Humbledon Hill Water Works

Humbledon Hill pumping station, the earliest surviving pumping station in the area was began in 1846 by The Sunderland Water Company and was completed in 1852. A new reservoir was built on top of Humbledon Hill in 1873-4. The engine house at Humbledon survives and is a grade two Listed Building. It used a Cornish type sinking engine probably supplied by R & W Hawthorn of Newcastle. By 1851 two workers’ cottages had been built, along with a storehouse, blacksmith's shop, boundary walls, entrance gates, cooling ponds and layout of the grounds. The station was electricfied in 1924 but the engine probably survived until 1927. The surviving engine house has external buttresses to help support the beam pivot. The reservoir is surrounded by a stone wall, with a gate approximately 2.5 metres wide at the south end of the west wall. The reservoir roof was demolished in 1997 and it was then backfilled. There are no remains of any structures visible and it seems likely that the reservoir tanks have either been filled in or demolished. LISTED GRADE 2