Blazinhawkz
Well-known member
The Pump Station
Permission visit by pure chance after the neighbours dogs alerted the full town,any way the guy was decent enough to tell us to be back on Saturday and we’d be given access. Very sceptical we turned up at the time given to be greeted by a friendly face. “Why on earth you’d want to get in here is beyond me but I’ll be back in 2 hours,just don’t turn right through that door” two hours just wasn’t enough in here. Hopefully a return visit will happen.
A little history on the place taken from British listed buildings GV II* Water pumping station, disused. 1873-79, by Thomas Hawksley, engineer to the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company. Brick with sandstone dressings and slate hipped roof. Symmetrical axial plan with lateral rear boiler houses and integral chimney and stair tower between. Venetian Gothic Revival style. 2 storeys and basement; 1-window range. Plinth, cill and label bands, moulded eaves cornice and roof with small louvred dormers and decorative iron widow's walk. The entrance front has 3-sided flight of steps up to a coped, gabled ashlar door surround, set forward with 2-centred arched doorway containing 2 attached nook shafts with foliate capitals and a half glazed double door; above is a fine 5-light window with column mullions and label mould. 2-window sides divided by full height buttresses have 2-centre arched ground floor windows with 2 round arched lights and a top oculus in plate tracery, with first-floor flat arched 3-light mullion windows with shouldered heads; small paired basement openings to access the flywheel bearings. All windows blocked at time of Review. Behind is a massive chimney truncated at the top of the stairs with shallow clasping buttresses to a moulded string, and narrow stair lights, encased at the base by a 4-bay boiler house and coal store, each bay with a hipped roof and single light in the ends, with 2-centre arched plate-tracery windows, wider in the third bay with an ashlar tympanum, and paired windows with shouldered heads in the second bay. Interior has a fine and fairly complete engine house containing a pair of 72" single-acting non-rotative beam engine by Davy Bros, 1879, with a heavy Corinthian entablature on moulded square-section tapering cast-iron columns, mezzanine at cylinder head level, with an early gantry crane, and steps down to the borehole; to the rear half-glazed doors at each floor lead from the stair flight round the chimney. The boiler house has a wrought-iron truss roof with elaborate iron spacing brackets. The boilers have been removed.
A little history on the place taken from British listed buildings GV II* Water pumping station, disused. 1873-79, by Thomas Hawksley, engineer to the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company. Brick with sandstone dressings and slate hipped roof. Symmetrical axial plan with lateral rear boiler houses and integral chimney and stair tower between. Venetian Gothic Revival style. 2 storeys and basement; 1-window range. Plinth, cill and label bands, moulded eaves cornice and roof with small louvred dormers and decorative iron widow's walk. The entrance front has 3-sided flight of steps up to a coped, gabled ashlar door surround, set forward with 2-centred arched doorway containing 2 attached nook shafts with foliate capitals and a half glazed double door; above is a fine 5-light window with column mullions and label mould. 2-window sides divided by full height buttresses have 2-centre arched ground floor windows with 2 round arched lights and a top oculus in plate tracery, with first-floor flat arched 3-light mullion windows with shouldered heads; small paired basement openings to access the flywheel bearings. All windows blocked at time of Review. Behind is a massive chimney truncated at the top of the stairs with shallow clasping buttresses to a moulded string, and narrow stair lights, encased at the base by a 4-bay boiler house and coal store, each bay with a hipped roof and single light in the ends, with 2-centre arched plate-tracery windows, wider in the third bay with an ashlar tympanum, and paired windows with shouldered heads in the second bay. Interior has a fine and fairly complete engine house containing a pair of 72" single-acting non-rotative beam engine by Davy Bros, 1879, with a heavy Corinthian entablature on moulded square-section tapering cast-iron columns, mezzanine at cylinder head level, with an early gantry crane, and steps down to the borehole; to the rear half-glazed doors at each floor lead from the stair flight round the chimney. The boiler house has a wrought-iron truss roof with elaborate iron spacing brackets. The boilers have been removed.
Pump Station by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Wheel by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Pieces by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Pump It by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Arm by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Joint by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
6 Circles by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Tank Tops by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Left by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Left by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Pipes by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Bottom Curves by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Nuts To This by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Little Turns by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Big Flat by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
Chained by Blazin Hawk, on Flickr
On Point by Blazin Hawk, on FlickrThanks For Poking
