Cairncross Dock

The Cairncross Dockyard was a shipyard located in Morningside, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It included one of Australia's largest graving docks with an 8.5 metre deep water access, capable of taking Panamax vessels of up to 85,000 dwt, up to 263 metres long x 33.5 metres wide. It is second in size only to the Royal Australian Navy's Captain Cook Graving Dock in Sydney.

Construction of the dockyard began in 1944, and its graving dock opened in 1944. The dockyard closed in 2014, and the land on which it stands is to be sold for residential and commercial redevelopment.

The bombing of Darwin in February 1942 during World War II created an urgent need to increase Australia's capacity to service large naval and merchant ships. The South Brisbane dockyards (built in the 1880s) were too small to accommodate many modern ships plus the construction of the Story Bridge impacted on the access to that dockyard. A larger dockyard downsteam of the Story Bridge and an area near Thynne Road, Morningside on the Hamilton Reach was chosen. Although the name was to be the Brisbane Graving Dock, the site of the dockyards was on top of the riverside feature, the Cairncross Rocks, and so it acquired the name Cairncross. Cairncross Rocks in turn were named after one of Brisbane's pioneer businessmen Willam Cairncross who built Colmslie House in Bulimba.

The Queensland Government commenced a project to construct what became the Cairncross Dockyard in August 1942. The Commonwealth Government provided funding for the project shortly afterwards, and it became one of the Allied Works Council's highest-priority projects. The total cost of the dockyard was £1,070,470, of which the Commonwealth Government contributed £425,000 and the Queensland Government the remainder.

...
Wikipedia