9 thoughts on “Brine Pumping Wells, Port Clarence”
Apparently the Oil Companies used to send people up to the Haverton Hill site to learn about drilling. It was much safer than oil field drilling as there was no chance of a blow out!
Fred Dibnah was an icon of steam and anything coal fired, I could not lace his boots, the machinery he used was the machinery of my young apprentice days long before H&S was born. Belt driven plate shears and hole punches, Riveting, swaging black smithing all part of the job back then. It prepared me for keeping all things armoured running in the army and much later the heavy Fabrication section of ICI.
Being inquisitive, always wanting to know how things worked or what a process involved gets you a certain level of knowledge, not enough to run the plants though enough to know the dangers to my men, that was the important thing, ICI was a dangerous place to work, had some near misses in the army but ICI certainly added to the score.
Having lost my wife to Dementia and seen so many friends go the same way I do know memories are important and write it down as it comes to me, sharing some of the things I know on here is a pleasure, the thought it may be read some time in the future because Stockton Libraries made the effort to archive it is a good thought.
The army gave me medals Fred, no more needed. I do thank my Dad for learning mechanical knowledge on his trucks from an early age, Francis Brown’s Sheet iron Works for a good solid grounding “oh” and Richard Hind School for the knowledge discipline and love of sport, I wonder what My Rosser would have made of my later life, he tried to cane some respect into me and failed.
My Grandfather worked at the site, his family came from Cheshire to work at the salt wells! He lived in Young Street, Haverton Hill until he retired in the late Forties and moved to Billingham. His name was Richard Duckers.
However I found a note from a defunct website (SINE) which contained the following information
‘The last flourish for North East salt was on Teesside, where Bolckow Vaughan & Co were drilling for water for their Vulcan Ironworks, and found a 100 foot thick salt bed at 1300 foot depth. In 1874, Bell Bros. found 65 feet of salt at 1,127 feet depth at Port Clarence. By 1882, brine pumping of the salt beds was underway.
The technology used for drilling the brine wells was pure American – the ‘Cable Tool’ percussive system. This system had the useful advantage that, with slight modification, the same equipment could be used for the subsequent brine pumping. Essentially the mechanism both for well drilling and brine pumping consisted of a tapered lattice girder steel rig tower over the well, and a drive to a wooden ‘walking beam’ which could be used either for drilling or pumping. When pumping, this arrangement was used to force water into the salt beds, where it dissolved out the salt, the brine being at the same time pumped to the surface for later crystallisation. Apart from the steel tower, almost all of the rig was of wooden construction, which made it easier to dismantle and relocate on another part of the salt field. These American-type rigs were used at Greatham by Cerebos Salt until 1970-71, when the last brine pump shut was down, and now all United Kingdom-produced salt (except Maldon sea-salt) comes from Cheshire, where one mine – Meadowbank – can produce some 1½M tpa [tonnes per annum].
One fairly complete rig survived in 1974, its wooden beam pump for brine, driven by single cylinder horizontal stationary engine by Wardale of Gateshead – ‘The Allhusen Tennant No 49′, although most of the rigs had been converted to electric working. The engine drove a wooden flywheel via a flat belt, an iron crank from the flywheel axle and a wooden con-rod thereby powered the inboard end of the wooden ‘walking’ beam, and thus the outboard pump rods, the whole in a timber building with a steel derrick.’
[Stafford Linsley’s annotation]
You know how to start me going Fred, having worked among the Salt wells as a lad and many years later for ICI plus some work at Cerebos being a very inquisitive person talking to the process men always got me a story.
The ICI Chlorine works used brine pumped from the Salt Wells Greatham and made every type of cleaning agent there was, Chlorine was shipped out by Rail Tanker to other factories producing cleaners. It is used in every thing from Paper Pottery to Plastics in fact only a very small percentage of mined salt is used for human needs.
I used to laugh when the ongoing fight against Fluoride was at its peak, fluoride had been added to salt for years among other things. Salt was Ionised by adding Iodine long before the war, against Goitre and Thyroid problems. Other additives to make it free flowing had been added from late 1800’s they included Magnesium Carbonate and Aluminium products they stopped clogging and made it flow freely. Iron or ferrous was often added and at times Folic Acid talking about pure salt is a myth even sea salt has many additives plus natural additives that do not wash out.
I often visited the Brine Wells on night shift, there were compressors and motor pumps needing checking we had an oil man but his truck was a long wheel base and some of the small bridges over the pipe trenches were narrow and had no side barriers.
The oil man would come into my office and ask me to run him over with my Land Rover with a couple of cans of fuel. I enjoyed the run out and we saw on more than one occasion the Northern Lights and a myriad of wild life, many foxes who seemed not to notice us at all.
Salt so common though what we put on our food is millions of years old even sea salt has so many uses I cannot write them up on here. Having lived through an era of no home fridges everything was salted down to preserve it I do not believe all the stories of salt being bad for us, we cannot live without it, as to fluoride I and my children still have most of our teeth because of it plus of course dental care. Because of my age last year whilst having an internal camera inserted the Nurse said can you take your teeth out? “only if you have a pair of pliers they are all my own” that started the laughs, it seems many older people do have false ones.
At Cerebos installing filtering gear we had to climb up a long stairway in the building, the wolf whistles would start as we went up from the dozens of girls packing the salt on noisy machines and follow us to the top, I was a lad and it stuck with me the embarrassment, I have never wolf whistled a lady since that time, I know what it is like girls.
The brine was pumped from a depth of 1,200 feet, c1890s.
Apparently the Oil Companies used to send people up to the Haverton Hill site to learn about drilling. It was much safer than oil field drilling as there was no chance of a blow out!
