Fitzroy Dock, Heritage maritime site on Cockatoo Island, Australia

Fitzroy Dock is a historic graving dock on Cockatoo Island stretching 145 meters long with stepped sides built from sandstone blocks in Sydney Harbour. The structure was carved directly from natural cliff faces to allow Royal Navy vessels to be lifted from the water for repairs.

The dock was completed in 1857 and stood as the first major graving dock in the Southern Hemisphere, built to service the Royal Navy fleet. This project represented a turning point in Australia's ability to repair complex vessels independently.

The dock is named after Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy, the NSW governor who laid its inverted keystone in 1853. Until Sutherland Dock opened in 1890, every Royal Navy vessel serviced on Cockatoo Island passed through here, and convicts did the shoring, scraping, cleaning and painting. The original bollards are ex-12-pounder cannons still set along the top of the dock.

The dock is accessible by regular ferry service to the island, allowing visitors to view the structures up close. Onsite displays explain the construction techniques and the vessel repair operations that took place here.

The side walls were blasted directly from natural rock using controlled explosions of gunpowder, a technically advanced method for the 1850s. This approach allowed the dock to be constructed far faster than would have been possible with hand tools alone.