Pottery Bank to Neptune Road
Mile |
Guide Notes |
| 165.7 | Cross Pottery Bank - through gap in stone wall and up a gentle hill, on wide path, passing gas holder tank (L) to junction of paths where you rejoin Hadrian's Way. Continue ahead passing new housing (L) to cross Malaya Drive. The cranes in the shipyards now come into view - the first you see is also the largest on the Tyne, a static electric hammerhead crane capable of lifting 250 tons, built in the 1920's to lift heavy ships boilers, engines and gun turrets, it is still in use today lifting oil field equipment onto oil supply vessels. The huge reels that can be seen nearby, contain coils of high pressure pipe for use in underwater oilfields, the piping is manufactured in the adjacent factory which occupies the site of the former Neptune Naval yard, where many famous battleships were built. |
166.3 |
Continue ahead on wide tarmac path passing, scrapyards (L), the "Chimney Stumps" (R) and several other "artworks" along this section. The area to your left after you cross Malaya Drive, once the site of Walker Station, contains many "alien" plants from the south of England, the seeds were brought here when the stone ballast from the old sailing coal ships was discharged prior to loading their cargoes of coal. Several seats have been placed along here, made from pieces of the girders from the old rail bridges. The rivet heads make for uncomfortable seating !! |
| 166.7 | Pass Mary's Place, Blue Millennium Milepost 262W, and cross Wellbeck Road. |
| Mary's Place - the sunken lane that Hadrian's Cycleway crosses was once the route of an old Waggonway from the Walker Colliery to the coal drops on the riverbank. Here coal wagons, locally called chaldrons, were run onto a cradle at the end of a counterbalanced arm. Under control of a brake, the cradle and wagon were lowered to the deck of the ship and the coal discharged, this was to avoid breaking the coal into small pieces. Large coal lumps fetched more money. When empty the brake was released and the arm swung the wagon back up again, to start another journey. | |
 Wallsend Staithes - similar to that at Walker. |
Down river to South Shields and Tynemouth
Up river to Newcastle
Artworks
Walker
Riverside
Landmarks
Shipyard
Cranes
