Killingworth Wagonway, branch line to High Pit

This waggonway, serving Killingworth High or Old Pit north of the 90 Fathom Dyke, was opened around 1808. It was a branch line from the Killingworth to West Moor Waggonway of c. 1805 (route 59). The High Pit was owned by the Grand Allies and was the scene of some of George Stephenson’s early engineering works. An archaeological evaluation in 2005 by Tyne and Wear Museums with pupils from George Stephenson High School, Killingworth, recorded the track bed of the waggonway directly beneath the modern path surface. A service pipe had disturbed the coal ballast deposits which may once have contained the impressions of stone sleeper blocks. The clay foundation of the track bed and the trackside drainage ditches were recorded.