Historic England - 1336324

DRY DOCK In 1783 Smeaton was asked to design a dock for occasionally taking in vessels for repair, as by now the harbour had commercial advantages, no longer being simply a haven. Smeaton visited Liverpool to study the construction and operation of the three dry docks there. By 1784 he had produced plans for a dock 110 feet long, 15 feet deep and with a bottom width of 31 feet between stepped sides. His design for the 'dry or Graving Dock' with stone walls and a timber base was accepted. The floor was to comprise double-timber enclosed in 3 inch thick, tongue-and-grooved plank piling set into which was a 4 inch diameter non return valve, made of beech or yew. On 31st July 1784 the first stone for the walls was laid and by August 1786 the dock was complete. Despite an abortive attempt by Henry Cull (the mason) to alter the design and incorporate a stone (instead of timber) floor, the dock was eventually modified back to Smeaton’s original design, by 1791. In 1893, the Isle of Thanet Ice Company Ltd. converted a significant portion of the dry dock (which had not been in use for some years, probably as a result of the construction of the patent slipway in 1838) into an ice-house for the storage of ice brought from Norway. The sides and the floor were lined with mass concrete and a new concrete wall was constructed across the dock to keep out the water from the basin. The ice-house was further sub-divided into three compartments. A wooden single storey shed was built over this area of the dock with a wooden floor supported on timber beams. Hatchways were provided to enable the ice to be removed. In 1923, the need for storing ice had been eliminated and the store shed was removed. In order to utilise the space occupied by the dock and ice-house, the whole area was covered with a reinforced slab. In the 1980s work was undertaken to restore the dock to its original appearance, with only the concrete wall remaining to keep out the water of the basin. The works were completed in 1984. <1>


Ramsgate Harbour – Mark Samual

Dry Dock at Ramsgate has been believed for a long time to be the work of John Smeaton, however recent research for Thanet District Council as part of an application for funding for the Yacht Valley Project has revealed more about its history. The results of this research appeared in the Conference proceedings of the Construction History Society (2018).
Smeaton’s involvement in Ramsgate harbour construction was long-standing. His experience of building the third (and successful) Eddystone lighthouse and his research into fluid dynamics allowed him to make many other practical applications to coastal works. His design of a dry dock came late in his career and there were two abortive attempts by others to execute modified versions of his designs before he was able to apply his knowledge of hydraulics to finally deliver a workable dry dock.
His solution included a cross-wall to divide up the basin with the part furthest from the sea being closed off by this wall and emptied by sluices. This provided a solution to the repeated silting up of the dock that had quickly manifested itself. However the dry dock and the cross-wall were giving serious concerns within twenty years of his death in 1794.
John Rennie had first been invited by the trustees to examine the Harbour in 1807. In the next year, he was appointed by the Navy to select a suitable site for a new Naval station; the choices being Folkstone, Dover or Ramsgate. He recommended instead improvements to all three harbours.
Rennie wrote that “…the dry dock being lengthened 20 feet… would improve the profitability of the harbour”. In the event, the dock was extended to the east by about thirty-six feet (11 m) and a complete rebuilding had been effected by February 1816. The harbour cross-wall was enormously thickened and the sluices enlarged and simplified (1817). Stone for the works was imported from Leeds and Edinburgh based on a very detailed stone specification. Rennie was able to learn from the challenges at Ramsgate to design a much more successful dry dock at Chatham in 1820, the year before his death.
The 10” – 1 mile Ordnance Survey map of 1872 provides the chief record of what was actually built. The dock finally went out of use in 1893 and various developments obscured it from public view until the 1980s when an ice store, pillbox and a car park office were removed, as was a pillbox.<2>


John Smeaton Dry Dock

‘Looking at Ramsgate dry dock leaking badly during the recent tidal surge I was reminded of reading John Smeaton’s account of its first test in 1787 and the subsequent disaster.

Back in the 1700s the building of harbours and docks was the rocket science of the day and many things went wrong. In the case of the dry dock the builder ignored the advice of Smeaton the civil engineer with fairly spectacular results’, See the report on Ramsgate Harbour 1791 By John Smeaton that I publish. It is a most charmingly account of a man explaining the failings of others below.
Extract: The Committee’s Report
‘and Messrs, Barker, Aubert, and Smeaton, attending the rise of the tide, Mr. Smeaton’s Report to the Board of Trustees, contains the following account. “The tide rose that day to the height of thirteen feet four inches, upon the Apron of the Gates of the Docks; but before it had risen two feet, it began to spring through several joints of the Stone-Floor, which had been laid with solid Portland Blocks of two feet and a half in thickness in fashion of an Arch; and which, to all appearances, had originally been sufficiently well joined; as a piece of masonry, had been done in a very masterly manner.
“As the hight of the tide increased upon the Apron, the leakage through the joins of the floor gradually formed a great depth of water upon it; so that when it was high water upon the Apron, there was a depth of five feet three inches upon the Floor: and we observed, that while the tide was rising, the joints of the Side Wall, on the on the North Side next Bason, apparently opened, so as in some places to let water through Wall; but in far less quantity than appeared to rise through the Floor*, - Every thing being left standing, when the tide had ebbed so as to be upon a level with the water within, its depth upon the floor two inches.
“The cause of these derangements, was doubtless the pressure of the water under the bottom, endeavouring to buoy it upwards; and which, in the circumstances of only eight difference of pressure (the greatest in this experiment) would amount to 1000 tons upon the area of the floor. This power upwards, would in“-

*The committee’s report mentions, that the joints of the pavement, or more properly the caping of the wall, had opened one-third of an inch through the wall itself was 14 feet thick at its Base. <3>



<1> Historic England - https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1336324
<2> Ramsgate Harbour – Mark Samual - https://rbt.org.uk/john-rennie/projects/ramsgate-harbour/
<3> John Smeaton Dry Dock - https://thanetonline.blogspot.com/2007/11/john-smeaton-ramsgate-dry-dock.html

Thanet on Line Blogspot.com, John Smeaton Ramsgate Dry Dock (Website). SKE56349.

The Life and Works of John Rennie (7 June 1761 - 4 October 1821), Ramsgate Harbour (Website). SKE56348.

Historic England, The Royal Harbour, Ramsgate (Digital archive). SKE56260.

Ordinance Survey, 1872, Ramsgate Kent XXXVIII.1.23 (Map). SKE56203.