Blaydon Burn, brick building (coal screen?)

A substantial 'L' shaped brick structure first shown on the 3rd edition OS revision of 1913-14, and again on the 4th edition of 1940, and associated with Blaydon Burn Colliery. Presumably built by Priestman Collieries between 1900 and 1914.

The surviving structure comprises a high brick wall set on a slope behind retaining wall (26). This wall stands 7 - 8m high and measured approximately 12m east to west (Plate 40). It is constructed predominately of unmarked red housebricks, although, Lily bricks and Hannington and Benson firebricks are also incorporated. The east facing return wall is of the same construction and appears to have continued downhill towards the brick extension at the end of (26). The scar of a east to west internal partition wall can be clearly seen on this face (Plate 41), and similarly traced on the gound. Both extant walls featured a series of square holes placed at regular intervals. Unlike the drainage holes found elsewhere on the site these sockets incorporated the remains of a iron rods (sawn off) which probably formed a grid across the structure to hold a screening mesh.

The rear of the structure was formed by the valley bank, above which was the coal tip at the end of the upper waggonway (24). A branch of the waggonway is shown on the 3rd ed. OS as running into the rear of the structure for delivering coal to be tipped into the screens and then the sorted material transported to the adjacent coking works below. The interior of the building is at present choked with brick and rubble but there are coal residues visible on the surface of the walls. A series of brick buttress run along the eastern side of the building to the rear of the main east-west wall.","063-066","Fair, extensive collapse and rubble in interior."