Allenheads Hydraulic Engine (NY859452)

© Copyright Helen Wilkinson and licensed for 

reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The chief attraction of Allenheads Heritage Centre is the recently restored Armstrong Hydraulic Engine, pictured above – or, to give it its full title, the ‘W.G.Armstrong twin cylinder, double acting hydraulic engine’. It was made and supplied by the famous industrialist for his friend, the almost as well-known Thomas Sopwith, who at the time was agent of the town’s lead mine.

The water-powered mechanism was one of several that ran machinery in the mine’s yard, primarily the saw-mill and the ore crusher. Installed in the 1840s*, it was fed by Spring House and East End reservoirs high in the hills above the town – and remained in service, remarkably, until 1960. After lying unused and then derelict for a couple of decades, it was rediscovered in 1986 and subsequently restored to full working order.

It is believed to be the last remaining engine of its kind in the world.

* The installation date of the engine does not seem to be precisely known. Some sources give this as early as 1846, but as Armstrong’s mighty Elswick Works in Newcastle were not founded until 1847, this seems unlikely. Sopwith’s diary entries for 1856 indicate that Armstrong’s ‘hydraulic machines’ had by then been up and running for some time.

Quaker Activity at Wheelbirks (NZ052586 & thereabouts)

When a Quaker eccentric named David Richardson purchased the farmhouse known as Wheelbirks a couple of miles SW of Stocksfield in the 1880s, he set about stamping his mark on the landscape around his new home with some verve. He died in 1913, and managed to leave several points of interest for us to enjoy today.

The proud new owner of a small estate, he first of all carried out significant improvements to his new pad – and followed that up by building six new estate cottages. Then came the slightly strange stuff…

Richardson’s newly-purchased domain sat astride Dere Street, the ancient Roman thoroughfare which angled through the North-East from York in the south to Corbridge (and beyond) in the north. The stretch which crossed the Wheelbirks estate dipped rather clumsily over the valley cut by the Stocksfield Burn, so Richardson decided to oversee the construction of a new bridge there in 1890 – and marked it thus:

© Copyright Clive Nicholson and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

And on the other side of the bridge can be found…

© Copyright Clive Nicholson and licensed for reuse 

under this Creative Commons Licence.

The latter, I think, is a metaphor for life, in typically Quaker-ish style you may say. But Richardson left loads of these little inscriptions all over the place – in his estate cottages, on roadside walls and on seats in the woods. I have no idea how many more, if any, of these can still be found today, but a decent list of those which once existed can be found here (and scroll down a bit).

Strangest of all, though, was the sanatorium he built – a most curious affair (see here). It was intended for use by TB sufferers from his Elswick leatherworks factory on Tyneside, but remained unfinished on his death and was probably never put to use. Well, other than as a farm storage depot, that is…

Newcastle’s Suburbs, Pt.1

It doesn’t take a genius to work out how Newcastle-upon-Tyne got its name. But what about its many suburbs? These were all originally settlements in their own right but have long-since been swallowed up by the sprawling city.

Benton/Longbenton – Old English (OE) beonet- or bean-tun, hence ‘course/bent grass farm’ or ‘bean-farm’ (we’re not sure which). In time, two settlements grew – ‘Long-’ and ‘Little-’;

Benwell – OE bionnan walle, meaning ‘place inside the (Roman) wall’. Not a well in sight;

Blakelaw – Old Norse = ‘black hill’;

Byker – Again, probably Old Norse by-kiarr, which means ‘the village marsh’;

Denton – From the OE den-tun, which translates as ‘valley farmstead’;

Elswick – OE ‘Aelfsige’s (diary) farm’;

Fawdon – Again OE, from fag-dun, meaning ‘multicoloured hill’;

Fenham – A slightly tricky one. Certainly OE, but could mean ‘place at the fens’ or ‘(water-) meadow by the fen’;

Gosforth – OE meaning, literally, ‘goose-ford’, i.e. the ford where there are geese;

Heaton – OE for ‘high farm/settlement’;

Jesmond – An interesting one, this. Seems to mean ‘Ouse mouth’ – the Ouse being the river that runs through the area and whose confluence with the Tyne is a little to the south. Both elements (‘Ouse’ and ‘mouth’) have been corrupted to ‘Jes’ and ‘mond’ under French/Norman influence. Or so the academics tell us.

Part 2 next week…

The King’s Meadows (NZ230628)

(taken from http://www.newcastle-arts-centre.co.uk/r-kings_meadows.htm - copyright unknown)

The steady uninterrupted flow of the River Tyne – both its general sea-ward course and the ebb and flood of its tidal stretch – has not always been as stable and balanced. There was a time when its banks angled gently into relatively shallow depths, its bends choked with silt rendering passage difficult for all but the smallest of vessels.

As the Industrial Revolution gathered pace in the Victorian era, though, Tyneside’s industrialists began to worry about access to their growing network of factories and shipyards. The river needed to be cleared of all encumbrances … and that meant a major programme of dredging. So, in 1850, the Tyne Improvement Commission was established.

The TIC improved and maintained the river – and the Port of Tyne as a whole – for more than a century. Navigation of the waterway for the industries of Tyneside was made a good deal better and helped make the region the powerhouse in became in the latter half of the 19^th century. Of the many straightening and clearance works that were carried out in this period the most famous was perhaps the removal of the river’s most prominent island, the King’s Meadows.

This long, thin landmass extended some 2,000m in the middle of the Tyne between the villages of Dunston to the south and Elswick to the north. It amounted to some 30 acres and even had its own pub, the Countess of Coventry, whose landlady grazed cattle on the island which produced milk for the locals. Occasionally, horse racing meetings and regattas would be held on and around this little sliver of dry land – all served by a ferry service.

But the march of Victorian industry showed no sentiment toward the famous landmark, and it was eaten away by one of the new-fangled steam dredgers in the late 1870s. Nearby Clarence and George Islands (also known as Annie and Little Annie) were also swept from the riverscape, and the region lost a little more of its old-fashioned charm. But at least the businessmen were happy.