal, docks and an associated company town to house both the dock workers and visiting seamen. Bartholomew commissioned civil engineer and builder Sir Edward Banks company to construct part of the canal and the eight

transshipment Transshipment, trans-shipment or transhipment is the shipment of goods or containers to an intermediate destination, then to another destination. One possible reason for transshipment is to change the means of transport during the journey (e.g. ...

docks and to lay out the associated new town to the west of the existing wooden bridge. The Banks Arms Hotel on Aire Street – today known as the Lowther Hotel – was in 1824 the first building constructed in what was known as New Goole; ''The Macintosh Arms''

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

on the same street took its name from engineer Hugh Macintosh. When Goole port opened on 20 July 1826 it was a new community of about 450 people. Now it is a town with about 18,000 inhabitants. TomPuddingHoist

William Hamond Bartholomew succeeded his father T. H. Bartholomew in 1853 and in 1863 introduced the Tom Pudding system of compartment boats, which could carry around of coal. On reaching the docks the barges were lifted by large hoists, from which they could be discharged direct into seagoing ships, a system so successful that it competed against rail until 1985.

Education

Goole has several

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, India, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, South Africa, and Singapore), elementary school, or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary ...

s as well as Goole High School, and a special needs school, Riverside School, that caters for 2–19 year olds. There are

further education Further education (often abbreviated FE) in the United Kingdom and Ireland is additional education to that received at secondary school that is distinct from the higher education (HE) offered in universities and other academic institutions. It ...

colleges in

Selby Selby is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England, south of York on the River Ouse. At the 2021 Census, it had a population of 17,193. The town was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire; from 1974 until 2023, ...

Scunthorpe Scunthorpe () is an industrial town in Lincolnshire, England, and the county's third most populous settlement after Lincoln, England, Lincoln and Grimsby, with a population of 81,286 in 2021. It is the administrative centre and largest settleme ...

, and Bishop Burton. Goole College was closed in 2021 and is now being used as a temporary Gym while Goole Leisure Centre is redeveloped.

Transport

The

Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway (L&YR) was a major History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company before the Railways Act 1921, 1923 Grouping. It was Incorporation (business)#Incorporation in the United Kingdom, incorpo ...

built a line from

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. It lies to the east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the ...

and

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolit ...

in 1848 and the North Eastern Railway connected the port with

and Hull in 1870. The prosperity from the coal and general cargo trade with the

West Riding The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The lieutenancy at that time included the city of York a ...

industrial area continued for 150 years after the opening of the canal. Today Goole railway station is at the junction of the Hull and Doncaster Branch and the Pontefract Line. Services are provided to Hull Paragon Interchange,

Sheffield Sheffield is a city in South Yorkshire, England, situated south of Leeds and east of Manchester. The city is the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and some of its so ...

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

and the commuter stations in between. Goole is south of the M62 linking it with Kingston upon Hull in the east and

and the

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

urban belt in the west. To the north the

A63 road The A63 is a major road in Yorkshire, England between Leeds and Kingston upon Hull. A section between North Cave and Hull forms the eastward continuation of the M62 motorway and is part of the unsigned European route E20, Euroroute E20. Route ...

via

Howden Howden () is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England. It lies in the Vale of York to the north of the M62 motorway, M62, on the A614 road about south-east of York and north of Goole, ...

provides local access to the A19 road to

and

. The M18 runs west of the town, connecting it with

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

, the

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

and the

Midlands The Midlands is the central region of England, to the south of Northern England, to the north of southern England, to the east of Wales, and to the west of the North Sea. The Midlands comprises the ceremonial counties of Derbyshire, Herefor ...

. Bus services to surrounding towns and villages are provided by East Yorkshire Motor Services, Stagecoach in Hull and Arriva Yorkshire. Hull Trains is a popular train service in Goole, England. Hull Trains offers direct connections to London King's Cross from Goole.

Governance

Before the reform of local government in 1974, brought about by the

Local Government Act 1972 The Local Government Act 1972 (c. 70) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed local government in England and Wales on 1 April 1974. It was one of the most significant acts of Parliament to be passed by the Heath Gov ...

, Goole was in the

. It was then placed in the Boothferry district of the county of Humberside until that was abolished in 1996. Since 1996 Goole has been in the

. It is represented by four councillors on the East Riding of Yorkshire Council. Goole is in the parliamentary constituency of Goole and Pocklington, which has been represented in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

since

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

by David Davis, a

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, customs, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civiliza ...

