Crowtrees Nature Reserve and Engine House

While chatting to the Fabulous North chief about Crowtrees Nature Reserve we found a 'Castle' on the map near Quarrington Hill, so I went on a recce to see what I could find.

The wonderfully named Cold Knuckle Quarry greeted me when I started my walk and I discovered it is used for sand excavation.

According to the notice board the 'Castle' is actually an Engine House and is a good ½ mile away due to the route of the footpaths,so not visible at this point. I would recommend you take binoculars! However, from the roadside, you can just about make it out. It is just beyond the pond in the photo above. I didn't notice until I got back from the exploring!

On the walk, notice how straight some of the paths are, they were part of the tracks for the coal mines.

So the wander down is pleasant enough and nature is doing its best, with plenty of flora and fauna. Crowtrees is a quaint name and Quarrington Hill is a quirky name. It comes from Querningdon meaning 'quern stone', so named as there was a quarry for the grinding stones used in flour milling.

On my first visit, I came across a bench with a display board indicating all the places you could see, however it was foggy so I saw zip! I have now been on a bright September morning and the view is canny. You can see Durham Cathedral.

Coal was excavated here in the later part of the 18th century by drift mining which was ideal on the slope of this hill. All that was procured was for local use.

Then came the big guns like William Hedley (1779 to 1843), a leading industrial engineer, who developed a designer colliery. There is one old painting to verify this. Next J.W. Morrisons purchased it in 1866 and restructured the site. This engine house dates to this period. Unfortunately, I cannot find any photographs of it from any era.

This is a winding-engine house. It has interesting tiered graduations giving it that Moroccan skyline feel (Thanks Jos Jos for this input.)

Stones from former buildings are embedded into concrete (Portland cement being a relatively new find) and are layered with large masonry blocks. It is tiered to provide a very sturdy structure for the pounding and weight of the machinery.

When built It was taller with a roof. Archaeological Building Recording (OASIS ID: archaeoe1-76298) states it would have an outer façade which has now come adrift.

The purpose of winding wheels was to hoist men or material up and down a shaft to the pit. The wheels were typically driven by a machine run by steam and there would have been tall chimneys for the furnace.

This building is of historical importance as it is the only one in the North East not part of a museum. You can see where the crank arm would have been worked from.

This colliery was intended as a powerhouse to provide loads of coal for the furnaces in the iron works at West Cornforth.

I couldn't see what it was like inside as the entrance was blocked and the window was too high for me, so this was the best photo I could take. Notice the brickwork around the arch.

There is a squelchy area nearby and a few ponds which are fed from springs. Handy for the mining business as water was required for steam-driven machinery. The mine used a different area to pump out the excess water as their excavations went below the water table and this was the job of a pump engine house.

Mining ceased around 1898 (from Durham Mining Museum records) and the ponds now look crystal clear.

You just wouldn't know now that this was once an industrious locale.