• Elevation Advantage: Cleadon Water Tower and its pumping works were purposely built on the high ground of Cleadon Hills. This provided an ideal natural altitude for water distribution.
• The Pumping Phase: The Victorian steam engines (and later electric pumps) extracted deep water from the magnesian limestone strata. The water was lifted directly into the 2-million-gallon underground reservoir located on the hills.
• Gravity-Fed Mains: Because Hebburn sits at a much lower elevation along the banks of the River Tyne, the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company did not need secondary pumping stations to deliver the water. Instead, the water flowed naturally downhill.
• The Route: A network of underground cast-iron distribution mains was laid running northwest from Cleadon Hills, bypassing Boldon and Jarrow, to supply the expanding industrial populations and shipyards of Hebburn.
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