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Alexandra Graving Dock is a nineteenth-century graving dock located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and protected as a scheduled monument under Historic Environment Division reference 6271. Graving docks were essential maritime engineering works designed to accommodate large vessels for maintenance, repair and construction, with their characteristic deep rectangular form allowing ships to be floated in and then drained for access to hulls and underwater timbers. The dock exploits the underlying geology of the site, where Early Triassic sandstone bedrock provides a stable foundation for the substantial masonry construction required to withstand the enormous hydraulic pressures generated during operation.
The dock represents Belfast's development as a major shipbuilding and maritime centre during the industrial age, when the city's yards became world-renowned for engineering innovation. Such facilities required considerable capital investment and precise engineering to function reliably. The Early Triassic sandstone at this location, formed over 250 million years ago in an arid desert environment, proved sufficiently robust to support the demands of heavy Victorian industrial infrastructure.
Today, Alexandra Graving Dock stands as a physical record of Belfast's maritime heritage and nineteenth-century commercial ambitions, embodied in engineered stone and water management systems designed to serve the requirements of nineteenth-century shipbuilding.
Alexandra graving dock. alexandra graving dock - c.f. ihr 10486 is a scheduled monument protected by Department for Communities NI under reference 6271. View the official record →
Alexandra Graving Dock is a nineteenth-century graving dock located in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and protected as a scheduled monument under Historic Environment Division reference 6271.
Alexandra graving dock. alexandra graving dock - c.f. ihr 10486 dates from the c19th period, and is classified as a graving dock. It is one of over 32,000 scheduled monuments protected across the UK.
Alexandra graving dock. alexandra graving dock - c.f. ihr 10486 is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, legally protected by DfC Northern Ireland (NISMR) — the body responsible for designating and safeguarding heritage sites in Ni. The official designation reference is 6271.
Several scheduled monuments lie within 10 km, including Brick chimney stack (ihr no.10149) (4.1 km), Chimney stack - ihr 01046 (4.4 km), Barrow (5.7 km).
This page is just one thread. A full Aubrey report pulls together 14 strands of Alexandra graving dock. alexandra graving dock - c.f. ihr 10486's history, each drawn from the record and mapped to the exact spot:
Every location is different. Not every section appears for every place, only what the historical record actually holds turns up in a report.
Alexandra graving dock. alexandra graving dock - c.f. ihr 10486 stands on Early Triassic sandstone, bedrock that formed in the Early Triassic. The rock here is sandstone.