Thompson Graving Dock & Pumphouse

in Places by Simon — September 4, 2010 at 6:57 pm | 1 comment

The RMS Titanic, everyone has heard of it. The ship that the White Star Line said couldn’t sink, but which struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank with the loss of more than 1500 lives. The hull of the Titanic was constructed next to its sister ship, the Olympic, in yard number 401 of the Harland & Wolff shipyards in Belfast and the massive Arrol Gantry supported the two ships as they grew upwards from their keels. The Titanic’s keel was laid down on 31st March 1909 and just over two years later it was launched – on 31st May 1911, it slid down Slipway number 3 to float for the first time. Despite the sheer scale of the gantry that supported the ship during the construction of the hull, there was still much work to be done to complete the ship and make it both seaworthy and suitable for carrying passengers – much of the superstructure such as the funnels, its engines and machinery and of course the luxurious furnishing and fixtures all needed to be fitted. Within an hour of its launch the Titanic was towed to the deepwater fitting wharf where much of this work was to be done, but some of the work required a dry dock – the Thompson Graving Dock had been constructed for just this purpose. After the fitting out process was completed the Titanic sailed for the first time under its own power on 2nd April 1912. Twelve days later it struck an iceberg.

Construction of the Thompson Graving Dock began in 1904 beside the pump-house that served the Alexandra Graving Dock. It was completed in time for the dry dock work on the RMS Olympic, which was completed and ready duty on 31st May 1911 – the same day that the hull of the Titanic was launched. The Thompson Graving Dock was, at the time of its construction, the largest dry dock in the world. The dock is 268m in length and 13.4m deep, but despite its scale the imagination still has to employed to envision the massive bulk of the Titanic towering out of it. At the seaward end of the dock is a massive set of gates that were closed behind the ship as it entered, before the water was pumped from the dock. The pumphouse had been upgraded to serve the new dock and was capable of draining the 105 million litres (23 million gallons) of water that it contained in just just 2 hours. The Thompson Graving Dock & Pumphouse are situated within (and owned and operated by) the Northern Ireland Science Park on the Queen’s Road, near the Oddysey. Access to the site seems to be best done by bike, on foot or by bus. Access by car is possible but the parking at the science park does not seem to be open to the public (if you know differently then leave a comment below!). The café and visitor centre in the pumphouse is open from 10am to 4pm daily and there are two tours of the pumphouse each day. More information and contact details for the visitor centre can be found at the Titanic Dock website.

Nearby: Beacon of Hope, Comber Greenway, Clarendon Dock.

Tags: Belfast Titanic Quarter