Harbourside industries c. 1790

Bishopwearmouth Panns was a tiny township of six acres, most of it reclaimed from the river before 1600. It formed the southern bank of the Wear immediately downriver of where the Wearmouth bridge now crosses.Complementary surveys of the waterfront were drawn in the summer of 1792 by James Mackintosh of Sunderland, agent for the colliery owner John Nesham who was looking for a suitable waggonway terminus near the port. Sections covering the Panns are reproduced here.   Mackintosh mapped buildings as far inland as Low Street, matching the plan with an unusual bird’s eye view of every property around the harbour frontage. His survey confirms much of the information on Rain’s Eye Plan, drawn slightly earlier, but Nicholson’s plan is more accurate in terms of local geography. The best early commercial directory for Sunderland, by Barfoot and Wilkes in 1791, is almost contemporary and provides added detail. So here is an extraordinary snapshot of industries and houses around the harbour.The details show Bishopwearmouth Panns as a very mixed industrial and residential area. On the bird’s eye view, ‘I’ marks the landing for the Pan ferry, discontinued when the bridge opened in 1796. ‘H’ shows premises of the Sunderland glasshouses. James Dunning, coal fitter and raff merchant, has his yard at ‘G’. ‘F’ is the brewery of Elstob and Co. James Collin, ship-builder, worked from the yard marked ‘E’. Most premises include an owner’s house beside the business. By the time the Panns was photographed a century later, most of the houses and almost all residents had left, and the area was rebuilt with shipyards. The modern views show an area now denuded of industry.