OLD DEVONPORT . UK
www.olddevonport.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: July 05, 2019
Webpage updated: July 05, 2019

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ROYAL DOCKYARD  |  SOUTH YARD

BUILDING SLIP 2 (SHALLOW DOCK)

Building Slip number 2 was in fact the last of the building slips in South Yard to be built. 

In 1816 plans were prepared for the building of a second Slip at the Mutton Cove end of the Dockyard 'suitable for building 74 gun ships or repairing frigates'.  Between the chosen site and Building Slip number 3, as it was at that time, later Building Slip 4, was the Outer Mast Pond.  The southern end of the Mast Pond was to be filled in and a pier that had been used for the landing of furze was to be removed.  The contract, dated March 29th 1816, was with a Mr George Hartrop Brocket of Woolwich and others.  It is not known when the work was completed.  Initially it became Building Slip number 4, the numbers at that time running from north to south.

During 1849 Building Slip 4 was renumbered Building Slip number 2, the numbers then running from Mutton Cove northwards.

The Admiralty decided in 1895 to convert Building Slip number 1 and Building Slip number 2 into one Slip.  Nothing came of this plan and the Slips, which were both covered, fell in to disuse.  In August 1909 a fresh plan proposed to convert them both in to shallow docks capable of taking two or more torpedo boats which had hitherto been docked in the North Lock in North Yard Extension.  Again nothing happened but three months later a decision was taken to remove the timber roof from Slip 2 and convert that one only in to a shallow dock.

To enable the work to be undertaken in the dry, a Cofferdam was built across the entrance, this time made of concrete.  The new Dock had parallel sides throughout its length and a square head, quite different from the other Docks at Devonport.  It became known as the Shallow Dock and appears as such on the 1912 Ordnance Survey map of the Royal Dockyard.  Its measurements were given as 284 feet long, 80 feet wide internally, and 58 feet wide at the entrance.

The Shallow Dock was inaugurated in April 1912 by Torpedo Boats TB 99 and TB 107.

Adjoining the Shallow Dock were Machine Shop 2 and Machine Shop 2A.

Between it and Building Slip 3 was Slip Jetty, which had a 20-ton Travelling Crane.