The Hutton seam, in Gateshead Park royalty, leased by Messrs. John Bowes & Partners, Limited, is now practically exhausted and standing full of water; and probably the High Main seam was also worked, but there are no plans or records of the workings in this seam in existence. It is now proposed to work the seams lying between the High Main seam and the Hutton seam to the Felling shaft; but, before this can be accomplished, the water standing in the Old Fold and other shafts must be pumped out. As the diameter of the Old Fold pit is only 8 feet, it was decided that an electrically-driven pump was the only feasible means of draining the shafts. The total depth to the Hutton seam is 564 feet. The shaft was originally divided by a brattice, which is being taken out as the water is reduced.

A Mather-and-Platt high-lift turbine-pump has been put in, driven by electrical power. This pump consists of eight sets of vanes or impellers each set runs in its own chamber, upon a common shaft, and the delivery-pressure of the water varies directly with the number of chambers used. Thus, if an ordinary single pump can deliver water against a head of 30 feet, the addition of another chamber will give a final delivery-head of 60 feet, and so on. The water enters axially into the revolving wheel, traverses the curved internal passages between the vanes, and is discharged tangentially at the periphery into a stationary guide-ring of special construction. It is then conveyed to the annular chamber in the body of the pump, where the velocity-head imparted to the water by the wheel is converted into pressure-head. From this chamber, the water is finally discharged into the second and subsequent chambers, and then into the rising main. The stationary guide-ring is fixed concentric with the revolving vanes, and, owing to its design, enables the conversion of velocity-head into pressure-head to be carried out in a much more perfect manner than is possible in the case of any other centrifugal pump; and, consequently, the possible height of lift and the efficiency of the pump are greatly increased. The motor driving the pump has an output of 170 horsepower, when running off a circuit at a pressure of 440 volts and a frequency of 40 cycles per second, at a speed of about 1,200 revolutions per minute. The motor is of the short-circuited rotor-type, the rotor being carried on ball-bearings. The motor is completely enclosed, and the stator is air-jacketed. The motor is started, from the surface, by means of an automatic transformer-starter of the oil-cooled type. The switch controlling the transformer is also oil-immersed.

The pump is designed to raise 500 gallons per minute against a total head of 565 feet. At the present time, with a less head, about 800 gallons per minute are being delivered. The level of the water is now 216 feet below the surface, and when the pump commenced it was 122 feet.

The crab and jack-winch is also driven by an electric motor of 15 horsepower. The current is supplied by The County of Durham Electrical Power Distribution Company, Limited.