Scremerston Pump Engine House

Held hostage amidst elder and rosebay willowherb, we found the Scremerston Pumping Engine House choking for life!

It towers abruptly out of the ground, looking down on you and was an unexpected find just off the A1! Solid and sturdy-looking, despite the odd, rickety, crumbling block, this sandstone structure would once have been alive with the clink and clatter of heavy machinery, pumping water from underground mineshafts to keep the miners safe and to keep the mine operational.

Today, it stands as a silent reminder of our industrial heritage in North Northumberland.

The Greenwich Hospital is a historic organisation established in 1694 by Queen Mary II after she witnessed wounded sailors returning from the Battle of La Hogue in 1692. Queen Mary and King William wanted to offer support to ex-sailors and their families, so they founded The Greenwich Hospital, using the term in its old sense, which means to provide hospitality and shelter.

Greenwich Hospital owned vast swathes of land across Northumberland, as the crown gifted them the estates of Jacobite rebels in the 18th century to fund the charity. The land earned rent, and this income supplemented the recuperation of old or injured sailors.

Here at Ancroft, the land held valuable minerals also in the form of coal and a pit was sunk here in 1840. Known colloquially as The Jack Tar Pit, The Greenwich Colliery employed 112 men and 20 boys under the age of 18 in 1842, but by its peak, the operations employed between 250 and 600 men!

Seeing it stand so still and silent, it's hard to imagine it as a hive of heavy industry.

It's huge! Three floors from top to bottom in neatly dressed stone. The windows look like the entrance to Jerry's skirting-board hideout in Tom and Jerry, with rounded arches to help with light and ventilation. The giant steam engines and boilers gave off huge amounts of heat, so those employed to operate them needed fresh air to focus on the task! They also needed light to read the dials on the machinery, and in case of explosion, the windows acted as a soft wall, pushing the pressure outwards and preventing the building from collapsing.

The pit would have been a huge employer in this area.

It reached 110 fathoms, which is about 200 meters deep. That's about two football fields end to end! A long way down!

On the side, high up, is a plaque that typically commemorates not those who worked the pit, but those who owned the land, paid for and built it... top-down aggrandising! At least the actual builder got a shout-out! It reads -

ERECTED AD MDCCCXL

BY THE COMMISSIONERS

OF GREENWICH HOSPITAL

JOHN GREY ESQ. RECEIVER

MESSRS JOHNSON & CARRS

COLLIERY LESSEES

THOMAS FORSTER ESQ.

VIEWER & ENGINEER

MR. W. ELLIOT, TWEEDMOUTH

BUILDER

On the north face, there's a big old aperture on the third floor and a door at the bottom, which would have been where the beam engine was housed. This was probably a Cornish-style engine used to remove water that flooded the mines. It would have been a mammoth workhorse and integral to the safety of those working under the surface down the seam.

Above, the tower is crowned with a later addition of an iron water tower. Rusting and rugged, this would have weighed heavily on the building beneath, but it was a very necessary addition to ensure a constant gravity-fed supply of well-pressured water to regulate and service the engines and boilers.

The north face had the same door and window combination, only if you read too much into the building and anthropomorphise it, it looks like a sad downturned mouth and two vacant eyes, sad that its days are over! Dry your eyes. Don't cry...it's just a disused pumping house!

Just a stone's throw from the Pump House is another structure, similar in look and stature. This would have been the Winding Engine House that probably housed a Boulton and Watt beam engine. It would have had the heady, heavy job of hoisting not only miners and materials but also all of the coal to bring to the surface.

Everything has a life span and the days of these two bulky beauties were over in September 1944. If you're an ex-miner living in and around Scremerston close to the age of 100, you might have made an honest penny or two down that shaft, and those buildings might have been your regular workday view!

Fifty years ago they were given Grade II Listed status, but now they stand ominously in the woods, hidden away, defunct and in disrepair like old knees knackered down the pit!