Landmarks

Goole's most prominent landmarks are its twin

water tower A water tower is an elevated structure supporting a water tank constructed at a height sufficient to pressurize a water distribution system, distribution system for potable water, and to provide emergency storage for fire protection. Water towe ...

s, nicknamed 'salt' and 'pepper'. The new white water-tower was the largest in Europe at the time of construction. In the winter months Goole's gas holder on Anderson Road is visible across the north of the town. Many of the hoists and cranes on the dockside can be seen across the town. The

steeple In architecture, a steeple is a tall tower on a building, topped by a spire and often incorporating a belfry and other components. Steeples are very common on Christian churches and cathedrals and the use of the term generally connotes a relig ...

of Goole Parish Church is tall enough to be seen across the town. The townscape is made up mostly of utility and industrial structures. There is a clock tower in the main shopping district of the town, originally built in 1927 but later moved a few metres to the middle of a new roundabout with the road surface on the site of the former open-air marketplace. West Park is an Edwardian park in the town.

Economy

Goole has a modestly-sized town centre with many high street shops, independent retailers and

s. The main shopping area is Wesley Square, off Boothferry Road (which has been pedestrianised around the main shopping area). There is a modern retail development in the town centre, a leisure centre next to the docks and the Goole and District Hospital, to the north of the town. A theatre and cinema, 'Junction', opened in 2009.

Industry

Glass is produced in Goole, which is also the centre of an agricultural district. The town's former large employer was a clothing manufacture for the big multiples, but it closed in the late 2000s. Goole's industrial park, Capitol Park / Goole36, has attracted two large employers: Guardian Industries, which built a glass-manufacturing plant, and

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in the United Kingdom at its head offices in Welwyn Garden City, England. The company was founded by Jack Cohen (businessman), Sir Jack Cohen in ...

, which built a distribution centre. The arrival of these employers resulted in the creation of hundreds of new jobs. A new railway rolling stock factory was built at the Capitol Park / Goole36 location opening in 2024. The plant, owned and operated by

Siemens Mobility Siemens Mobility GmbH is a division of Siemens. With its global headquarters in Munich, Siemens Mobility has four core business units: Mobility Management, dedicated to rail technology and intelligent traffic systems, Railway Electrification, ...

, is currently building the new tube trains for the

Piccadilly line The Piccadilly line is a Deep level underground, deep-level London Underground line running between the west and the north of London. It has two western branches which split at Acton Town tube station, Acton Town and serves 53 stations. The li ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. A new Metsä Tissue toilet roll factory was announced 21 September 2023, to be built over the next decade at the new Goole site within the Humber Freeport, which allows companies to import goods tariff-free. When completed it will have a capacity to produce of tissue paper using fresh wood fibres grown in Nordic forests.

Docks

Three locks keep the water in of floating docks at a constant depth of by preventing the level from rising and falling with the tides in the River Ouse. Once ships are within the complex, eight docks provide a total quayside of . Beside the docks are transit sheds where cargo is stored, many of them equipped with overhead cranes. Unlike many ports, every one of the eight docks has been in full commercial operation since its construction in the period from 1826 to 1912. For most of its life, the port was most associated with the shipment of coal and associated cargoes, including the importation of

pit prop A pit prop or mine prop (British and American usage, respectively) is a length of lumber used to prop up the roofs of tunnels in coal mines. Canada traditionally supplied pit props to the British market. As coal mining declined in importance and ...

s. With the demise of mining, the former Timber Pond became a marina, trading under the name ''Goole Boathouse''. It has berths for 150 boats. After a period of decline, commodities were replaced by containers, the export of

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

and the import of timber from north-eastern Europe. Today, the Port of Goole has regular

cargo liner A cargo liner, also known as a passenger-cargo ship or passenger-cargoman, is a type of merchant ship which carries general cargo and often passengers. They became common just after the middle of the 19th century, and eventually gave way to conta ...

services to Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Morocco and South Africa and a transshipment route to Europort,

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

Sport

Goole Town Cricket Club supports local cricket teams. Of its three teams, the first team plays in the club cricket York & District Senior League. A new clubhouse was constructed in 1996 providing facilities and a bar. Rugby Union is played close to the cricket club at Westfield Banks, sharing facilities with Goole Tennis Club and Goole Viking Striders running club. Goole RUFC currently fields two teams, the first team playing in Yorkshire Division Two. From 2025, Goole Vikings

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

club will compete in League 1. Goole Tennis Centre is a nine-court tennis club on the Westfield Banks site. Goole has two

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

teams – Goole A.F.C. and Goole United A.F.C. They currently play in the

Northern Premier League Division One South The Northern Premier League is an English football league that was founded in 1968. Together with the Isthmian League and the Southern League it forms levels seven and eight of the English football league system. Geographically, the league c ...

and the Humber Premier League Division One respectively. They both play at the Victoria Pleasure Grounds on Marcus Street. The nearest professional teams are Selby Town, Rotherham United,

Doncaster Rovers Doncaster Rovers Football Club is a professional association football club based in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England. The team currently competes in EFL League One, the third level of the English football league system after winning the 202 ...

