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These pages describe the industries that have used the Ferrybridge area over the last 100 years. Before that it was an undeveloped area with few permanent buildings.

The first major use of the area was the Whitehead torpedo factory establish on the mainland to the east of Ferrybridge. This operated from 1891 to 1997. The area is now a housing estate.

In 1932 W.J.Tod ltd started building wooden boats in a wooden shed to the west of Ferrybridge. These proved very popular and the factory soon expanded to allow increased production. In 1949 Tods started experimenting with GRP materials and its use in boat building leading to their first commercial GRP boat in late 1950. Their range of GRP boats proved very popular and by the mid-1950’s production of wooden boats ceased. Tods established themselves as world leaders in making GRP structures and diversified into other areas, particularly making sonar domes for various navies. Tods closed the Ferrybridge site in 2001 and now operate from a much larger unit on Portland. Their Ferrybridge site is now partly housing and partly  a boatyard.

The Fleet has always had a population of native oysters but the population has varied considerably over the centuries and has been boosted at least once by introducing farmed stock. In more recent time Pacific oysters have been introduced as they are faster growing and immune to a disease that affects native oysters. Today they are farmed on racks on the sandflats below the caravan camp and processed in a unit on reclaimed land next to the Tod’s area.