History
The Appledore Yard was founded in 1855 on the estuary of the River Torridge.[1] The Richmond Dry Dock was built in 1856 by William Yeo and named after Richmond Bay on the north coast of Prince Edward Island in Canada, where the Yeo family's shipping fleet was based.[2]
The business was led by Philip Kelly Harris[3] during the early part of the 20th century and known as P.K. Harris & Sons until 1963, when it became Appledore Shipbuilders.[4]
During World War II, P.K. Harris & Sons built a variety of small vessels for the Royal Navy, primarily coastal craft. These included Fairmile B motor launches ML 128, ML 152, ML 184, ML 233, ML 263, ML 279, ML 304 and ML 451; Fairmile D motor gun boats (later re-classed as motor torpedo boats) MGB 618, MGB 627, MGB 642, MTB 665, MTB 687, MTB 702, MTB 723, MTB 757, MTB 788 and MTB 5021; and (armed) motor fishing vessels MFV 794 and MFV 795.
In 1964 the company was acquired by Court Line, a shipping and airline business.[5] A new shipyard was built on a greenfield site in Appledore at a cost of about £4m, opening for business in 1970.[5] Court Line collapsed in 1974 and Appledore Shipbuilders was nationalised, subsequently being subsumed into British Shipbuilders. By the late 1980s the only yards still held in state ownership were the smaller Appledore and Ferguson yards.[6] In 1989, Appledore Shipbuilders was sold to Langham Industries.[7]
In the late 1990s the two square-rigged sail training ships of the Tall Ships Youth Trust, the Prince William and the Stavros S Niarchos, were completed at Appledore, by performing substantial modifications to two bare hulls begun in Germany.[8]
Appledore built two Róisín-class patrol boats for the Irish Naval Service: LÉ Róisín was completed in 1999 and LÉ Niamh in 2001. In 2010, Ireland ordered a further two, 90-metre (295 ft 3 in), 23-knot (43 km/h; 26 mph) offshore patrol vessels from Babcock with an option for a third, to be built at Appledore. The first Samuel Beckett-class offshore patrol vessels was commissioned in May 2014. In June 2014, the Irish government took up the option for the third ship to be built at Appledore (delivered in 2016) and ordered a fourth in 2016 (delivered in 2018).[9]
In October 2003, the Appledore shipyard went into receivership,[10] and in early 2004 was acquired by DML, the operators of Devonport dockyard.[11] The company was reconstituted as Appledore Shipbuilders (2004) Limited and was run by the DML subsidiary DML Appledore. During this period the yard's main activity was the installation of machinery packages and other systems for luxury yachts for Devonport Yachts Ltd.[12]
In June 2007, Babcock International Group acquired DML, including its operations at the Appledore Shipyard, renaming them Babcock Marine Appledore. A Royal Navy contract secured 300 jobs in Appledore until 2015.[13] The Appledore yard constructed elements of the two Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. Bow sections for HMS Queen Elizabeth were completed in April 2010 and were barged to Rosyth Dockyard for integration with other modules.[14] The yard then built flight deck sponsons and centre blocks for Queen Elizabeth.[15] From 2012, Appledore built similar sections for Queen Elizabeth's sister ship HMS Prince of Wales.[15]
Babcock announced in November 2018 that it had no future for the shipyard, which closed on 15 March 2019. The last vessel to be built at the yard was the LÉ George Bernard Shaw, an Irish Naval Service vessel.[16][17][18]
In August 2020, InfraStrata (owners of Belfast shipyard Harland and Wolff) bought the dormant shipyard for £7 million.[19] The deal saw the shipyard renamed H&W Appledore.[20]
In July 2022, the shipyard won a £55 million contract to refit former Royal Navy mine-hunting ship HMS Quorn (M41) which is expected to be passed to the Lithuanian navy in 2024.[21]