The history of the Herculaneum dock begins around 1767 when it is recorded that ships used the natural, small tidal basin to dock and deliver ore to Charles Roe's Copper smelting works above the river.  After the closure and sale of the copper works the Herculaneum pottery occupied the site for many years but by 1840 plans were being laid for a wet dock for the site.  Eight years later the site was bought by the Liverpool dock committee (to prevent competition) and on June 30th 1848 the Herculaneum Dock Company bill received its Royal Ascent allowing the project to proceed, though development did not actually begin until 1864. This eventually become Herculaneum Dock, named for the pottery which had occupied the site before.

G.F.Lyster, who was responsible for building most of the Birkenhead docks and docks at the north end of the Mersey, was appointed to build the Herculaneum dock (and new Harrington and Toxteth docks also). He made improvements which increased the depth of water in various parts of the dock estate and his design for Herculaneum were equally forward-looking and imaginative. Whilst most Liverpool docks were developed from the exisiting shoreline, the Herculaneum dock was blasted from dry land and sandstone cliffs, using explosives. A dam of unexcavated material kept water out until the dock was finished, when it was removed to allow filling.

Initially just two graving docks were opened and these were the main reasons for building the dock. The dock was finished and opened in 1866 and also handled coal and oil as well as the ship repairs. Ten years later, in 1876 a third graving dock was added.  A new branch, two years later, improved access to the graving docks. (nukber 4 was added in 1902). The numbering of the graving docks suggests that the seaward ones were the earliest to be built when in fact the reverse appears to be true. The widths of Herculaneum graving docks are approximately 60ft wide, in fact number 3 was just 6 inches narrower than 60 ft whilst number four was 80 feet across the entrance. Docks 1,3 and 4 were approximately 750 feet long whilst 3 was 930 feet.  The depth of water in the Herculaneum graving docks could be increased by pumping water from the river into the dock itself, to allow deep-drafted vessles to enter the graving dock at low neap tides.

Around the 1870s Herculaneum obtained licenses to handle petroleum. Short tunnels, called casements, were now dug into the sandstone above the dock.  These had heavy doors and were used for storing the petroleum and later for other inflammable materials such as turpentine, resins and explosives. The surrounding sandstone bed into which these were dug and the southerly isolation of the Herculaneum Dock made for safety. These casements were the first such specialist facility on the Mersey.  The story was one of success and by 1881 Herculaenum was again enlarged and in 1884 a buoy store was added enabling the graving facilities to include repairs to buoys, small boats and marine cables.  

Coal was also handled and in 1890 two 25-ton coaling cranes and other equipment arrived at Herculaneum Dock. The coal was for ships' bunkers, for export and for the steam plant. With the addition of bulk storage in 1891 it is possible to pipe oil ashore directly from moored vessels.
 

By 1902 when the fourth graving dock opened at Herculaneum Dock, dredgers, coasters, steam hoppers, tugs and surveying vessels were handled. This was a peak of operations at the dock, which was badly affected by a coal strike in 1912 and by a later rail strike in 1919.  The addition of an oil jetty in 1923 helped boost trade but yet another coal strike in 1926 badly affected business and the dock was by this time in serious decline.  To an extent this was staved off by the World War II as the Herculaneum Dock, indeed all Mersey Docks, were in constant use and essential to the North Atlantic convoys.

In the 1950s the dock was still used for oil shipments which were piped ashore to stores before further distributed.  There was obviously still enough business that in 1951 a new buoy store was added and facilities for blacksmiths and shipwrights made available but the 1960s saw the final decline of Herculaneum.  The jetty couls not take large ships and silting became a problem. A mooring barge was anchored in the river, about 600 yards offshore in deeper water, oil was then pumped ashore.  Further strikes and disputes sealed the fate of many of the Liverpool docks which were struggling from the silting of the Mersey.  Herculaneum in particular was dealt a second blow by a change to shipping oil as crude rather than refined.  The provision of the private jetties for the refineries at Stanlow on Wirral, which were less affected by unionisation and labour disputes, was the death knell. The oil trade moved to Tranmere, the graving yards were no longer used and Herculaneum Dock closed in 1972.

It was filled in soon after by dumping and topped with dredged sand from the Mersey.  It eventually became a car park for the 1984 Liverpool Garden Festival.  After this warehousing and housing were built on the now filled and consolidated former dock.

The casemates which were, and apparently are still, cheap to rent remain. They had been used in the past for storage of such varied things as explosives, cotton and even radioactive materials and now came to be used for wine, car parts and who knows what. Today these casements and the walls lining the dock are all that is left, with the disued Dingle tunnel entrance sitting above the dock site.

Records and History courtesy of Liverpool Record Office, Liverpool Libraries. Visit Liverpool Libraries online catalogues at http://archive.liverpool.gov.uk