The river at Derwenthaugh

The river at Derwenthaugh

Postby Keelman » Sun Aug 25, 2019 2:56 pm

Raine's .jpg
Raine advert .jpg
This image is from a large photographic print I rediscovered in my loft recently.
The confluence of the River Derwent and River Tyne is at the railway bridge in the bottom right hand corner of the picture. Still in use today this iron girder bridge which replaced an original wooden structure in 1865/66 today carries the tracks of the Tyne Valley Line, between Newcastle and Carlisle, across the Derwent.
Dominating the foreground is the Delta Iron Works of Raine & Co. Ltd. who occupied the site from 1891 until 1990. An earlier iron works situated here, dating from the late 18th century, reputedly supplied canon, grape-shot and grappling irons to the navy in the time of Horatio Nelson.
The barge alongside Raine's jetty suggests that at one time they took advantage of the river probably to bring in raw materials, and perhaps to transport away finished product.
Running behind Raine's works the main railway tracks sweep round on an embankment passing the wetlands to the west of Dunston and hence to Norwood Junction.
Among the plethora of railway lines in the centre of the picture is the track bed which once carried rails up and onto the "white elephant" that was West Dunston Staiths. Erected for the North Eastern Railway, about a mile upstream from the staiths at Dunston which we can still see today, West Dunston Staiths were opened in February 1904 but proved to be uneconomical for a number of reasons and were closed down in 1930. They stood unused and eventually derelict until after WWII when they were demolished.
Visible in the top left corner of the picture is part of Dunston B power generating station, opened in 1933 and closed in 1981. This was the first power station in the world to be of frame and glass curtain wall construction.
The area near the top right the picture where the settling ponds associated with the generating station were situated there now stands a shopping complex you may have knowledge of, the MetroCentre.
Keelman
 
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