Burleigh & Thompson's river chart of 1737 depicts seventeen quays with spouts and staithes in the Cock's Green (Coxgreen), Washington and Fatfield areas, from where keel-boats conveyed coal and coke to the harbour at Sunderland.
Around this time the larger coalowners included Donnison, Lambton, Londonderry, Nesham, Peareth and Tempest. Trinity House at Newcastle became concerned about Wearside's increasing enterprise in the coal markets, and opposed all improvements to the river.
By the 1740's, river and harbour
dredging operations were raising 50 tons per tide, and the two shallow straits (right) at the harbour entrance had been transformed into a single wider and deeper waterway, on the course of the former Sledway channel.
The shallowness of the harbour was due to natural siltage, compounded by the fineable crime of indiscriminate off-loading of ballast into the river by shipmasters, who by law were required to use dedicated ballast quays which in 1830 charged 1/5 (7p) per ton.
Ballast, usually sand, marl or rubble was loaded into ships sailing without cargo, to give the vessel stability, and on arrival in port, this had to be removed before any cargo could be loaded. In 1854 the RWC placed a series of marker buoys two miles off Souter Point and Ryhope Dene, as indicators that ballast keels could legitimately dump their cargo in the five fathoms of water that lay there. The later introduction of steam-driven pumps enabled ships to use sea-water for ballast, which was simply pumped out at the vessel's destination.
It led inevitably to the end of the ballast keel.
North and South Piers
