This amateur film records the construction of a graving or dry dock at Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson's shipyard at Wallsend. Filmed over a number of months, it shows men and steam cranes at work clearing the site, laying foundations, pouring concrete, installing dock gates and testing them. The first ship is towed into the new dock and other ships undergo repair and maintenance. This film was a Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) production. Title:...

This amateur film records the construction of a graving or dry dock at Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson's shipyard at Wallsend. Filmed over a number of months, it shows men and steam cranes at work clearing the site, laying foundations, pouring concrete, installing dock gates and testing them. The first ship is towed into the new dock and other ships undergo repair and maintenance. This film was a Newcastle & District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) production. Title: The Construction of a Graving Dock Title: Owners Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd Title: Contractors: Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons, Glasgow & London. The opening shot shows a small car parked outside the shipyard. A close-up of a brass plate next to a doorway reads: 'Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson Limited, Dry Docks Department, Office Entrance' A high angle shot pans left to right across the dry dock yards. Title: Dock dimensions, length...570ft, width of entrance...80ft, depth over sill...26ft A general view follows showing rubble and debris piled at the dry dock yards. Title: Breaking Virgin Soil An excavator removes soil and clay and dumps it into a tipping truck, which stands on its own small gauge railway. A man operates a small engine which pulls the loaded trucks along the track. A group of men man-handle the trucks back onto the railway. A train returns to the excavator for more spoil. The excavator loads the train of trucks again and again. The operator drives the engine and this time the train travels towards the camera with a man standing on the foot plate behind the driver. A similar train with smaller engine and operator follows on. A group of men with crowbars realign the small track. Again the excavator loads the small trucks with spoil. Title: Three months later A high angle view follows with workmen looking down into an excavated part of the new dock. Piles and shuttering and other structures have been erected. A man digs clay and mud with a pneumatic spade. Panoramic shot of a steam crane at work and another working nearby. Another worker digs in an excavated hole surrounded by shuttering. A long shot shows another worker throwing down a wooden plank or board into another excavated hole. A shot follows of a steam crane at work followed by a general view of the dry dock area showing a ship in a dry dock nearby. A close-up shows the operator's cab of a steam crane. The cab is open to the elements and the gears working the winch mechanisms can be clearly seen. A mobile steam crane travels along rails as it moves away from the camera. A crane lifts large buckets of debris and a workman tips the contents into a railway truck. He turns the bucket upright and sends it back for another load. A general view of the construction site shows the concrete sides of the dry dock taking shape. A panning shot shows steam cranes and rail trucks. Title: During the construction of the dock some 50,000 tons of concrete were used Pebbles and stones come down a chute and are added to the concrete as workmen spread it as part of the construction. A crane hoists a ladle of concrete which is manhandled into position by workers. A lever on the ladle releases the concrete so it can be spread by workers. A general view shows the concrete walls completed so far in the dry dock. The film cuts to another excavator on another part of the site, followed by a general view of shuttering for the pouring of concrete, and other areas where concrete pouring has been completed. A steam engine tows a flatbed wagon with a steel box on it. A crane lifts it from the wagon. Title: The total quantity of material excavated for the dock was 175,000 tons The crane manoeuvres the box of spoil over a barge at the quayside and dumps the contents into the barge. The film cuts to a close shot of a steam pile driver, followed by the small engine pushing the small spoil trucks towards camera. Men work on part of the dry dock wall where steel reinforcement rods protrude out of the concrete. A general view of a steam crane with the new dry dock walls in the background. More general views of the construction site. Title: A Year's Progress A steam engine carries boxes of spoil on a flatbed truck. A workman attaches a crane hook to one of the boxes which is hoisted off the wagon. A close-up follows of the gearing and winch mechanism of one of the steam cranes. The crane hoists a large piece of steel or timber to another part of the site. An overhead shot shows workmen spreading concrete. Title: The dock walls are of an average thickness of 12ft and 43ft high General views of the construction site showing the clearly defined dock walls. An overhead shot follows of the excavator at work at another part of the site. Spoil is put in metal boxes. A workman hitches a box to a crane hook. At the top of the new dock wall, a small steam rail engine moves two empty spoil boxes on a flatbed wagon. The next shot shows the engine pulling full boxes back along the same route. More general views of the construction site follow. Three smartly dressed men discuss an item that one of them has written in a small notebook. A high angle shot shows the length of the dry dock. An excavator still works at one end of the new dock. Title: Dock gates in position at end of 14 months A panning shot follows of the large static crane Titan 2. The shot illustrates the size of the crane as it manoeuvres one of the dock gates into position. Shots follow of the careful placement of the gate next to the other dock gate. General view of the new dry dock. Title: The entrance gates are of steel of the double leaf type Pan across length of the dock gates. Title: Each leaf weighs about 90 tons General views follow of the bow of a ship and a flooded new dry dock. Title: Dock, finished, flooded and gates tested under 19 months from commencement of work General view of the flooded dock. The new dock gates close. A view of the closed dock gates follows. Title: Two electronically driven pumps of a total capacity of 70.000 gallons per minute can empty the dock in two hours General view of the depth gauge on the opposite side of the dock basin showing the decreasing depth of the water. Title: In commission A tug tows a ship into position so it can enter the dry dock. It slowly enters bow first. Men run along the side of the dock handling large ropes, and put the ropes around capstans to secure the position of the ship in the dock. Men carry and lower timbers between the dock wall and the ship’s hull to make the ship stable. The ship is pictured in a completely drained dry dock. The name of the ship is 'Port Hardy'. An overhead shot shows men at work near the ship's rudder. Other men paint the hull below the waterline. A general view of a crane on the dockside is followed by a shot of a ship's bow, which ends the film.