Felling, Friar's Goose Pumping Station

The fragmentary remains of a beam pumping engine house on the site of a series of engines built to drain the Tyne Coal Basin. Massively constructed beam-wall survives showing the location of a beam pivot socket, gantry joist holes and a round headed opening; the pivot wall is buttressed. The engine house, as it appeared in c.1840 is illustrated in "View of the Collieries of Northumberland and Durham" by the artist T.H. Hair. In 1745 two engines were built at Dent's Hole and two at Byker because the water in the Heaton and Jesmond wastes was a constant threat on the barriers of Byker Colliery. A report of 1746 highlighted the threat of increased water, so Friars Goose pumping station was built with two engines, connected through the under-river workings with Byker south district. In spite of all precautions, however, the water was increasingly in excess of the power of the many pumps to deal with it, and in 1763 the Friars Goose engines ceased to work, being drowned out. In 1823 a new Friars goose pumping station was operating. This pumping station was laid in in 1851. LISTED GRADE 2