3-021-265 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Opening of the new docks at Millwall, [London], on Saturday last, 1868. 'The lock...is by far the largest in London, being 450 ft. long and 80 ft. wide. There are three pairs of lock-gates at the entrance, which will enable barges and small vessels to have ingress and egress at all times of the tide...its depth of water is 28 ft. in the centre. This is the greatest depth of water attached to the entrance of any dock in London...Around, on the wharves, is excellent warehouse accommodation, and cranes have been erected capable of lifting from 35 cwt. to 15 tons, worked by hydraulic power...Inside the wet dock is a dry dock...In this dock is at present the Arapiles, a Spanish ironclad of 4300 tons, which, having entered the wet dock last week, although there was a heavy gale of wind blowing at the time, was passed into the graving dock with the greatest facility. Engines and hydraulic machinery have been erected all round the docks, and will also be employed in opening the lock-gates, sluices, road-bridges, and cranes...The engines and machinery have been supplied by Messrs. Armstrong and Co., and are in perfect working order; and the contractors for the whole have been Messrs. Kelk and Aird, the joint engineers being Messrs. Fowler and Wilson'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.