Detail of former reservoir wall, Blaydon Burn
Introduction
The photograph on this page of Detail of former reservoir wall, Blaydon Burn by Andrew Curtis as part of the Geograph project.
The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.
There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk
Detail of former reservoir wall, Blaydon Burn
Image: © Andrew Curtis Taken: 19 Feb 2012
The reservoir was built in the early C20th with unmarked red bricks. It was later partly repaired using bricks stamped with 'Cowen M'. These are fire-bricks made sometime after 1926 in Cowen's Brickworks at the east end of the valley. The factory, which opened in 1838, made 6 million fire-bricks a year. At that time a good hand moulder could make 2,400 bricks a day. The reservoir, now largely hidden by trees, may have supplied water for quenching coke, burned in ovens in the valley below, or as a general supply for Blaydon Burn Colliery. The Cowen Brick - probably the best brick in the world http://www.rolyveitch.20m.com/CowenBrick.html
Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0
Image Location
Latitude
54.957932
Longitude
-1.735904