Fawdon Wagonway

Fawdon Wagonway. Tomlinson records that a Mr Thompson put a complex of fixed engines on this line between the Kenton Bank and Hotchpudding planes, a distance of one mile and three furlongs. The engines allowed the coal wagons to be conveyed over undulating countryside at the rate of seven miles an hour. It worked until 1826 when a new line to the Tyne at Whitehill Point was built (Brunton and Shields Wagonway, later Seaton Burn Wagonway - joins the Fawdon line at NZ 2481 7243). The Fawdon and Seatonburn Wagonways were used in the 1890s as the base for the Fawdon Railway, along with the Coxlodge Wagonway. This formed a loop from Gosforth Colliery to the Tyne Staiths and was built by the Burradon and Coxlodge Coal Co. Section between Fawdon and Brunton closed in 1850. By 1860 with Wideopen, Fawdon and Brunton closed the line had been reduced but was reused once more when Dinnington Colliery was opened in 1867. The wagonway survives as a low earthwork maintained as a metalled access route. In 2003 some excavations excavation of its remains were carried out in the locality of Newcastle Geat Park.