King George V dry dock
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King George V Graving Dock, also known as No. 7 Dry Dock, is a former
dry 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, ...
situated in
Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...
's Western Docks. It was designed by F.E. Wentworth-Shields and constructed by John Mowlem & Company and Edmund Nuttall Sons & Company. It was formally opened by
King George V George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Que ...
and Queen Mary on 26 July 1933 although the final construction work was only complete the following year. At the time of construction it was the largest
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, ...
in the world, a status it retained for nearly thirty years.


Construction and design

The dock was built as part of the westward expansion of Southampton Docks, then owned by the Southern Railway. There had previously been several dry docks in the port, each larger than its predecessor, but a larger dock was needed to accommodate the new passenger liners which were coming into service, including RMS ''Queen Mary'' () and RMS ''Queen Elizabeth'' (). The new dock cost more than £2,000,000 to construct. The design of dry docks had evolved to mirror developments in ship design. Until the end of the 19th century most ships had curved hulls, so dry docks were built with curved or semi-circular cross-sections, with steps (known as "altars") built in to support the wooden props which held the hull of the vessel in place. By the 1930s, ships were built with near-vertical sides; this was reflected in the design of the new dock which has steep sides with a restricted number of stepped altars, at the base of the walls. High-level altars were not required as the large ships could dock on three lines of blocks without the need for shoring. The new dock was designed by F.E. Wentworth-Shields and constructed by John Mowlem & Company and Edmund Nuttall Sons & Company. The dock took two years to build and required the removal of two million tons of earth. The dock was built virtually entirely of concrete, with granite dressings for the sills and caisson stops, the flights of steps leading to the floor and the coping of the walls at the entrance. The dock is long, wide and over deep and was capable of holding of water. The floor of the dock is thick at the centre line, tapering to thick at the sides. The dock was provided with bollards at regular intervals on either side with others set into the dock walls. The caisson door, which weighed , slid sideways into a chamber at the right (east) of the entrance from the
River Test The River Test is a chalk stream in Hampshire in the south of England. It rises at Ashe near Basingstoke and flows southwards for to Southampton Water. Settlements on the Test include the towns of Stockbridge and Romsey. Below the village o ...
. At intervals, there are vertical buttresses projecting from the sides of the dock; these prevented the
bilge keel A bilge keel is a nautical device used to reduce a ship's tendency to roll. Bilge keels are employed in pairs (one for each side of the ship). A ship may have more than one bilge keel per side, but this is rare. Bilge keels increase hydrodynamic re ...
s of vessels striking the base of the walls. The faces of the piers were protected to a depth of below the top with
elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the flowering plant genus ''Ulmus'' in the plant family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical-montane regions of North ...
fenders. The adjacent pump house held four pumps which could empty the dock in just over four hours.


Pumping station

The pumping station, at the western side of the dock, was also probably designed by F.E. Wentworth-Shields. It is a rectangular block building, with a
half-hipped roof A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope (although a tented roof by definition is a hipped roof with steeply pitched slopes rising to a peak). Thus, ...
, built of red brick with stone dressing in the "inter-war classical revival style suggesting a temple". The building has a stone
cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, around the top edge of a ...
and a second stone band above the windows, which are separated by brick
pilaster In classical architecture Classical architecture usually denotes architecture which is more or less consciously derived from the principles of Greek and Roman architecture of classical antiquity, or sometimes even more specifically, from the ...
s. The original west bay, which housed an office, has been demolished. Internally, the pumphouse walls are lined with cream and green tiles on the lower part. A wooden staircase leads to a mezzanine balcony with a wooden balustrade. In the main, southern part of the building, there are the four pumps which pumped water out of the dock.


Opening

The dock was opened on 26 July 1933 when the Royal Yacht ''Victoria and Albert'', with King George V and Queen Mary on board, broke a red, white and blue ribbon stretched across the entrance as she sailed into the incomplete dock. During the naming ceremony, Queen Mary emptied a cup of "Empire" wine into the dock. The first ship to use the dock was White Star's ''Majestic'' in 1934.


World War II

In the spring of 1942, the dock was used for training the commandos who were to take part in the
raid Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...
on the French port of St. Nazaire. The King George V dock was very similar in design and construction to the Normandie dry dock at St. Nazaire, thus enabling the commandos to familiarise themselves with the construction of the dock. The men practised descending the stairs of the pumping chamber in the dark and setting explosives against the pump mechanism; they also practised climbing inside the hollow caisson to set explosives and setting charges against the gate winding machinery. In the raid itself, the obsolete
destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...
HMS ''Campbeltown'' was rammed into the Normandie dock gates and exploded, while the commandos destroyed the dock machinery. In 1944, the dock was engaged in the building of Bombardon breakwaters which were to be used as temporary floating breakwaters to protect the Mulberry harbours during the
Allied invasion of Normandy Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Europe during World War II. The operation was launched on 6 June 1944 (D-Day) with the Norma ...
.


Decline and closure

In 2005,
Associated British Ports Associated British Ports owns and operates 21 ports in the United Kingdom, managing around 25 per cent of the UK's sea-borne trade. The company's activities cover transport, haulage and terminal operations, ship's agency, dredging and marine cons ...
agreed to terminate the lease on the dock to the then operators, ship repairers
A&P Group A&P Group Ltd is the largest ship repair and conversion company in the UK, with three shipyards located in Hebburn, Middlesbrough and Falmouth. The company undertakes a wide variety of maintenance and repair work on commercial and military shi ...
, following which the caisson gates and keel blocks were removed, converting the dock to a permanent wet dock. The dock was then used in conjunction with the bulk-handling terminal at Berths 107 to 109, operated by Solent Stevedores. In April 2012, there was a large fire in scrap metal stored at the dock, which resulted in a large cloud of smoke over the city for several days. A few weeks later, there was another incident at the dock when firefighters were called to attend a pile of wood chips which were releasing steam vapour.


Listed building

In June 2006, despite the gates having been removed, the dock and the adjacent pump house were both granted Grade II listed building status. In the listing for the dock,
English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...
summarised its historical importance:
King George V Graving Dock has special historic interest both locally and nationally as a rare survival from the heyday of the transatlantic liner era. It has special architectural interest as a good example of the evolution of dock design as it stood in the mid-20th century, innovative in its construction. The dock has associations with great ships and events important in British history, and was the most significant dry dock in one of Britain's leading ports.
Of the pump house, they said:
The inter-war classical style is impressive and temple-like, and the interior is exceptional for its survival of fixtures and fittings. Although there have been some alterations to the periphery of the building, its function is amply illustrated by the surviving features and its architectural presence offsets the largely below-ground dock.


References


External links


Video of opening ceremony Video of RMS Queen Mary in the dock in 1949
{{Buildings in Southampton Drydocks Port of Southampton Grade II listed buildings in Hampshire Buildings and structures in Southampton