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Dunston Staiths
West Staiths
Dunston basin
Dunston Staiths were opened by the North Eastern Railway Company in 1893 to meet the growing output of export coal and to save the rail journey to the docks at the mouth of the river. A second set of staiths was built adjoining the first in 1903 and a tidal basin dug out, providing six berths in all, at which ships could be loaded at all states of the tide. Each berth was provided with two gravity spouts and there were three conveyor belts. The staiths also occasionally loaded fluorospar and pitch.
The two staiths were separate in construction and pitch pine was the wood used white-leaded as a preservative, beams of 12 by 12 being used with mortise and tenon joints. Railway fitters did any repairs, the staiths being railway owned. The spouts were numbered from 1 to 12 starting at the west end of the River Staith (on the Tyne) with spout numbers 1 to 6, then moving from east to west along the Basin Staith, numbers 7 to 12. The electrically-driven conveyor belts were used when the tide made loading by the spouts impractical. The railway wagons were shunted into position by a locomotive known as the 'pup', and the staiths were built with a gradient of 1 in 96, rising from west to east so that wagons could be allowed to run downhill into position over the spout hoppers and the wheels chocked. Men known as teemers were responsible for this and for opening the wagon bottoms to allow the teeming of the coal or coke down the chutes or spouts into the ships hold. The counter-balanced spouts could be easily raised or lowered by the teemers according both to the state of the tide and the height of the ship as it sank lower in the water as it filled up, and they also moved from side to side. When the coal jammed or was frozen in the wagons the trimmers would have to free it. Because some customers preferred their coal and coke in larger lumps and unbroken, a device called an anti-coal breaker could be used to prevent breakage. This was electrically operated, the coal coming down the spout and onto a continuous belt at an angle, and thence into the ships hold.
When the ship's holds were filled gangs of men called trimmers moved onto the pile of coal and levelled it to ensure the ships' stability. Triangular shovels were used, four or five men to a hold. This was a time consuming job and a dirty and uncomfortable one, done in all weathers, in daylight or darkness (though the staiths were lit), and the trimmers were accordingly better paid than the teemers.
Ships were also supplied with bunkers (coal for the boilers) and the hatch or bunker hole for this being small, a temporary wooden 'funnel' would be built by the teemers to guide the coal into the bunker hole as it was teemed down the spout. Fresh water was also supplied to ships, this was a private business owned by a man who lived in the white house in Dunston Road near the present filling station.
The statihs were 526 metres long (1725 feet) and 20 metres (66 feet) high above high water. They handled on average 140,000 tons of coal a week in the 1920s but only 3000 a week in the 1970s. Dunston staiths closed on 4 March 1980 and the Basin staiths were dismantled in 1985, leaving the River statihs which survive today.
In 1923 West Dunston Staiths were opened by the LNER (London and North Eastern Railway) to meet the greatly increased demand for facilities at Dunston and by the following year the two Dunston Staiths handled a third of all coal and coke shipments from the Tyne. West Dunston staiths had three loading berths but with the decline of coal shipments they closed in 1934. An embankment carried the railway feeding the staiths over a bridge across the main railway line between Gateshead and Blaydon and there were numerous sidings. This land was reclaimed in the 1990s and is now a car and coach park together with a new road running parallel to the railway.
Embankment on line to
West Dunston staiths
looking west.
Sidings near staiths embankment
with Dunston Power Station.
Trackbed of West Dunston
Staiths line, looking east
with main line at right.
East Dunston Staiths handled coal from Marley Hill, Watergate, Ouston and Kibblesworth. It was solely concerned with the shipment of coal and coke from the Norwood Coke Ovens. Some of the coal was exported to countries such as Sweden and Germany and many foriegn shops loaded coal there. West Dunston Staiths received coal from the collieries in the Derwent Valley, competing with Derwenthaugh staiths. Also it handled oil and tar from Consett Coke Works and shipped coal to the Ford Motor Company at Dagenham. About one million tons of coal and coke were shipped per annum.
Staiths had existed from the 1630s and possibly earlier but these were built on a much smaller scale than those shown above. Fordyce's map of 1846 shows 43 Staiths on the Tyne and a list made in 1792 shows nearly forty thousand individuals employed and dependent on the coal trade of the river. The keelboats were used to carry coals from the staiths to the colliers (larger vessels) which then took the coal downriver and on to its destination.
The Staiths built in the early 1800s extended further into the river and coal could be dropped directly into the holds of the colliers thus cutting out the need for the keel man or middleman.
Don't think that strikes and new technology are peculiar to the present day. Although it is difficult to think of Staiths as new technology, they posed a threat to the keel men which led to the great strike of 1822.
During the 1822 strike involving riot and disorder, soldiers were billeted at public houses and Bute Hall in Dunston. A bill dated November 23rd, 1822, states that:
"Peaceable inhabitants should keep within their houses during the times the keels are passing from the Staiths, as the marines have orders to fire on the first man to throw a stone at them."
So much for the miners' strike of 1984. Dunston had seen it all before.
The Staiths, no longer in use, is now a Grade II listed building and reputedly the largest wooden structure in Europe. At the National Garden Festival held in Gateshead in 1990 it was open to tne public and it was possible to walk along the top of the staiths and view the chutes and other machinery used in loading the ships.
Staiths Gallery
Various views of Dunston Staiths from the 1960's.
