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The Coal Hoist at Old Goole, UK is an 8x10 oil painting born from a healing walk along the docks of Goole—a place where memory and industrial might meet. Painted in November 2022 from a somber sketch, this work captures the silent strength of the historic Tom Pudding hoist, once a vital part of Britain’s coal trade.
These hoists, built around 1906 by Tannett Walker & Co., were used to lift 'Tom Pudding' coal barge compartments and tip them directly into sea-going vessels—making them rare monuments of industrial ingenuity. Today, only one survives; it stands as a Grade II listed structure, a stoic reminder of Goole’s past as the UK’s largest inland port exporting Yorkshire coal.
I painted this piece after a walk that was part ritual, part therapy. As I wrote in The Art Startup, “demons hate fresh air”—and out there by the docks, the air was thick with history but also healing. The hoist isn’t pretty—it’s weathered, mechanical, utilitarian—but against a broad sky and calm water, it becomes stately, even elegiac.
The brushwork here is honest and textural. Greys, muted blues, and rust tones reflect metal, age, and industry. The lines are guided by memory and grief, not by straight edges. It’s not a nostalgic portrait—it’s a witness to endurance and memory, painted from life and from loss.
This painting is for those who feel the poetry in industrial relics, who believe grief can be walked out, or anyone drawn to landscapes that carry weight and soul—honest reminders that even in decline, there is dignity.