Pack Ice on the River Humber

The recent cold and icy spell lasting a week or two, has made people wrap up well and comment on how cold the weather is. We have had quite a number of very mild winters of late, with just a few frosts and the occasional day of snow. This has spoiled us, and now when the weather turns colder for a few weeks we really feel it and say how cold it is. However, this weather, cold as it feels, is nothing like some of the winters we have had in the past. One such winter, 1963, springs to mind. I remember it well, being in an outdoor occupation at Barton-upon-Humber at the time. If I remember rightly, we had continuous night and day freezing temperatures for two months or maybe a little more. The ground froze to a depth of at least a foot (30 cm), and underground water pipes froze where they had not been buried too deeply. No building work could be done, and building workers were reduced to tidying sites or doing groundwork if there was any available to be done. Failing that, they would be temporarily laid off until the general thaw came, and have to try to obtain casual employment elsewhere to keep a wage coming in. Farmers and Market Gardeners had difficulty in lifting root crops and outdoor work of any description was severely disrupted. There was some snow, which lasted quite a time with the cold temperatures, but I think that winter will be remembered mostly for the continued frost and freezing temperatures over some considerable time.

The disused brick pits all along the River Humber bank, now known as nature reserves and wildlife havens, were completely frozen over, as was the River Ancholme at South Ferriby, both to such an extent that people could ice-skate on them. The River Humber, despite being salt water and tidal, froze for quite a distance out from the riverbanks into the river. This ice would break and settle onto the mud when the tide went out, lifting and freezing again when the tide came back in. The result was a very large amount of slabs of pack ice floating about in the river. This had to be seen to comprehend the magnitude of it.

I have included three photographs of this pack ice on the River Humber, which I took on 26th January 1963 from the River Humber bank at Barton. Two of the photographs were taken to the West of Barton; one looking back down river towards where the Humber Bridge is now located. On the right of this photograph can be seen the old wooden river navigation beacon and jetty at Chowder Ness, both wooden structures now long gone.

A second photograph taken from the same place looks up river in the direction of Brough, across (on the left) what is known locally as Pebbley Beach. A river navigation buoy can also be seen in the distance on this photograph.
The third photograph was taken from what is now the Humber Bridge Viewing Area near the entrance to Barton Haven at Barton Waterside (known locally as The Point), and shows the extent to which the ice was protruding out into the river. This photograph also shows a group of swans near the river bank; the swans used to feed on barley grain washed out from the nearby Maltings before it was demolished in 1971.

Terry Clipson
January 2009