Dunston Staiths
Built by the north eastern railway company and opened in 1893, dunston staiths is an important monument to the regions industrial past enabling public access again after much refurbishment, to make it a sustainable visitor attraction. A symbol of the heavy industry past of tyneside, dunston staiths is a pier-like runway which was used to tip countless millions of tons of coal into the cargo holds of huge ships on the river tyne below. Originally one of around 30 such structures on the river during the industrial period in which the north east supplied coal to the world, dunston staiths is now the sole survivor of a bygone age.
At its height, 5.5m tonnes of coal a year was taken by rail from the durham coalfields and loaded from the staiths onto ships waiting on the river, which transported coal around the british isles and internationally. Built to save the rail journey to the docks at the mouth of the river, a second set of staiths was built adjoining the first in 1903 and a tidal basin dug out, providing six berths in all, where colliers could be loaded at all states of the tide.
A landmark of the past, the structure, the biggest wooden structure in europe, came to the end of its working life in the late 1970s. Since then the structure has gone through a repeating cycle of repair and ruin and now sits on the historic england¡¯s heritage-at-risk register.
With much of the region built off the riches of the coal industry acting as an instrument in the development of the towns and cities of tyneside, the protection of the staiths is of much importance to the region.
Dunston staiths partial restoration saw it opened to the public as part of the gateshead garden festival in 1990. Fire damage in 2003 saw 8% of the monument being lost with further fires in 2010 and 2020. A conservation plan, condition survey and feasibility study have been produced to ensure the care and protection of this monument. The first phase of repair was completed in 2016 with the help of funding from the national lottery heritage fund and historic england. Further repair was funded by historic england in 2018 and historic england are still working with gateshead council and the owners to find a long term solution for the site.
Sections of the staiths are now usually opened from april to september, with restoration work on-going, including work by volunteers from the staiths friends. The area around the staiths provides mudflats and saltmarsh environments, important for wildlife. The staiths themselves also provides roosting areas for a range of bird species including grey heron, lapwing and redshank.
Victoria Tunnel
The Victoria Tunnel, is a subterranean wagonway that runs under Newcastle from the Town Moor at Leazes Main Colliery in Spital Tongues, down to the River Tyne. It was built between 1839-42 to transport coal to riverside staiths (jetties) ready for loading onto boats for export. The tunnel is 2.4 miles (3.9 km) in length with a maximum depth of 85 feet (26 m) and drops 222 feet (68 m) from entrance to exit. It remains largely intact.
Initially, the coal was carried on carts from the colliery through the streets of Newcastle upon Tyne to the river, ready for shipping. At the time, the Leazes Main or Spital Tongues Colliery was one of many coal mines around Newcastle, but moving coal through the streets to the river was slow and expensive due to the road taxes, leading to the colliery owners employing a local engineer to construct an underground wagonway.
Permission to build the Tunnel was granted in 1838 and work started the next year, when the Tunnel was most likely dug in sections. The engineers excavated a shaft down to the right level then tunnelled out to link up with the next section. Building works were carried out by two hundred who were given a substantial supper and strong ale, supplied by Mrs. Dixon, the worthy hostess of the Unicorn Inn, Bigg-market, Newcastle.
The tunnel was driven through boulder clay and formed by a base course of stone supporting a brick arch. Because of the gradual gradient of the Tunnel, loaded wagons were able to roll along a standard gauge rail track down to the river. A rope was tied to the last wagon in the train and a stationary steam engine at the top of the Tunnel hauled the empty wagons back up to the pithead.
The Victoria Tunnel was named after the popular, young Queen Victoria and was opened by the Mayor of Newcastle on 7 April 1842. A crowd of spectators including the sheriff and important merchants gathered on the quayside and at 1pm cannons were fired as a train of eight wagons appeared out of the Tunnel. Four of the wagons contained coal, and the others a ‘company of ladies and gentlemen and a band of musicians’.
The Victoria Tunnel was a financial success: it reduced the cost of transporting coal from the pit to the river by 88%. The colliery, however was not a success and closed in 1860. Having taken two and a half years to build, the Tunnel was in use for just eighteen years. The Colliery closed in January 1860 and the Tunnel was abandoned until the start of the Second World War when it was converted for use as an air raid shelter with wooden benches and around 500 bunk beds installed, as well as chemical toilets, anti-blast baffles, lime washed walls and a number of new entrances.
In total, seven new entrances were completed: Claremont Road; Hancock Museum; St Thomas’ Churchyard; Ridley Place; Shieldfield Green; Crawhall Road; and Ouse Street. At Ouse Street you could walk straight into the Tunnel, but the other access points looked like subway entrances and involved walking down a steep corridor until you reached the Tunnel.
