Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands
Date 2007
Event ID 929590
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/929590
Graving Dock
This dry dock, with conventional stepped sides, was sited off the North Harbour to accommodate Greenland whalers. It was built in granite from ca.1853–55 by James Simpson to a design of Thomas Stevenson and was 148 ft long, about 34 ft wide, and had entrance gates with 13–1534 ft water depth over the sill. The total cost was £6000. Stevenson wanted to use steam driven pumps to empty the dock but had to accept two 14 in. atmospheric pumps worked by six horses!
The dock was lengthened to about 192 ft in 1953–54; this was probably when the dock’s masonry was covered with concrete, and the contractor for the new welded steel ‘box’ gates was Sir Wm. Arrol & Co. The dock is still in regular use.
R Paxton and J Shipway, 2007.
Reproduced from 'Civil Engineering heritage: Scotland - Highlands and Islands' with kind permission from Thomas Telford Publishers.
