A number of interesting industrial sites survive along the Beamish Burn, most of which are in County Durham, but are listed here to provide a full description of the Burn industries. High Forge is the most well preserved of all the buildings. It was originally a corn mill but was converted into a Trip Hammer Forge. Bar iron was used for cannon making, shovels and files. First recorded in 1714 as Pigg Mill owned by Richard Clarke and Margery Lidell. Recorded as "Pockerley Mill" in 1745 owned by Jn Mackneal. Recorded as "Pockerley Corn Mill" in 1764. Advertised for sale in the Newcastle Journal in 1765 as "a forge for manufacturing iron-plate…". Little survives of Middle Forge, although its location and the mill race can still be deduced. Recorded as "Pockerley Wash Pool" Fulling Mill in 1717. In 1730 it was rented by Gabriel Hall and Thomas Swinhoe for the dressing of skins into oil and leather. Recorded as "The Leather Mill" in 1742 and as "Middle Forge" in 1792. It was probably partially destroyed in the Beamish Burn flood in 1877. By 1895 buildings were still present but no races. In around 1900 one of the houses was converted into a sweet shop to serve local tourists. In 1939 the buildings were demolished. The pumping station was built to work in conjunction with the drift mining in the area to remove the water from the mine shafts. 2 shafts were present by the engine house. There are records of an "old engine" in 1836, but by 1839 the water wheel power became insufficient to remove water so a steam engine was erected in 1860. By 1926 it was found that water was draining away naturally because the strata had shifted. The engine house was therefore closed. Low Forge is probably the oldest of the three forges. It was known as "Hussey's Forge" in 1764 and as "Iron Forge" in 1799. The name "Low Forge" is recorded in 1803. Low Forge closed in 1877 due to the Beamish Burn flood and the buildings were demolished in 1895. The well-covered remains of a stone archway still exist as the entrance to the Paper Mill or Money Hill drift. When drift mining ceased, an explosive was set a few metres inside the tunnel which successfully blocked the tunnel for safety reasons. The drift was in operation from 1895 to 1920. One of the buildings of Urpeth Paper Mill still stands and is used as a stable. Mount Escop was originally worker's cottages. It has been converted for tourist accommodation. The mill was in use from at least 1792 and it may have been destroyed by the flood in 1877. The existing footpaths along the Burn have coal slag as an aggregate, possibly from the forges. Few records exist of wagonways but they were present in the burn between 1895-1903. The burn industries were so important that a canal was proposed to connect them to the Tyne. A plan was completed and signed by Samuel Claiths in 1803. The forges were a significant contributor to armaments (canon making) around 1800, especially for the Napoleonic Wars. Apart from the 1877 flood, other reasons for the closing of the Burn industries were the fact that water power could not compete with the larger steam run factories. It also became unfashionable to live in the rural area, so the cottages were demolished in the 1930s. High and Low Quarries probably supplied stone for the Beamish Estate. High Quarry provided high quality stone, and Low Quarry provided stone for less important buildings. In around 1900, ash from the almshouse's ash closets was dumped in the quarries and in more recent times they have been used for dumping rubbish so little remains. John Eden's Almshouses were built in 1836 by John Eden, landowner of Beamish, as retirement homes for workers from his estate {1}.

