Remaining Walls of North Dock

The remaining walls of the North Dock are part of a 6-acre dock constructed between 1834 and 1838 by the renowned engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel for the Wearmouth Dock Company, which was established by Royal Charter. The dock opened for traffic in 1837 and was later purchased by the York and Newcastle Railway Company in 1846, before being sold by the North Eastern Railway in 1922. By 1934, it became the property of the River Wear Commissioners.

The walls are made of granite ashlar and include the northwest wall, much of the southwest and northeast walls, and part of the southeast wall, which originally formed a square-plan dock with entrance lock gates leading from the tide basin to the south. The high walls feature a curved batter and bull-nosed edging, with vertical timber buffer strips set in at intervals. The construction technique involved building one course of back and front walls at a time, filling the space with mortar and incorporating core stones within that mortar to create a solid structure. Some sections of the northeast and southeast walls still survive behind late 20th-century landfill, while part of the southeast wall was demolished along with the entrance. This structure is significant as a work by one of the greatest engineers of the 19th century.