What a bright prospect we have for the future, grants are coming through for revenue from Gateshead Council and capital costs from SITA. this enables the Trust to push ahead with projects at The Mill.

The Islands Project is now underway and excavations have started to open up the pond area and create a number of islands within the pond. The islands will be accessed by bridges which will be suitable for pushchairs and wheelchairs.

Another ne wproject is our pumping mill and the creation of new ponds. The ponds are the subject of Gateshead Council's planning approval to change the use of two derelict allotments for a reed pond which will filter out water and also the creation of another higher level pond to increase the head of water for an Alternative Energy project.
The pumping mill (which is also part of the planning application) is a Circa 1920's Climax. We have restored this with the technical held of MKW Engineering at Stargate.

We are also involved in "High Tech". Teesside University are developing their Virtual Reality Programme that they started last year showing the water wheel and axel tree with it's attached pit wheel in their heritage site of their university CD rom. The finished project should show the wheel with varying amounts of water turning at appropriate speed and also powering a working lathe.

Further developments are happening with Gateshead Councils Dryden Professional Development Centre and Gateshead City Learning Centre in Blaydon. this advanced facility for school learning is creating a computer image of our machinery and the facility to change water flows and also change gear ratios, giving variation in the resultant experiment.

Details of the many special events that are to take place at the mill in the forthcoming months are listed on our special events page.