OLD DEVONPORT . UK
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©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: July 05, 2019
Webpage updated: July 05, 2019

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ROYAL DOCKYARD  |  SOUTH YARD

DOCK 3

The expansion of the Royal Dockyard northwards was continued in 1758 with the plans for a new dock north of the Head Dock and Stern Dock, collectively known as the Double Dock and later still to become Dock number 2.

Built of granite and Portland stone, it measured 239 feet 4 inches in length, 86 feet 7 inches in width, and was 26 feet 10 inches in depth.  The first ship to be docked there was HMS "Union", 90 guns, on March 17th 1763.  Although this officially became North Dock, in comparison with Dock number 2, which became South Dock, it was also known as the Union Dock.

North Dock was enlarged during 1839.  It was made 20 feet longer and the width at the entrance was increased from 52 feet 2 inches to 64 feet.  The work was undertaken by a Mr T Elwill.

In circa 1859 the North Dock/Union Dock was renumbered Dock number 3.

A document of around 1860 held at The National Archives states that the Dock measured 240 feet 10 inches in length from the gates to the top  of slope at the head; 201 feet in length from the gates to the bottom of the slope at the head; 99 feet in width at the upper stone altar amidships; 44 feet 8 inches in breadth at the bottom of the Dock amidships; 56 feet 23 inches breadth at the piers of the gates; and 27 feet 7 inches in depth amidships.

In 1876 work started on reconstructing Dock number 3, the work to be spread over four years.  First the roof over the Dock  was removed and the timber recycled in a building a Coal Store.  Then the wooden Jetties at the entrance were also removed.  A Cofferdam was erected to enable the work to be undertaken in the dry but that got badly damaged by a storm in October 1877.  In an effort to give protection to the Cofferdam a ship was used as a breakwater.

But the problems were not over.  A landslide occurred at the beginning of November 1878 which caused the northern side of the work, up against Dock number 4, to slide in to the new site, taking the dockside railway track along with it.  Despite these setbacks, on December 11th 1878 Rear Admiral G O Willes, the Admiral-Superintendent, formally laid the foundation stone.  This event was followed by an even bigger landslip during the night of Sunday December 15th 1878, when even a steam travelling crane ended up in the new Dock.  It was discovered that some 90,000 cubic feet of stone,250 feet in length, 12 feet wide and 30 feet deep, had subsided and taken much of the plant with it.  And if that wasn't bad enough, the main road at the head of the new Dock began to break up as well, carrying away the water main, which prematurely flooded the Dock.  The wet and frosty winter weather was blamed for all this land movement.  A rough estimate of the cost of the damage was £50,000 and it delayed the completion of the work by some two years.

Dock number 3 was finally brought in to use on November 25th 1884 when HMS "Reindeer", an 8-gun gunvessel that had been launched at Devonport twelve months earlier, entered the Dock.  Dock  3 was different from Docks 1, 2 and 4 in that the altars were arranged almost vertically to accommodate the new steel-built vessels.

During the reconstruction work a new Pumping Engine House was erected at the northern side of Dock number 1.

In October 1891 work began on extending Dock 3 by 36 feet at the head.  The travelling cranes were installed on each side of the Dock in 1891 also.

In 1912 the official measurements of Dock 3 according to the Ordnance Survey were: 416 feet 4 inches in length; 94 feet in width at the entrance through Caisson V.  The water depth over the sill was 34 feet 9 inches at high water spring tides.