The Grade II listed Hydraulic Accumulator Tower at Port of Goole has been restored in a £50,000 project.
Work began in January on the feature.
The inventive mechanism, designed by Sir William Armstrong, was first used in Newcastle in 1851. Built in the mid-to-late 19th century for the Aire and Calder Navigation, it was last used in 1986 where it provided water hydraulic power to boat hoists, cranes and other port machinery.
A weighed ram was used to compress water within the cylindrical tank.
Sitting adjacent to the tower, is one of the remaining boat hoists it powered. The Number Five Compartment Boat Hoist was erected in 1913 to export coal, and was also last used in 1986. It too has undergone refurbishment with support from Historic England in recent years.
Work began back in January to restore the listed building.
Hull-based contractor S Voase Builders Ltd carried out repairs to the main structure and replaced the vertical cladding on the 15 metre tall building, finishing off with a fresh coat of paint.
The tower has previously undergone a full restoration as it was blown down during a storm close to its centenary. Only the cylindrical tank that resides inside the lower half of the tower was left standing following the storm.
Simon Bird, ABP’s Humber director, said: “The Hydraulic Accumulator Tower is an important feature on the port, sitting alongside the Number Five Boat Hoist. Both these buildings pay tribute to the wonderful engineering that made the Humber ports so successful, using renewable energy.”
Humber quaysides are at the forefront of the UK's green energy push offshore, with Grimsby firmly established as the leading offshore wind operations and maintenance port, Hull as a major load-out location for turbine assembly - chiefly thanks to the huge blade plant - and Immingham is home to the world's largest biomass handling facility.
