Pallion Hall Timber Shipbuilding Yard

A line of ten shipyards is shown on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey plan on the south bank of the River Wear at Pallion, occupying an area of marginal river strand and mudflat. It is uncertain when they were established on the site. The yards appear to have been very simple and contained only cranes, saw pits and a few structures, probably smithies and storehouses. A rectilinear tidal dock in the centre of the area served two saw mills which, in turn, presumably served the shipyards. By the time of the Second Edition Ordnance Survey map in 1898, the yards had been rationalised into two discrete yards. No evidence for these early shipyards survives.