What were they trying to hide?

[Waterways]

This is Herculaneum Dock in 1907. There has been an attempt to doctor the photo. It is clear that one of the graving docks has been brushed out (not too well either). The graving dock was on the maps of the time and was there when I was a kid.

I wonder what was in the dock? A military ship of some sort? A foreign naval vessel? An early submarine?

Interesting.

[Kev]

In the centre of the pic? Interesting....

[snappel]

Mysterious. An amazing photo now - today it's all virtually unrecognisable...

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Waterways

Why would a naval vessel be among commercial vessels -- freighters? Wouldn't

such a vessel be in a Royal Navy graving dock, say at Portsmouth? You might be right that the dock and what is in it has been airbrushed out. However could

that area of the photograph conceivably be obscured by smoke? I am not blowing smoke... just bringing up the possibility.

Chris

[Waterways]

Hi Waterways

Why would a naval vessel be among commercial vessels -- freighters? Wouldn't such a vessel be in a Royal Navy graving dock, say at Portsmouth? You might be right that the dock and what is in it has been airbrushed out. However could that area of the photograph conceivably be obscured by smoke? I am not blowing smoke... just bringing up the possibility.

Chris

Look at the quay. They have tried to make the quay look continuously curved and block out the locks of the graving dock. What looks like a modern looking stern is there.

It may a foreign naval vessel - Lairds built a few of these over time for foreign navies. If a ship is in need of urgent repair then it gets

repaired wherever. They are graving docks.

1907? What was politically sensitive then? In 1905 the Japan-Russia war and most of the Japanese vessels were built in the UK. Was the picture in 1905? And the ship headed for

Japan?



No. 4 Graving Dock is clearly there, the widest graving dock, in 1906 and was there until 1967 when I saw it being filled in. The picture is supposed to be 1907.

[snappel]

Was No.4 Graving Dock the last to be built? Wasn't the fourth one added around 1900/that time? Could the photo be before the last one was

built?

[Waterways]

Was No.4 Graving Dock the last to be built? Wasn't the fourth one added around 1900/that time? Could the photo be

before the last one was built?

It could be. The photo was taken from the top of the Lavrock Bank chimney on Tuesday 30th June 1903, not in

1907, when it was being built, which is a year after the graving dock was built. This chimney was a refuse incinerator. The streets are deserted (about 5

were taken and few have people in them), and the shadows are long. People are playing football on the waste ground. If they are excavating the No. 4 dock

then there appears far too much dust, which is all along the dock, not just in one section.

The No. 4 graving dock was 775 feet long and the lock 80

foot wide. Assuming the depth is OK in the river and the dock at that point, then this dock can take the largest vessels afloat at that period. If 1907

then the Mauritania was afloat by then - which used the very large Gladstone graving dock.