The main item of interest along dock road is the Bannatyne Mill building which is described as follows: A most imposing and rare industrial building with a larger than life expression of Victorian industrial architecture, erected to the designs of William Sidney Cox. The builders were McCarthy and Guerin. It was built for Mssrs. Bannatyne. The Bannatyne Mill is technically significant as the building’s frame is made of cast-iron and is encased in cut stone and rubble. There are allocations for lift machinery in the basement and the hoisting machinery is hidden behind the gables. The tower, influenced by the Gothic of northern continental Europe, adds architectural presence over the Docks and is a landmark sight from the northern banks of the River Shannon. The high degree of detailing and the attention paid to the architectural composition of this structure is extraordinary when viewed through the rationalised approach to aesthetics today. This structure, together with the later reinforced concrete silo further east are significant industrial architectural landmarks in the Dock Road area of Limerick City.
There is also a the graving dock to which I had no access. It is described as a well-built dock set within the greater wet dock, and displaying fine stone masonry typical of the mid nineteenth century. Mr. Hawney was the clerk of works. Although now falling into dereliction, this dock along with the pedstal, forms an historical feature on the landscape of the docklands.
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SAMSON AND GOLIATH – THESE GANTRY CRANES REALLY DO DOMINATE BELFAST CITY
These cranes appear in a large number of my photographs and at times I am surprised from where they can be seen.
Samson and Goliath are the twin shipbuilding gantry cranes situated at Queen’s Island, Belfast, Northern Ireland. The cranes, which were named after the Biblical figures Samson and Goliath are landmark structures of the city. Comparative newcomers to the city, I originally thought that they were at least a hundred years old, the cranes rapidly came to symbolise Belfast in a way that no building or monument had hitherto done.
At its height Harland & Wolff boasted 35,000 employees and a healthy order book, but in the years following the cranes’ construction the workforce and business declined. The last ship to be launched at the yard to date was a roll-on/roll-off ferry in March 2003. Since then the yard has restructured itself to focus less on shipbuilding and more on design and structural engineering, as well as ship repair, offshore construction projects and competing for other projects to do with metal engineering and construction.
Initially there was concern that the now largely redundant cranes would be demolished. However, they were scheduled as historic monuments under Article 3 of the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995.
Northern Ireland Office Minister of the time Angela Smith stated: “These cranes are an essential part of our city, our roots and our culture.”
The cranes are not, technically, ‘listed buildings’, but are recognised by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency as buildings of ‘architectural or historic interest’.
Shipbuilding has ceased in Belfast, but the cranes are to be retained as part of the existing dry dock facility within the restructured shipyard, situated adjacent to the Titanic Quarter, a business, light industrial, leisure and residential development on land now surplus to the heavy industrial requirements of the shipyard on Queen’s Island. They were still (2015) kept in working order and used for heavy lifting by Harland & Wolff in its other activities, however the company ceased trading in 2019.
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