Customs House and Mill Dam

We start our pictorial ramble in the Mill Dam Conservation Area, which takes its name from a 13th Century mill owned by the Prior and Convent of Durham which once stood here.

Right on the river front is the Customs House. A Grade II listed building which is now a thriving theatre and cinema, the Customs House was first established in 1848 or 1864, resulting in a boom of trade to the town.

Next to the Customs House was the River Police and Sanitory Authority Building, which also housed the morgue. Now converted to apartments many residents probably have no idea of the past use of the building

Dividing the two is Dalton's Lane, running up between the two buildings.

At the back of the River Police building and now joined to the Customs House extension by a glass walkway is Dalton's Lane Workshops. The only remaining example of artisan workshops left in the area.

This is the back view of the River Police building. Bodies pulled from the Tyne would be taken into the Morgue via this back door.

This group of building form part of the Mill Dam conservation area with the old shops now converted into modern apartments bounded on one side by...

Unity Hall...

and on the other by the Mission to Seaman building.

Next to the old, historic buidlings of Customs House and other Mill Dam buildings we have the first of many new buildings in the shape of the BT building providing a backdrop to the last remnants of the former Swinburne Glassworks, the chimney with its date stone proclaiming 1865.

 It was only natural that many public houses would spring up next to the busy port and the road down to the Mill Dam still hosts some of these old establishments; the Steamboat having the most interesting exterior with its carved faces and is a Grade 2 listed building.

Each of the buildings has it's own distinct design, obviously built at different times. The narrow building to the right of the Waterfront pub was once a post-office but now forms part of the Steamboat.

This last building on this side of the Mill Dam is the last of our public houses, the Riverside. 

At the top of the Mill Dam a mural was painted in the 1970s depicting the many facets of Tyne Dock through the ages.

 

On the opposite side of the road to the public houses is a long, high, red-brick wall encompassing the now bricked up openings of Staithes House originally built to provide facilities for Harton Low Staithes' engine drivers and coal handlers.