Report - Canada Dock (Liverpool, Nov, 2018)

[Jackdaw47]

Continued.

The pump house is shown on a 1906 OS map and used to have a boiler house with chimney attached, demolished in the mid 1980’s. The complete building can be seen in early aerial photos.

A 1920 photo is included below since it shows Hartley’s Canada Dock hydraulic accumulator tower on the outer dock wall, long demolished.

Hartley was apparently a fairly austere character, but seemed to let his hair down sometimes, as with this faux-medieval creation - some of his whimsy is also evident in the little huts visible at the ends of walls in the dock road.

But we digress, the pump house is an interesting looking building, but there’s nothing inside except the Mersey and a recent-looking control panel for electrical pumps.

From the other end..

I put the tarpaulin back again of course.

What used to be in here probably looked something like the photo below of the pumps in the Huskisson Dock Impounding Station on the seawall a bit further south (impounding stations pumped water out of the Mersey into the docks).

Note the similarity of the architecture.

This building was demolished sometime in the 1990’s but one of the pumps was preserved, and currently sits, fenced off from the general public for some reason, on one of the Canning graving docks outside the Mersey Maritime Museum.

We finish with a couple of pictures of boats. The first one is moored opposite the pump house and until recently was derelict (see https://www.28dayslater.co.uk/threads/habicht-ii-canada-dock-liverpool-august-2011.64046/).

Now its been renamed the Endeavour and is being renovated for cruises between Liverpool and North Wales. The second is a bulk carrier with scrap metal bound for Alexandria, picture taken early one morning on the other side of the graving dock.

Great looking photos gives a good feel for the place and history, those pumps must have pushed a lot of water around?
And has been mentioned very stylish buildings and colourful brickwork. Thanks.

 

[slayaaaa]

Another great post, cheers for sharing!

 

[urbanchemist]

..... those pumps must have pushed a lot of water around?
.....

yes, there were a number of these stations with huge centrifugal pumps - one function was to raise the water levels so that larger ships could get into the graving (dry) docks which were originally built for smaller sailing vessels. The channels through which the water was pumped are hidden underground - more going on in a dock system than meets the eye.

 

[Liverpool Urbex]

Bloody ace mate

I'm shocked the building opposite is still there thought that would be long gone, looked like it was being stripped and demolished back in 2016.

 

[Jackdaw47]

yes, there were a number of these stations with huge centrifugal pumps - one function was to raise the water levels so that larger ships could get into the graving (dry) docks which were originally built for smaller sailing vessels. The channels through which the water was pumped are hidden underground - more going on in a dock system than meets the eye.

That I can imagine, being familiar with pumping systems but not on this scale it would need to be underground otherwise you would have huge pipes running all over the place. again great pic and info.