At the end of the war, most of the fittings were removed and all of the entrances except Ouse Street were closed. This entrance had been built on private land: the garden of number 14 Ouse Street.
The Ouseburn Valley
The Ouseburn Valley is often considered the birthplace of the industrial revolution in Newcastle. The area’s rich industrial background dates back to the 17th-century. By the mid-20th century, many of the local industries, houses and pubs had either closed or moved out. The area presented a sorry neglected combination of empty buildings, derelict sites, scrapyards, warehousing, and car-related businesses.
This all started to change with the introduction of artists and musicians to the area in the early 1980s. New organisations followed, partnerships developed, regeneration programmes were initiated and the area’s heritage and character reclaimed and promoted. Now, Ouseburn is a thriving urban village - home to a conservation area and often dubbed Newcastle’s Cultural Quarter.
The Ouseburn river is the longest of Newcastle’s Tyne river tributaries and is tidal up to the base of Stepney bank. It was originally a fast flowing stream, but the nature of the water course has changed considerably due to developments further up stream leaving the Ouseburn slow moving and of poor water quality. The Ouseburn is edged from Stepney Bank to its confluence with the Tyne by an eclectic mix of retaining structures from various periods.
The area of the Ouseburn valley has been significantly shaped by its industrial past and the industrialisation of the Ouseburn river and its banks during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, although only a few of the buildings from these periods remain.
The Ouseburn was a major factor in the type of industrial development attracted to the valley and its built form. The Ouseburn was an effective transport route, its tidal nature permitted the keels (boats) and later the wherries to travel up stream from the river Tyne. As a result, processing industries located in the valley and relied on the watercourse for the delivery of materials and export of the finished products. The corridor of buildings on each side of the Ouseburn was dense with mills, warehouses, factories etc and stretched right up to the stream’s edge, incorporating slipways and shoring for boats, as well as loading equipment, mill races and waterwheels.
One such set of buildings at the water’s edge was the Maling pottery warehouses and factory buildings. The pottery warehouse which once housed up to around a million pieces of pottery at a time, has not been taken over by Brinkburn brewery, a new industry which has recently expanded into the Maling Hall and opened the space as a ‘new unique quirky warehouse event space’ currently hosting ‘Newcastle’s biggest socially distanced indoor pub’. the creative reuse of spaces such as these in the Ouseburn valley has allowed these historic, industrial buildings to remain part of the fabric of the area.
Ouseburn Industries
Once the home to industries of confectionary works (the toffee factory), lead works, wire mattress works, engineering plants, insulation works, furniture factories, ice factory and storage, an abattoir and garages as well as numerous other industries in the area, the ouseburn’s various industrial buildings are now home to artists’ workshops, mixed-use office spaces and many other creative re-uses.
This melting pot of creative, business and residential spaces has led to the area being referred to as Newcastle’s creative quarter but also reflects the areas standing as one of the fasting growing parts of the city with proposals and developments breaking ground across the entire valley. This is very much the case for the mouth of the ouseburn which was most recently made home to the Malings, a collection of houses and apartments alongside allotments and various small business spaces.
The valley has now also become home to more industrial warehouses and businesses, such as a timber yard, scrap metal works, two breweries, print works, bakeries and more. These new businesses, although no longer relying on the river itself to import and export from the area, are the new lifeblood of the area, bringing custom as well as footfall to the creative spaces and other leisure spaces.
Malmo Quay
Malmo Quay (historically Wharf) is a significant site where the Ouseburn meets the Tyne with views of the iconic Newcastle bridges and quayside. The site was a key piece of the valley’s industrial growth due to its placement at the meeting point of the Ouseburn and the Tyne, allowing for shipments of raw materials to arrive for factory use as well as finished products to the Tyne to be exported. now, an underground pumping station has rendered much of the site ‘un-developable’ leaving it a clear but wasted plot at the junction between the Ouseburn and the Tyne.
Multiple attempts to design mixed-use developments on the site have been pushed back over the years, leaving the site open to some form of development. Most recently, the site has had proposals for the client igloo drawn up by multiple local architecture practices, such as MawsonKerr, GT3 and xsite. These proposals, each different in scale but similar in material, has been kept low on the waterfront given the prominence and sensitivity of the site, alongside its considerable public interest. Several of the proposals envisage a waterside village with a range of low-rise buildings, courtyard spaces and flexible areas which could host events and markets.
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