Metadata
WORK ID: NEFA 22179 (Master Record)
| Title | Year | Date |
| TEES COTTAGE PUMPING STATION | 1980s | 1980-01-01 |
|
Details
Original Format: Super 8 Colour: Colour Sound: Sound Duration: 6 mins 13 secs Credits: Individuals: Peter Dobing, George Theaker Genre: Amateur Subject: Working Life Industry |
| Summary An amateur film produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker of the Darlington Cine Club recording an open day for visitors at the volunteer-led Tees Cottage Pumping Station, a Victorian waterworks in Darlington, which also has a blacksmith's workshop. |
|
Description
An amateur film produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker of the Darlington Cine Club recording an open day for visitors at the volunteer-led Tees Cottage Pumping Station, a Victorian waterworks in Darlington, which also has a blacksmith's workshop.
Credit: Peter Dobing and George Theaker present
Title: Tees Cottage Pumping Station Darlington
Water is pumped into one of the station reservoirs. Exterior view of the Beam Engine House and chimney. A plaque on the wall reads ‘Darlington...
An amateur film produced by Peter Dobing and George Theaker of the Darlington Cine Club recording an open day for visitors at the volunteer-led Tees Cottage Pumping Station, a Victorian waterworks in Darlington, which also has a blacksmith's workshop.
Credit: Peter Dobing and George Theaker present
Title: Tees Cottage Pumping Station Darlington
Water is pumped into one of the station reservoirs. Exterior view of the Beam Engine House and chimney. A plaque on the wall reads ‘Darlington Waterworks 1849’. Volunteers in white overalls walk around the site, one kneeling on the ground reaching into a covered well.
Outside on Coniscliffe Road, a large ‘Tees Cottage Pumping Station Preservation Trust’ sign advises prospective visitors that the station is open.
A small sign points visitors in the direction of the Gas Engine. Inside the engine house volunteers work to maintain the machine which was installed in 1913. Two men work on another part of the gas engine now in operation. A brass plaque identifies the builder as R. Hornsby & Sons Ltd. General views of the steam beam engine in operation follow. Two small boys watch the machine while their father attempts to describe what it is doing. More views of the engine in operation follow. A view of another brass plaque, this time for The Lancashire Dynamo and Motor Co. Ltd and views of electric pumps installed on site in 1928.
In a small smithy, a blacksmith uses bellows to pump air into the forge. He then uses a hammer to strike and bend a piece of hot metal. He moves hot coals around on the forge with a set of tongs causing flames to leap into the air.
Outside at the rear of the Beam Engine House, a volunteer breaks up wood with a large hammer. Nearby is the river Tees from which water is pumped. Inside the boiler room, another volunteer lights one of the two Lancashire boilers using the wood broken up by his colleague seen previously.
Two volunteers stand beside a set of metal levers. In unison they slowly pull them and a set of pistons begin to move up and down. The film cuts to show the fly-wheel of the beam engine in operation and a man and his two sons standing behind a barrier watching. General views of the nine metre long cast-iron beam rising and falling inside the Beam House with visitors wandering around. A brass plague on the beam engine dates it to 1904 and identifies the engineers as T&C Hawkley of Westminster and the builder as Teasdale Brothers of Darlington. More general views of the beam engine and fly-wheel in operation and of volunteers working to maintain and clean the machine.
he film ends back outside with pumped water coming out of a pipe into a reservoir.
End credit: With thanks to those who helped in the making of this film.
Context
Darlington native Peter Haliwell Dobing (1927-2018) began a lifetime passion for amateur filmmaking in the late 1940s and early 1950s producing 14 often humorous 9.5mm home movies featuring his extended family. Considerable thought and skill went into the production of home movies such as the hand-tinted Family Films: “Please to Remember 1948’ and A Very Happy Christmas (1950) which not only featured his parents, sister Ann, aunt, uncle and nephews in front of the camera, but also their...
Darlington native Peter Haliwell Dobing (1927-2018) began a lifetime passion for amateur filmmaking in the late 1940s and early 1950s producing 14 often humorous 9.5mm home movies featuring his extended family. Considerable thought and skill went into the production of home movies such as the hand-tinted Family Films: “Please to Remember 1948’ and A Very Happy Christmas (1950) which not only featured his parents, sister Ann, aunt, uncle and nephews in front of the camera, but also their contribution behind the camera. Sadly his early film making career came to an end when he contracted tuberculosis and was hospitalised for a year.
It wasn’t until he met his partner George Theaker in 1960 and together they became members of the Darlington Cine Club in 1975 that his passion for filmmaking re-ignited and together they produced a number of interesting amateur documentaries on various subjects of local interests including the 150th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington railway in 1975, Captain James Cook and this film about the Tees Cottage Pumping station. The Darlington Cine Club was set up in 1965, a splinter group of the Darlington Camera Club which itself was established in 1936. The Tees Cottage Pumping station, a Victorian waterworks, was opened in 1849 to the west of Darlington at Low Coniscliffe near to the River Tees to provide clean drinking water to the town and surrounding area. Previously local inhabitants had relied on wells and rainwater tubs. It continued in operation until its closure in 1980 by its then owner Northumbrian Water when it was placed into the care of a Preservation Trust. The station is listed as a Scheduled Ancient Monument and primarily consists of a Beam engine designed by Glenfield and Kennedy of Kilmarnock and built by Teasdale Bros, under T&C Hawksley, Civil Engineers, London in 1904 and a later gas engine built in 1914 by Richard Hornsby & Sons of Grantham. Today the Tees Cottage Pumping station remains open to the public and is a popular local attraction run by enthusiastic volunteers who help to keep engines and other attractions on the site running. Although the production date of this film isn’t known, it was probably made not long after it opened to the public in the early 1980s. As well as capturing the sights and sounds at the pumping station as seen by those visiting, the film also highlights the work of these dedicated volunteers who are as enthusiastic about the pumping station as Peter Dobing was about filmmaking. References: Information provided by depositor George Theaker 2018 - 2020 https://www.teescottage.co.uk/history/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tees_Cottage_Pumping_Station https://www.facebook.com/pg/darlingtoncameraclub/about/?ref=page_internal |
