Humbledon Pumping Station

Humbledon Pumping Station is a water pumping station built in 1846 and later, designed by Thomas Hawksley for the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company starting in 1852. The structure is made of English garden wall bond brick with an ashlar plinth, quoins, and dressings, topped with a Welsh slate roof. It features two high storeys with a two-by-one window arrangement on the engine house, and a double range boiler house with one high storey and three windows, all in the Italianate style.

On the northeast elevation, the engine house is located on the right, flanked by ashlar-coped dwarf walls that lead up to a boarded door with an overlight. This door is set in plain jambs and has a triple-keyed plain stone surround with a semicircular head on impost blocks. Above, there is a blocked square window with a wedge stone lintel and a projecting stone sill. The boiler house, which sits on ground that falls to the left, features stone voussoirs and a high arch with a triple key next to the engine house, along with three blocked windows at a high level, each with wedge stone lintels and projecting stone sills.

The right return of the engine house has two round-headed windows with surrounds similar to that of the door, and square windows above that resemble those on the northeast side. A diagonal buttress made of large ashlar blocks is positioned between the ground floor windows. The southwest elevation mirrors the northeast but has shorter steps and a rectangular hole at the top right of the engine house.

This pumping station was the first in a series designed by Hawksley and later continued by his son, intended to pump water through the magnesian limestone to provide a reliable water supply for Sunderland. At the time of the survey, all windows were blocked, the boiler house chimney had been removed, and the pumping station was no longer in use.