The Tanfield Railway was in a sense the successor to the Tanfield Waggonway of 1727 which, having lain dormant for several decades, was taken over on a wayleave agreement in 18th century by the Brandling Junction Railway Company which began to relay track from Tanfield Lea to Dunston on Tyne in 1837, completing the job by 1840. By securing the coals of Tanfield Lea colliery they dealt the coup de gras to the Stanhope and Tyne Railway which thereby lost some £5000 annual revenue. The Tanfield Railway rose some 536ft from the Tyne in 3.25 miles before descending 90ft over the next 2.25 miles to Tanfield Lea Colliery and then rising once more to its terminus at over 800ft AOD at Tanfield Moor Colliery (by 1841). With gradients varying between 1 in 12 and 1 in 454, several changes in motive power were necessary along the route - engine planes, self-acting planes and horse planes. Horses continued to work the more level sections until 1881. In 1842 the BJR commenced passenger operations on the section of the line between Tanfield Lea and Gateshead; up and down the inclines, on Saturdays only. This was not uncommon on the rope-worked railways of County Durham in the 1840s. In 1844 the BJR was bullied into settling terms with the infamous George Hudson for the sale of their line and branches to him personally although within days he transferred it to his Newcastle and Darlington Junction Company and the Tanfield Railway thereby became part of the NER in 1854. {1} The Tanfield Way is the most famous of the waggonways and has been widely described elsewhere (Lewis 1970). The branches of the way, however, are less well understood.
George Whortley Montagu offered a joint waggonway into the Tanfield leases. In 1724 a full merger of Liddell-Montagu concerns was signed and was later extended to their collieries. Waggonways and way leaves were to be pooled.
The Tanfield Way was open to Blackburn by 1724, and the following year it was carried into Tanfield. It used the Blackburn Fell common to pass between Bowes estates of Marley Hill and Hedley Fell, where considerable earthworks over Burdon Dene were necessary. It skirted by Axwell’s Andrew‘s House and then had to negotiate the obstacle of the Causey Burn. To cross the stream a massive 100ft embankment was built over the diverted and culverted stream; the culvert sidewalls were carried on timbers still visible in the burn. The embankment remained a railway embankment until the closures of the 1950s and 1960s.
The line ended at North Causey and was only carried further south in 1727. However, a branch crossed back across the burn by the famous Causey Arch. Burdon Moor Branch was the first “branch” of the Tanfield Way and was actually built before the Way itself. The new Burdon Moor Workings must have been on Blackburn Fell, although a plan of 1728 shows it extending much further south onto Hedley Fell. Working Hedley Fell by this route imposed a long pull south of Burdon Moor. The branch still exists as a footpath south of Sunniside, curling round by Lingey Fines, a colliery of the 1630s.A former main line, it is shown as just over two miles long on a plan of 1728. It reached from Bowes Bridge and ended at the main colliery of Wortley Montagu. The massive earthworks over Burdon Dene and the Causey Burn, which today carry the Gateshead-Stanley road, were built for this branch. The line was later extended to the side of Park House, crossing the Beamish Burn on a “stone bridge”. From here, between 1733 and 1736 it continued to (West) Shieldrow Colliery and later extended to Oxhill, about eight miles from Dunston. The Harelaw copyhold lay to the south-west of Bushblades Lane. When Windsor and Simpson leased the coal, a branch was taken off the eastern trunk north of Flint Hill and carried to a point west of Catchgate. It was probably joined to Greencroft, making it equal in length to the Pont Valley Way.

The North Eastern Railway Company started work in 1864, on the 11 mile long Derwent Valley branch railway line, from Scotswood Junction to Blackhill, Consett. The railway was opened to freight traffic 3 years later on 18th June 1867, and to passengers on 2nd December 1867. The main engineering features were the excavation of a half mile long 60ft deep cutting at Lockhaugh, north east of Rowlands Gill, and 4 large viaducts over the River Derwent and its tributaries. The viaducts at Lockhaugh and Rowlands Gill are 80ft above the river, at Lintz Green 90ft and over the Pont Burn at Hamsterley 120ft high and 600ft long. Freight traffic on the railway line included timber and bricks from Rowlands Gill, milk from Ebchester and coal from the numerous local drift mines. The upper reaches of the valley were once famous for the mining of silver and lead, but now only fluorspar is mined. The railway was heavily used, particularly by passengers, up until the First World War, but then the use declined because of competition from buses. This decline was aggravated by the siting of some stations away from the centre of villages. The railway closed to passengers on 2nd November 1953, and to freight traffic in 1962. The railway is commemorated in the Geordie folk song about an ill-fated train journey from Rowlands Gill, "Wor Nanny's a Mazer" {1}.