Grimsby Town Grimsby Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England, that competes in , the fourth level of the English football league system. Nicknamed "the Mariners", the club was f ...

, Hull City,

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. The team compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league system. Leeds United have won the League Championship th ...

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. It is the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. The town's population was 71,422 in 2021, while the wider boroug ...

, Scunthorpe United,

Sheffield Wednesday Sheffield Wednesday Football Club is a professional association football club based in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second level of the English football league system. Formed in 1867 as an off ...

, Sheffield United and York City. Goole used to have two golf clubs. The early course, founded in 1900, was at Rawcliffe Park. The later course was at Airmyn Park from 1911 to the Second World War. Currently Goole's nearest golf clubs are the Boothferry Golf Club in Spaldington and Drax Golf Club in Drax.

Media

Television signals are received from either the Emley Moor or Belmont TV transmitters. However, on

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the planetary surface, surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere of Earth, atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from ...

and

Freesat Freesat is a British free-to-air satellite television service, first formed as a joint venture between the BBC and ITV plc and now owned by Everyone TV (itself owned by all of the four UK Public broadcasting, public service broadcasters, BBC, ...

, residents in the town are allocated

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's oldest and flagship channel, and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television b ...

Yorkshire on 101 and

ITV Yorkshire ITV Yorkshire, previously known as Yorkshire Television and commonly referred to as just YTV, is the British television service provided by ITV Broadcasting Limited for the Yorkshire franchise area on the ITV (TV network), ITV network. Until 19 ...

West on 103. Local radio stations are BBC Radio Humberside, Nation Radio East Yorkshire, Greatest Hits Radio Yorkshire, Capital Yorkshire and Radio Medica is a not-for-profit radio station broadcast from the Goole And District Hospital. The town is served by a weekly tabloid newspaper, '' The Goole Times'', published since 1853 and sold in Goole and neighbouring parts of the East Riding of Yorkshire. The town is referenced by the play '' An Inspector Calls'', where the main character is named after the town of Goole.

Notable people

* Nigel Adams, former Member of Parliament for Selby and Ainsty, born in Goole Hospital. * John Billington, stage actor (1828–1904), born in Goole. *

Gavin Bryars Richard Gavin Bryars (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer and double bassist. He has worked in jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, Musical historicism, historicism, Avant-garde music, avant-garde, and experimental music. Early lif ...

, composer and double bassist, born in Goole. *

Roy Clarke Royston Clarke (born 28 January 1930) is an English comedy writer, best known for creating the sitcoms ''Last of the Summer Wine'', ''Keeping Up Appearances'', ''Open All Hours'' and its sequel series, ''Still Open All Hours''. Early life Cla ...

, comedy writer, lives in Goole. * Noel Duckworth, was an Olympic rower and Anglican priest, Canon of Accra and the first Chaplain of Churchill College. * Betty, Hazel and Julie Dunderdale, who performed professionally as The Dale Sisters, a

vocal The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound producti ...

trio that had limited

chart A chart (sometimes known as a graph) is a graphics, graphical representation for data visualization, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart". A chart can repres ...

success in the early 1960s. * Nicky Featherstone, professional footballer for Hartlepool United F.C., born in Goole. * Anne Greaves (1889–1971) was the first woman to become a member of the Institute of Quarrying and created artificial stone through her quarrying company * Jimmy Mann, footballer born in Goole. * Sandra's Wedding, a four-piece

alternative rock Alternative rock (also known as alternative music, alt-rock or simply alternative) is a category of rock music that evolved from the independent music underground of the 1970s. Alternative rock acts achieved mainstream success in the 1990s w ...

band from Goole.

Gallery

File:Goole - Catholic Church (geograph 3211579).jpg, St Joseph's Catholic Church File:Market Hall Goole.jpg, Market Hall

References

General

* *

External links

Goole Town Council

Goole Civic Society

Riverside School, Goole
{{authority control Ports and harbours of Yorkshire Port cities and towns of the North Sea Civil parishes in the East Riding of Yorkshire Towns in the East Riding of Yorkshire