Blackfell Hauler

The members of Washington History Society attended an Open Day at the Blackfell Hauler House.

The Hauler House on the Bowes Railway was built in 1915, and was part of a system of rope haulage, pulling coal wagons up the steep incline from collieries in Kibblesworth, Marley Hill, Byermoor. Burnopfield and Dipton, through Springwell and onwards to Jarrow Staithes, to be loaded onto ships. The haulage system, which was part of the Bowes Railway, closed in the 1970s, and since then had suffered decay and vandalism, despite the efforts of the Bowes Railway Company. 

In 2014, a partnership which included the Bowes Railway Company, Tyne and Wear Building Preservation Trust and Gateshead Council was awarded £190,000 to restore the building, from a fund set up by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation and English Heritage. Further funding for future development has been awarded by English Heritage and the Pilgrim Trust. A comprehensive and impressive restoration has now been undertaken, and although the machinery can no longer be operated, the Hauler House now appears much as it did in the 1970s. 
The Hauler House was formerly part of a complex of buildings around Mount Moor Colliery ( also known as Springwell Vale). It can be seen to the left of the photograph of the colliery below. The colliery closed in 1931, and was subsequently demolished. In 1950 the original steam haulage equipment was replaced by a 500 horse power three-phase electric hauler from British Thompson-Houston Ltd. At the same time the boiler house and chimney were removed, but today one boiler survives as a water tank.