Wilhelm Bertram, a steelmaker from Remscheid in Germany, was shipwrecked off the north Durham coast in 1693. A few years later he was said to be in charge of a furnace in Newcastle. By 1720 Bertram had transferred to Blackhall Mill, acting as steelmaker for the furnace owned by Hayford. The Hollow Sword Blade Company, which was originally set up near Shotley Bridge in about 1686 by German immigrants, was apparently being supplied with cementation steel by Hayford. There is a description of the works in H. Kalmeter "Dagbok ofver en 1718-1726 Foretagen Resa", vol 1, folios 349-350. There is a picture of the furnace in R.R. Angerstein, 1753, "Resa genom England, 1753-1755". Bertram pioneered the production of German steel by forging blister steel. Angerstein says that the "Shear Steel" mark - a stamp showing crossed shear blades, was Bertram's own mark. Indded the making of "Shear Steel" was introduced into Sheffield by a workman from Blackhall Mill in 1767. Bertram died around 1740. In 1753 his son was running Blackhall Mill. At this time some 30 tons of "German steel" was made in a year with a further 100 tons or so of blister steel in simple bars. The steel from Newcastle and Blackhall Mill was said to be the best in England, due to the care taken in selecting the iron, and its processing. The furnaces had chests 127 inches long, made from sandstone. The flues and vaults were of Stourbridge bricks and the rest of the structure was in dressed stone. The furnace chimneys were 28-30 feet high with a top diameter of about 3 feet. In 1810 and 1811 the Blackhall Mill site was being worked by the Cooksons. It is omitted from a list of steel manufacturers for 1863 (see Spencer 1864), so must have gone out of operation some time between 1811 and 1863. It may have closed at the same time as Cookson's works in Newcastle, which were abandoned in 1851-53. A postcard dated 1913 shows Blackhall Mill essentially similar to the nearby Derwencote furnace, without the buttresses. Blackhall Mill was demolished in 1916 to make way for a school house.

Once part of a series of ferro-concrete structures built for the Cooperative Wholesale Society at Dunston. The complex, which formerly included a flour mill (SMR 1668) and grain silos (SMR 1624), dates from two periods, 1970-8 and 1911-14. The soap works brings together the use of the Hennebique ferro-concrete construction system and a modified Renaissance architectural style designed by L.G. Ekins of the CWS. Used for a number of years as a hide and skin works but currently disused. {1} The soap works are the last surviving block of a set of early reinforced concrete (ferro concrete) buildings built here on the river's edge. Entirely in concrete, the buildings consisted originally of a two storey building with four central bays of three storeys; the third storey was added in 1919 and the building extended over the river to the north. In plain classical style with keystones, frieze and balustrading all in ferro-concrete to Mouchels original patents. Presently used as CWS Hide and Skin Depot. 1907, extended 1919. By WG Ekins. The small office block was built circa 1931 in fine standards of Dutch influenced brickwork characteristic of the CWS in the 1930s in the north-east. Demolished 1981 {2}. The CWS buildings at Dunston are impressive not only as architecture and riverside townscape, but also as examples of early reinforced concrete construction and as an early example of CWS manufacturing. The Newcastle branch of the CWS was founded in 1871, eight years after the inception of the CWS in Manchester. The CWS works at Pelaw and Dunston were the first major manufacturing premises of the Co-operative Wholesale Society outside the Manchester area. Originally it was intended to locate the soap works at Pelaw but it became necessary to locate them at Dunston, adjacent to the flour mills which had opened in 1891 (SMR 1668). Contemporary descriptions of these buildings emphasise their advanced design and equipment - the soap works were described as "light and roomy and pleasing within and without… neither time, nor space nor power is wasted" {4}.

Disused stone built station of 1842 on the 1839 railway planned by the Brandling family. A small chapel-like station with a tall narrow projecting cross gable towards the track side having triple lancet windows, above which is the family crest and the prophetic initials 'BR'. {1} The main line of the Brandling Junction Railway, from Gateshead to Brockley Whins Junction (now Boldon Colliery), and thence to South Shields and Monkwearmouth, was opened on 5th September 1839. The accommodation provided at all the stations was decidedly primitive, and at Felling the cabin for the station-keeper was so small that there was room for only two or three waiting passengers to sit down. The lack of accommodation gave rise to complaints, and the Directors instructed their Chief Engineer, Nicholas Wood, to prepare plans for a station house. In a report dated 6th September 1841, Wood gave a list of sundry works still needed to complete the railway, including a station house at Felling at an estimated cost of £200. Not long afterwards, on 31st January 1842, Wood tendered his resignation from the company, without apparently having prepared plans for the Felling station. The name of the man who actually designed it has not been traced, but it seems most likely that Wood's successor, Ralph Coulthard, was responsible, aided perhaps by some drawings in an architects' pattern book. Towards the end of 1842, Joseph Colthurst, the B.J.R. manager, was able to report that "the Felling Station House had been contracted for at £175 and will be completed in 6 weeks from the 7th inst.". Thus the building was probably completed in December 1842 or January 1843. The old Felling station remained in use until c.1896, when the railway between Gateshead and Pelaw junction was widened from two tracks to four, and a much larger station was opened on an island platform between the two new tracks {2}.

