Thompson Graving Dock. Construction of the Thompson Graving Dock began in 1904 beside the pump-house that served the Alexandra Graving Dock. It was completed in time for the dry dock work on the RMS Olympic, which was completed and ready duty on 31st May 1911 – the same day that the hull of the Titanic was launched. The Thompson Graving Dock was, at the time of its construction, the largest dry dock in the world. The dock is 268m in length and 13.4m deep, but despite its scale the imagination still has to employed to envision the massive bulk of the Titanic towering out of it. At the seaward end of the dock is a massive set of gates that were closed behind the ship as it entered, before the water was pumped from the dock. The pumphouse had been upgraded to serve the new dock and was capable of draining the 105 million litres (23 million gallons) of water that it contained in just just 2 hours. The Thompson Graving Dock & Pumphouse are situated within (and owned and operated by) the Northern Ireland Science Park on the Queen’s Road, near the Oddysey. Access to the site seems to be best done by bike, on foot or by bus. Access by car is possible but the parking at the science park does not seem to be open to the public (if you know differently then leave a comment below!). The café and visitor centre in the pumphouse is open from 10am to 4pm daily and there are two tours of the pumphouse each day. More information and contact details for the visitor centre can be found at the Titanic Dock website. Thompson Graving Dock. The 268m (880ft) long Thompson Graving Dock which lies within the Northern Ireland Science Park site, was built for the new class of White Star liners in the early 1900s but had to be enlarged further for Titanic and Olympic.  When constructed it was the largest graving dock in the world.  In terms of shipbuilding history and like the slipways the site is of world significance and with the other docks, played a key role in the development of shipbuilding and ship repair in Belfast.  The Dock is statutorily scheduled as a wet dock and remained in use for ship repair purposes until 2002.