Coal Staithes At Blyth Power Station

WANSBECK NORTH BLYTH NZ 38 SW

6/20 Coal Staithes at Blyth Power Station

II Coal Staithes constructed between c.1910-1923 for the North Eastern Railway Company, altered c. 1994.

MATERIALS: timber

The lower level of a set of coal staithes c.375m long of traditional braced timber construction. The structure is formed of substantial timber piles driven into the sea bed carrying a timber deck. The staithes were originally 500m long and comprised three decks with gantries.

HISTORY: Blyth initially developed as a fishing port with ancillary salt pans, but during the later C19 and C20 centuries it became Northumberland's premier coal port and for a brief period in the mid C20 it shipped more coal than any port in Europe. At its peak, the harbour had several sets of staithes, which allowed coal arriving by wagon way and later railway to be dropped from wagons directly into ships. The coal staithes at Blyth power station, known formerly as West Staithes, were the last of the traditional staithes to be built on the River Blyth. Their construction began in c. 1910 for North Eastern Railway Company, but the First World War intervened and they were completed in 1923. The original upper two decks were demolished and the whole structure truncated in 1994/5.

SOURCES: www.sine.ncl.ac.uk; www.keystothepast.info; www.whitehavencoast.co.uk; S Linsley 'Ports and Harbours of Northumberland', 2005; N Pevsner 'The Buildings of England: Northumberland', 2nd edition 1992; Sir N Cossons 'BP Book of Industrial Archaeology', p142, 1993.