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 18th century is illustrated in "View of the Collieries of Northumberland and Durham" by the artist T.H. Hair {1}. 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 the Denton Hall MSS there is a note about this: "When the Mr. Ridley's Colliery at Heaton left off working the Lessee of Friarsgoose Colliery offered him £200 a year for the use of his Engines at Heaton for to preserve Heaton water from falling down to their Colliery, but Mr. Ridley would not take less than £500 a year, the two Engines if sold would not have been worth more than Five or Six Hundred Pounds he might have had this Two Hundred Pounds a year for perhaps 20 years - for want of these Fire Engines of Mr. Ridley's Friarsgoose was lost and given up. One of the best Fire Engines well fitted up may cost £1,000 or £1,500 and if constantly employed cost £400 per annum keeping". In 1823 a new Friars goose pumping station was operating. This pumping station was laid in in 1851 {2}.

Railway bridge. 1902-6 by Charles A Harrison for the North Eastern Railway; contractors Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co. Sandstone ashlar piers and red sandstone approach viaducts with steel girder deck. Originally planned to have only 2 lattice girder spans, the discovery of old coal workings caused a change of design to 4 steel spans. 5 ashlar piers, of which 3 are in the river, are pierced by 2 tall arches rest on high plinths and support steel lattice girder bridge deck. Strings on piers along line of upper and lower girders, and raised panels between, give classical proportions to piers which rise to parapet above rail track bed. Land approach on south divides into 2 viaducts, that to the east with 2 arches and that to the south-west with 3 arches. At the junction of these 2 viaducts a large rock-faced support pier with 6 arches, the central 3 are 2 storey on their south face. East Coast Main Line electrification girders added to bridge. The northern half of this bridge is listed in Newcastle upon Tyne {2}. The original plan was for two lattice girder spans with land approach arches until it was discovered that old coal workings at both ends meant that most of the arches had to be abandoned. Consequently the bridge was built with four massive steel lattice girder spans carrying four rail tracks, each 28ft (8.5m) deep and up to 300ft (91m) long, supported on solid stone piers; cost just over £500,000 and very much a workaday design. {1} opened 10th July 1906 by Edward VII. The bridge made it possible for trains from the south to enter the Central Station from either end. Cost £500,000.

The present bridge, now disused, is the third on this site. The first, of 1839, was by John Blackmore for the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, a timber truss bridge on the skew with eleven spans each of 60ft (18.2m); it burned down in 1860 during a Board of Trade inspection. A temporary bridge replaced it and lasted until 1871 when the present bridge, with wrought iron hog-back girders each of 127ft (38.6m) on cast iron cylinder piers, was opened. {1} The railway bridge was built as part of the important development of the Newcastle to Carlisle Railway. The bridge was sanctioned by the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway Act of 1829 but was not completed until ten years later. The original bridge was of timber superstructure and timber piers built in 11 skew spans of about 60ft. It was the only railway link across the river until the opening of the High level Bridge in 1849. The bridge burnt down in 1860, set alight by falling cinders from a passing train at the very time that a Board of Trade inspection was being carried out. A temporary bridge replaced it for a few years until the present iron bridge was started in 1858. It is of wrought iron with side and centre hedgebacked girders spanning 127ft each, and iron cross girders supporting the lines. The piers are cast iron cylinders sunk into the shale at a maximum depth of 50ft below high water. The bridge closed in 1982 since when trains have used the line along the south bank and crossed the river on the King Edward and High Level Bridges. {2}