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Wellington Dock - Last Passenger Ship - DAPS Makes History

Photographs © John H. Luxton 2011
Wellington Dock will be remembered as location for the gathering of the principal vessels attending the Tall Ships' Race gathering at Liverpool in 2008. However, since the Tall Ships' Race gathering Wellington Dock has seen little use. During 2010 it was announced that he dock was to be in-filled to provide a location for a new sewage treatment works for United Utilities, who currently operate the sewage plant on the adjacent Sandon Dock site.

In preparation for the in-filling the dock has to be dredged of accumulated silt. This procedure has been currently underway using the dredger WD MERSEY which has been conveying silt to spoil grounds adjacent to the Manchester Ship Canal at Frodsham. It is anticipated that once this dredging work is completed Wellington Dock will be closed to shipping and the infilling process will begin.

On the morning of Saturday October 01, 2011 it was arranged for the ROYAL IRIS, operating the Daniel Adamson fund raising charter cruise to sail into the dock.

This is almost certainly the last occasion on which a passenger ship will ever sail into Wellington Dock. Those who travelled on the cruise certainly participated in a significant date in the history or the Port of Liverpool.

Here are some views taken from ROYAL IRIS as she sailed into and out of the dock.

Sailing into Wellington Dock from Sandon Half Tide Dock one passes through the massive wooden gates which once would have been used to seal off the dock from Sandon Half Tide to preserve the water level within Waterloo Dock when the Sandon Half Tide Dock (and previously the Wellington Half Tide Dock into which Sandon Half Tide was extended) was run down to allow ships to use the Sandon Entrance. Long out of use since the abandonment of the Sandon entrance they remain as a testimony to Victorian Engineering. Wellington Dock was opened in 1850 and named after the Duke of Wellington, Arthur Wellesley. Adjacent on the north side of the dock is the Sandon Treatment works of United Utilities. 

As the ROYAL IRIS swung around within Wellington Dock the remains of the old David Rollo Marine Engineering Works could be seen still bearing the company name. Rollo being a partner in the Grayson, Rollo and Clover  Dockyard once operated between Cammell Laird and Woodside. Separating Wellington Dock from Regent Road the ornamental fortress style entrance gates whose deign originated with dock engineer Jesse Hartley can be seen. Finally dominating the scene is the Hydraulic Accumulator tower which is attached to the final existing section of the high level coal railway which used to deliver coal to bunkering vessels using the adjacent Bramley Moore Dock. In the last photograph WD MERSEY can be seen heading back for another dredging session.