Canning Graving Docks No. 1 and 2

1756
Grade II
The graving docks were built 1765-8, lengthened in 1813 by John Foster and deepened in 1842 by Jesse Hartley.

They were designed for the repair of ships, which needed their hulls scraping and repainting in "dry dock" and could hold as many as three sailing ships each.

They have stepped stone sides (altar courses) with granite barrel runs, three to each side. Large boilers, dated 1810, for heating the tar to coat ships' hulls are sited around the quay, together with capstans for moving the ships. 

Also remaining are hand-operated "gate engines" bearing the name Coalbrookdale Foundry, Liverpool, which must be original equipment, because by the time of the first reconstruction that firm had become Fawcett and Littledale.   

The graving docks closed in 1965 and are now part of the Merseyside Maritime Museum, which keeps the former pilot boat, the Edmund Gardner of 1953 in No. 1 Graving Dock. 

She could carry up to 30 pilots and was stationed at sea for weeks at a time. She was largely crewed by trainee pilots and was powered by two diesel engines that generated electricity to drive an electric motor. 

In Graving Dock No. 2 is the three-masted schooner De Wadden, built in Holland in 1917. She was the last commercial sailing ship to trade to the Mersey, usually carrying pitprops for coal mines from Ireland and coal as a return cargo. 

Usually moored alongside Graving Dock No.2, in Canning Half-Tide Dock is the tug Brocklebank and the Weaver packet Wincham, which are operated on behalf of the museum by the volunteers of the Wincham Preservation Society. 

There are many other important maritime relics around the graving docks, including one of the propellers from the Cunard liner Lusitania, sunk in 1915, and a giant dock pumping engine of 1890.