Dalton Water Pumping Station

The Dalton Water Pumping Station, located in Cold Hesledon, was built between 1873 and 1879 by Thomas Hawksley, engineer for the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company. It is a substantial brick building with sandstone dressings and a slate hipped roof, possessing group value due to its considerable architectural quality and the survival of original pumping engines.

The symmetrical design features an axial plan with rear boiler houses and an integral chimney and stair tower. The style is Venetian Gothic Revival. The building is two storeys high with a basement, presenting a single-window front. The entrance front has a three-sided staircase leading to a forward-projecting, coped gabled ashlar surround framing a two-centred arched doorway with attached nook shafts and a half-glazed double door. Above the doorway is a decorative five-light window with column mullions and a label mould. The side elevations are buttressed, with two-centre arched ground-floor windows containing two round-arched lights and a plate-tracery oculus, and flat-arched, three-light mullion windows with shouldered heads on the first floor. Small basement openings provide access to the flywheel bearings. All windows were blocked at the time of review. A massive truncated chimney, braced by shallow clasping buttresses and a moulded string, rises behind the building, encased at its base by a four-bay boiler house and coal store. The boiler house has hipped roofs and single-light windows at each end, punctuated by two-centre arched plate-tracery windows, a tympanum above the third bay, and paired windows with shouldered heads in the second bay.

The interior engine house retains a fine and largely complete engine setup, including a pair of 72-inch single-acting non-rotative beam engines built by Davy Bros in 1879. These engines are supported by heavy Corinthian entablature columns on moulded, square-section, tapering cast-iron supports. A mezzanine level exists at cylinder head level, featuring an early gantry crane and steps leading down to the borehole. Half-glazed doors on each floor open off the stair flight, circling the chimney. The boiler house features a wrought-iron truss roof with elaborate iron spacing brackets. The boilers themselves have been removed.

Historically, the engine was notable as the only Cornish engine to utilise superheated steam. The entablature columns replicate those at Tees Cottage (dated 1902). Originally, the chimney had a more elaborate design, including a three-light window, a section of roof, a narrower stage with three blind windows, and a sloping roof with an iron crest. The station was formerly situated within an ornamental park, complete with four cooling ponds and six houses for staff. The design shares similarities with Hawksley’s Springfield (built 1882).