Cleadon Water Pumping Station, engine and boiler house

1860-62, Thomas Hawksley engineer.
Built by the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company and began working in 1862. Brick with stone dressings and rusticated quoins. Hipped Welsh slate roofs. The buildings are in an Italianate Rundbogenstil, the narrow windows mostly alternating single and coupled. The engine house is 2 storeys. The floors of the engine house are marked by a stone floor band with guilloche decoration. Between ground and first floor there is a relief carved sandstone stringcourse decorated with interlocking scrolls which combine to form circles, interspersed with diamond-pointed bosses. All buildings have deep overhanging eaves with bow brackets {1}. The pumping station originally operated by steam from coal fired Cornish boilers, powering two Cornish beam engines which drove combined Ram and Bucket pumps into the 269.88 feet deep well below the engine house. The resultant vacuum produced in the shaft by the ram and bucket moving up and down, drew up the water {2}. Round arched windows. Niches on ground floor with half round corbel beneath the sill, containing cyclindrical sandstone pedestals for some form of statue. Main double door with fanlight above reached by a short stone staircase with an upper landing and low stone balustrade with carved stone newel caps. On the roof, a central octagonal cupola (for ventilation) with an finial on the overhanging pitched roof. The sides of the cupola consist of louvred wooden panels. Inside the engine house is a row of four Tuscan columns which would have supported the engine beams. The columns are linked by segmental arches with wooden panelling above. The ceiling beams are substantial timbers to bear the weight of the machinery on the first floor. The original steam machinery was removed in 1930 when the beam engine was replaced by electrical pumping equipment. In 2003 several beams and pulleys survived in the upper room. The walls of the first floor are rendered with plaster but scored to give the impression of ashlar masonry. Above the window arches the plaster is scored to represent voussoirs. The basement of the engine house is reached by a spiral staircase. The well was backfilled and capped in 2001. The boiler house is a single storey building bonded to the northern wall of the engine house. The northern façade has three double windows and evidence of a blocked opening. The eastern façade has a double window flanked by two single ones. On the western side there are two large arches. The roof trusses are cast iron. A short cast iron staircase leads from the boiler house to the ground floor of the engine house {3}.