Cold Hesledon is a village in

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

, in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is situated a short distance to the east of Murton.

Dalton Pumping Station

Within the village is a large Victorian,

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

former Water

pumping station Pumping stations, also called pumphouses in situations such as well drilling, drilled wells and drinking water, are facilities containing pumps and equipment for pumping fluids from one place to another. They are used for a variety of infrastru ...

, designed by

Thomas Hawksley Thomas Hawksley ( – ) was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with early water supply and coal gas engineering projects. Hawksley was, with John Frederick Bateman, the leading British water engineer of the ...

for the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company. The engine house contains a pair of 72" single-acting non-rotative Cornish beam engines by Davy Bros of Sheffield, dating from the 1870s when the complex was built. (Pumping engines of this period were more often of a double-acting rotative design (as seen at nearby

Ryhope Ryhope ( ) is a coastal village along the southern boundary of the City of Sunderland, in Tyne and Wear, North East England. With a population of approximately 14,000, measured at 10.484 in the 2011 census, Ryhope is 2.9 miles to the centre of ...

); the use of Cornish engines here seems to be due to the great depth of the well - some 450 feet.) The site suffered for many years from subsidence due to nearby mine workings; this in part led to the engines being decommissioned in the 1940s, and to the demolition in the 1960s of the striking

campanile A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

-like top section of the central tower/chimney. (The surviving chimney tower at

Bestwood Bestwood Estate is a large council estate located to the north of the city of Nottingham, England. Based on the 2011 census, its population is 4,719. There is also a ward of the City of Nottingham called Bestwood, which at the time of the 2011 ...

Notts., by the same architect, is of an almost identical design.) The pumping station site was bought in 1995 with a view by its owners to transform it into a pub; however the building became Grade II* listed, which allegedly stopped its development. Other options are now being explored by the owners.'Conservation Statement for Dalton Pumping Station', North of England Civic Trust, May 2010, page 24.

Other notable landmarks

Nearby is Dalton Tower, a ruined

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...

References

External links

Conservation Report including photos and illustrations (PDF file)
{{authority control Villages in County Durham Preserved beam engines Water supply pumping stations Buildings and structures in County Durham Cornish engines Former civil parishes in County Durham