Raven's Wheel Shipbuilding Yards

Two small shipyards are shown on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey plan to the south of Raven’s Wheel on the Monkwearmouth side of the River Wear. Both yards incorporate narrow defiles running up the valley slope. No structures or other facilities are shown within the defiles, although cranes and smithies lie adjacent. It is uncertain whether the timber yards to the south were a part of the shipyards; there is no indication to suppose that they were. The shipyards had been closed by the time of the Second Edition Ordnance Survey plan, as had the timber yards. One of Thomas Hair’s views of Collieries in the North East, published in 1844, shows the southern of the two shipyards in front of Pemberton Main (later Monkwearmouth) Colliery. This stretch of the bank of the Wear is today a regularly contoured grassed slope, a product of landscaping associated with the construction of the Stadium of Light on the site of the former Monkwearmouth Colliery and with the formation of the ‘C 2 C’ cycle route along the river’s edge.