Benwell Old Engine

It is believed that a substantial steam engine to drain water from nearby mine workings was built downriver of Scotswood Bridge, between Scotswood Road and the river bank, in the mid 1760s. By the 1850s, the engine had gone and the former engine house became living accommodation for miners & labourers and their families.

The engine house is depicted on the first edition Ordnance Survey map. The buildings were described by the Royal
Engineers who carried out the initial survey work as: "a few ordinary dwellinghouses in very bad repair formerly an Old Engine and Coal Pit from which the name originates". Although it was not depicted on the second edition of the Ordnance Survey, local directories continued to record people as living there until, at least 1901. The expansion of the nearby Armstrong Whitworth (later Vickers) factory resulted in Old Engine's demolition.