photo: Peter Johnson

A little bit of History

Aerial view of Shed 26, top right alongside Flectcher's Dock, 1959

Some of the buildings at Glanville Dockyards which were demolished in 2004 to make way for the development.

The Glanville Dockyard, in which Shed 26 was constructed, was formerly a section of the Government Dockyards that had existed over this part of the Port River embankment and extended from the causeway in the west to the Graving Dock to the east. 

In the early years of the province of South Australia a small parcel of land was set aside on the south side of Hawker’s Creek for the purposes of a dockyard at which to service boats and ships. By the 1850s the Government Dockyards were already “in full swing” (Parsons 158). A report in The Register of 1863 commented on the continual and much unabated activity at the Government Dockyards (Register 31 March 1863: 2g). Between 1878 and 1880 the Register again noted a “considerable increase” in the expansion of the Yards (Register 1880). Heavy investment accelerated in machinery and workshops from 1881 as the site’s invaluable potential was beginning to be realised (Register 1881: 7b). 

By 1898, 300 men were employed at the dockyard with more expansion to follow in 1905. In 1949 the SA Harbors Board’s Greater Port Adelaide Plan masterplan came to fruition.
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"The dockyard is the service department for all the board's widely extended and rapidly expanding activities. The volume of work accruing in all the various fields that have to be catered for is now much in excess of the present capacity of the dockyard. It is, therefore, proposed whilst continuing operations in the existing premises, to construct new workshops and ancillaries in juxtaposition to the old."

This heralded a complete revamping of the Glanville Dockyard. Work commenced in 1956 on the construction of Shed 26, with workshops that were at the time rated highly by international standards. This period of modernization that affected many aspects of the Port’s harbour facilities was very important. 
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The revamped Dockyard was involved in maintenance provisioning on an ever-increasing scale. However, by 1986 with its best days behind it there were 236 employees at the Glanville Dockyard and it closed about 1988. 

Shed 26 and the Glanville Dockyards, August 2003

Location

Located at the former Glanville Dockyards, Northern Bank of Port Adelaide's Inner Harbour

Inner Harbour, west of the Birkenhead Bridge (marked on map as Nelson Street)

North bank of the Inner Harbour facing west.