There’s a great picture of some nearby brine wells here:
http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/eaw030495
Thanks again Frank
Could Stockton Library honour Frank Mee by giving him the accolade of Teesside’s Frank Dibnah?
Fred Dibnah was an icon of steam and anything coal fired, I could not lace his boots, the machinery he used was the machinery of my young apprentice days long before H&S was born. Belt driven plate shears and hole punches, Riveting, swaging black smithing all part of the job back then. It prepared me for keeping all things armoured running in the army and much later the heavy Fabrication section of ICI.
Being inquisitive, always wanting to know how things worked or what a process involved gets you a certain level of knowledge, not enough to run the plants though enough to know the dangers to my men, that was the important thing, ICI was a dangerous place to work, had some near misses in the army but ICI certainly added to the score.
Having lost my wife to Dementia and seen so many friends go the same way I do know memories are important and write it down as it comes to me, sharing some of the things I know on here is a pleasure, the thought it may be read some time in the future because Stockton Libraries made the effort to archive it is a good thought.
The army gave me medals Fred, no more needed. I do thank my Dad for learning mechanical knowledge on his trucks from an early age, Francis Brown’s Sheet iron Works for a good solid grounding “oh” and Richard Hind School for the knowledge discipline and love of sport, I wonder what My Rosser would have made of my later life, he tried to cane some respect into me and failed.
My Grandfather worked at the site, his family came from Cheshire to work at the salt wells! He lived in Young Street, Haverton Hill until he retired in the late Forties and moved to Billingham. His name was Richard Duckers.
Was Keith Duckers any relation, he worked for ICI.
My cousin married Ken Duckers. He was model maker at Furness Shipyard. When the shipyard closed he became the same for Stockton Council.
Astonishing!
However I found a note from a defunct website (SINE) which contained the following information
‘The last flourish for North East salt was on Teesside, where Bolckow Vaughan & Co were drilling for water for their Vulcan Ironworks, and found a 100 foot thick salt bed at 1300 foot depth. In 1874, Bell Bros. found 65 feet of salt at 1,127 feet depth at Port Clarence. By 1882, brine pumping of the salt beds was underway.
The technology used for drilling the brine wells was pure American – the ‘Cable Tool’ percussive system. This system had the useful advantage that, with slight modification, the same equipment could be used for the subsequent brine pumping. Essentially the mechanism both for well drilling and brine pumping consisted of a tapered lattice girder steel rig tower over the well, and a drive to a wooden ‘walking beam’ which could be used either for drilling or pumping. When pumping, this arrangement was used to force water into the salt beds, where it dissolved out the salt, the brine being at the same time pumped to the surface for later crystallisation. Apart from the steel tower, almost all of the rig was of wooden construction, which made it easier to dismantle and relocate on another part of the salt field. These American-type rigs were used at Greatham by Cerebos Salt until 1970-71, when the last brine pump shut was down, and now all United Kingdom-produced salt (except Maldon sea-salt) comes from Cheshire, where one mine – Meadowbank – can produce some 1½M tpa [tonnes per annum].
One fairly complete rig survived in 1974, its wooden beam pump for brine, driven by single cylinder horizontal stationary engine by Wardale of Gateshead – ‘The Allhusen Tennant No 49′, although most of the rigs had been converted to electric working. The engine drove a wooden flywheel via a flat belt, an iron crank from the flywheel axle and a wooden con-rod thereby powered the inboard end of the wooden ‘walking’ beam, and thus the outboard pump rods, the whole in a timber building with a steel derrick.’
[Stafford Linsley’s annotation]
You know how to start me going Fred, having worked among the Salt wells as a lad and many years later for ICI plus some work at Cerebos being a very inquisitive person talking to the process men always got me a story.
The ICI Chlorine works used brine pumped from the Salt Wells Greatham and made every type of cleaning agent there was, Chlorine was shipped out by Rail Tanker to other factories producing cleaners. It is used in every thing from Paper Pottery to Plastics in fact only a very small percentage of mined salt is used for human needs.
I used to laugh when the ongoing fight against Fluoride was at its peak, fluoride had been added to salt for years among other things. Salt was Ionised by adding Iodine long before the war, against Goitre and Thyroid problems. Other additives to make it free flowing had been added from late 1800’s they included Magnesium Carbonate and Aluminium products they stopped clogging and made it flow freely. Iron or ferrous was often added and at times Folic Acid talking about pure salt is a myth even sea salt has many additives plus natural additives that do not wash out.
I often visited the Brine Wells on night shift, there were compressors and motor pumps needing checking we had an oil man but his truck was a long wheel base and some of the small bridges over the pipe trenches were narrow and had no side barriers.
The oil man would come into my office and ask me to run him over with my Land Rover with a couple of cans of fuel. I enjoyed the run out and we saw on more than one occasion the Northern Lights and a myriad of wild life, many foxes who seemed not to notice us at all.
Salt so common though what we put on our food is millions of years old even sea salt has so many uses I cannot write them up on here. Having lived through an era of no home fridges everything was salted down to preserve it I do not believe all the stories of salt being bad for us, we cannot live without it, as to fluoride I and my children still have most of our teeth because of it plus of course dental care. Because of my age last year whilst having an internal camera inserted the Nurse said can you take your teeth out? “only if you have a pair of pliers they are all my own” that started the laughs, it seems many older people do have false ones.
At Cerebos installing filtering gear we had to climb up a long stairway in the building, the wolf whistles would start as we went up from the dozens of girls packing the salt on noisy machines and follow us to the top, I was a lad and it stuck with me the embarrassment, I have never wolf whistled a lady since that time, I know what it is like girls.