Trow Rock Floating Platform is a Grade II listed building in the South Tyneside local planning authority area, England. First listed on 11 July 1986. Floating platform.
Trow Rock Floating Platform
- WRENN ID
- open-oriel-furze
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- South Tyneside
- Constituency
- South Shields MP: Emma Lewell (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 11 July 1986
- Type
- Floating platform
- Address
- Trow Rock Floating Platform, Trow Point
- OS grid reference
- NZ 383 666
- Coordinates
- 54.9931, -1.40193
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
Trow Rock Floating Platform is a late 19th-century structure built in 1887 for the Inspector General of Fortifications to test a Clarke Maxim Disappearing Platform designed for a 6-inch breech-loading gun. The platform is made of mass concrete and has a cylindrical shape with an internal diameter of approximately 21 feet, featuring a west extension for an approach tunnel. The exterior is rough-shuttered, while the interior displays runners for a steel floating platform that has since been removed, along with the entrance to the tunnel. The structure is set deep into the ground to allow for the water on which the platform could rise and fall, operated by air pressure pumps, but it is now mostly filled with earth.
Historically, trials of the platform were conducted on December 15th and 16th, 1887, but the raising and lowering mechanism was deemed too slow, leading to the abandonment of this system in favor of the quicker and cheaper Elswick hydro-pneumatic mounting. The platform is of historical interest as a relic of late 19th-century artillery development experiments.
Local climate
Trow Rock Floating Platform receives an average of 750 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 69% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 74% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 20 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 79% of listed buildings. Of these, 11 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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