The Old Dock, originally known as Thomas Steers' dock, was the world's first commercial

wet dock Wet may refer to: * Moisture, the condition of containing liquid or being covered or saturated in liquid * Wetting (or wetness), a measure of how well a liquid sticks to a solid rather than forming a sphere on the surface Wet or WET may also refe ...

. The dock was built on the

River Mersey The River Mersey () is in North West England. Its name derives from Old English and means "boundary river", possibly referring to its having been a border between the ancient kingdoms of Mercia and Northumbria. For centuries it has formed par ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

, starting in 1710 and completed in 1716. A natural tidal pool off the River Mersey, which probably gave its name to Liverpool centuries earlier, was partially filled and locked in from the river with quay walls erected.

History

The Old Dock was built at a cost of £11,000 and opened on 31 August 1715. Thomas Steers was the engineer responsible; and additional advice was obtained from

George Sorocold George Sorocold (c. 1668 – c. 1738) was an English civil engineer of the eighteenth century notable for pioneering work on water supplies and hydraulic power systems around Great Britain. Biography Sorocold was born in Lancashire in 1666, t ...

. Originally a tidal basin was accessed directly from the river, and from 1737 access was via

Canning Dock Canning Dock on the River Mersey is part of the Port of Liverpool in Northern England. The dock is in the southern dock system, connected to Salthouse Dock to the south and with access to the river via the Canning Half Tide Dock to the west ...

. The dock was built with one

graving dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

; a second and third graving dock were added in 1746 and the 1750s. The dock walls were constructed from brick laid directly on to sandstone bedrock. The dock gates would have allowed as much as 10% of the water out between high tides, resulting in a water level drop of several feet. This may have been offset by water entering the dock from a stream. It accommodated up to 100 ships. Although Liverpool vessels were involved in the

slave trade Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

before the dock opened, it would have served ships involved in the Africa-America trade, propelling Liverpool to world leader of this trade. The dock led to Liverpool's establishment as the leading European port and subsequent world trading port.

Redevelopment

In the early 19th century, the dock was considered too small for the growing size of shipping using the port; the

quay A wharf, quay (, also ), staith, or staithe is a structure on the shore of a harbour or on the bank of a river or canal where ships may dock to load and unload cargo or passengers. Such a structure includes one or more berths ( mooring locatio ...

s were too narrow; the city's

sewage Sewage (or domestic sewage, domestic wastewater, municipal wastewater) is a type of wastewater that is produced by a community of people. It is typically transported through a sewer system. Sewage consists of wastewater discharged from reside ...

polluted the dock's water; and the narrow wooden

drawbridge A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of movea ...

across its entrance channel caused traffic jams. Sentiment saved the Old Dock for 20 years, but the Old Dock closed on 31 August 1826 and was filled in. Liverpool’s fourth Custom House, designed by John Foster, was built on the site between 1828 and 1837, and was demolished after severe

bomb A bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of an explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Detonations inflict damage principally through ground- and atmosphere-transmitted mechan ...

damage during the

Battle of Britain The Battle of Britain, also known as the Air Battle for England (german: die Luftschlacht um England), was a military campaign of the Second World War, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the Fleet Air Arm (FAA) of the Royal Navy defende ...

(

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

). In 1999 an office block on the site, Steers House, was demolished, and the resulting waste ground was used as an NCP car park until 2004, when the site was incorporated into the

Liverpool One Liverpool ONE is a shopping, residential, and leisure complex in Liverpool, England. The project involved the redevelopment of 42 acres (170,000 m2) of land in the city centre. It is a retail-led development anchored by the department store ...

shopping development. A water feature has been built on the site of Old Dock to commemorate its history. A portion of the dock wall is exposed in the basement of the new development, and can be viewed from the pavement above through a viewing window in the ground. The excavated site was opened to the public in May 2010. Tours of the Old Dock are currently operated by National Museums Liverpool on a weekly basis.

Media

The excavation of the dock featured in a ''Time Team'' Special episode, first broadcast on

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

on Monday 21 April 2008.

Old Dock Sill

The level of the

sill Sill may refer to: * Sill (dock), a weir at the low water mark retaining water within a dock * Sill (geology), a subhorizontal sheet intrusion of molten or solidified magma * Sill (geostatistics) * Sill (river), a river in Austria * Sill plate, ...

of its entrance is used in and around Liverpool as a height

datum In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interpreted. ...

called Old Dock Sill or ODS.

References

Sources

* *

External links

* * {{Port of Liverpool docks Liverpool docks Redeveloped ports and waterfronts in Merseyside Docks (maritime) Former buildings and structures in Liverpool