Tennant's Alkali Works

Tennants Works (Alkali). These are not shown on 1st edition OS mapping, so were built after 1855 {1}. The large chemical works of United Alkali began as Tennant's Chemical Works in the mid 1860s. The chief product was soda crystals, but sulphuric acid, bleaching powder and waterglass were made here until the works ran down in the 1920s {2}. The firm of Messrs Tennant bought land at Hebburn on which to move their works from Glasgow, in which sulphate of soda was converted into alkali. The works commenced operated in 1865. It was one of the few sites at that time to possess a deep water quay. The Hebburn and Jarrow (HER 2279) Works shared in the development of the South Durham (Haverton Hill) salt deposits and in the formation of a local factory to work the copper in the pyrites used in making sulphuric acid - the Tharsis Copper Company. The Tennant Works and the Allhusen Works (HER 3519) were the last Leblanc Soda works to operate on the Tyne. The factory was taken over by the United Alkali Company in 1890 and was used to make soda crystals. The works ran down after the First World War.