'Goliath' & 'Samson' cranes at, Harland And Wolff, Queen's Island, Belfast, BT3 9DU is a Grade Record Only listed building in the Belfast local planning authority area, Northern Ireland. Crane.
'Goliath' & 'Samson' cranes at, Harland And Wolff, Queen's Island, Belfast, BT3 9DU
- WRENN ID
- half-ashlar-equinox
- Grade
- Record Only
- Local Planning Authority
- Belfast
- Constituency
- Belfast East MP: Gavin Robinson (DUP)
- Country
- Northern Ireland
- Type
- Crane
- Address
- 'Goliath' & 'Samson' cranes at, Harland And Wolff, Queen's Island, Belfast, BT3 9DU, Ballymacarret, BT3 9DU
- Irish grid reference
- J 357 753
- Coordinates
- 54.60793, -5.89997
- Source
- NI Environment Agency listing
Description
The 'Goliath' and 'Samson' cranes are a pair of extremely large bridge cranes constructed between 1969 and 1972 as part of a redevelopment program for the Harland and Wolff shipyard on Queen’s Island, Belfast. Designed and built by the German heavy engineering company of Krupp, these cranes were constructed in conjunction with a large dry dock and industrial workshops to maintain the shipyard’s competitiveness. The cranes were designed to serve as a shipbuilding and assembly facility. 'Goliath', completed in 1969, stands approximately 196 metres high, while the slightly taller 'Samson', finished in 1972, reaches approximately 206 metres. Each crane has a maximum lifting capacity of 840 tonnes and runs on tracks aligned with the dry dock. Harland and Wolff, established in 1861, had grown to become a major shipbuilding company employing tens of thousands of people by the mid-20th century. The cranes are of industrial archaeological interest and are protected through scheduling.
Local climate
'Goliath' & 'Samson' cranes at, Harland And Wolff, Queen's Island, Belfast, BT3 9DU sits in a wetter-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 1,030 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 82% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 80% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 8 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 93% of listed buildings. Of these, 5 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.2°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- No flood data for this area
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
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- 4 Titan Cantilever Crane, John Brown's Shipyard, Clydebank
- 5 Building dock at, Harland And Wolff, Queen's Island, Belfast, BT3 9DU
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