Derwenthaugh Coke Works

Derwenthaugh Coke Works
Derwenthaugh Coke Works Derwenthaugh Coke Works shown within Tyne and Wear
OS grid reference	NZ192615
Coordinates	54°56′52″N 1°42′06″W / 54.9477°N 1.7017°W / 54.9477; -1.7017Coordinates: 54°56′52″N 1°42′06″W / 54.9477°N 1.7017°W / 54.9477; -1.7017
List of places UK England Tyne and Wear

Derwenthaugh Coke Works was a coking plant on the River Derwent near Swalwell. The works were built in 1928 on the site of the Crowley's Iron Works, which had at one time been the largest iron works in Europe. The coke works was closed and demolished in the late 1980s, and replaced by Derwenthaugh Park.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, the site near Swalwell and Winlaton Mill had been that of Crowley's Ironworks, which for a time was the largest ironworks in Europe. The coke works opened on the site in 1928. They were owned and operated by the Consett Iron Company.

The works was situated by the dam marking the upper tidal limit of the river, where Swalwell Juniors F.C. now stands. The CPP which washed and blended the coal prior to the coking process stood at the north-eastern end of the site, along with large storage bunkers. A conveyor fed blended coal from these bunkers into another bunker on top of the ovens which in turn fed the charging car. The ovens themselves were parallel to the A694, which passes the site, and stood on the area of land now occupied by the two football pitches. There were several railway sidings for both coal and coke between the ovens and the road. The pusher was on the opposite side of the ovens, and the coke was shoved out on the side nearest the road. The quenching tower was at the north-eastern end of the battery of ovens, near the CPP, and the chimney was at the opposite end. Between the ovens and the river were the power plant with its associated boilers and chimneys, as well as the by-products plant. The latter "scrubbed" the gas produced in the ovens, extracting chemicals such as tar and ammonia, which were piped into storage tanks. The gas was then stored in a tall gas holder to the south-east of the site, near the river.

There was a motive power depot nearby to house the locomotives which shunted the extensive network of NCB sidings and lines which served the works and the lower part of the Derwent valley. In the last few years of the works' existence, these were all diesel locomotives, but prior to this there were a large number of steam locomotives stabled here. One of them, No. 41, was the oldest working NCB locomotive in the country, having been built for the Consett Iron Co. in 1883, by Kitson and Co. in Leeds, works No. 2509. It was of the Stephenson Long Boiler design, and unlike the ubiquitous 0-4-0 and 0-6-0 side tanks and saddle tanks which served most of the industrial railways of the north-east, it was a pannier tank, (a layout common on the Great Western Railway, but rarely seen elsewhere). Prior to the demise of its fleet of steam locomotives, Derwenthaugh began to receive locomotives from other NCB sheds, either because they had closed, or the locomotive had become surplus to requirements. Nos. 7 and 59 were two such locomotives, easily identifiable as former NCB Lambton system residents from Philadelphia shed by their narrow curved cabs which allowed them to negotiate a tunnel with very limited clearances on the line to the docks at Sunderland.