Location 4: The River Wear
As we look out across the river side it is impossible not to remember that the town of Sunderland is built from the river itself. The Panns was an area of Sunderland on the south bank of the river at the top of Low Street which had once been used for salt panning. In 1589 Robert Bowes and John Smith started making salt at Sunderland. The salt was made in iron pans at the place later called Pann's Bank. They owned their own coal pit at Offerton, and would use the poor quality coal for evaporating seawater. In the 1700s, this stretch of bank was home for block yards, glass works & Molly Linton's Quay from which Pann's ferry ran across to the north bank.
https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/explore/items/emergence-salt-trade
By 1795-6 two ferries ran on the section of the river between Sunderland and Hylton. The ferry from Southwick to Deptford was in operation by 1750 when Thomasine Robinson’s purchase of the Ayres Quay estate included land on which the glass factory stood.
The Pann’s ferry ran between Beamish drop on the north side and the later Fenwick’s glass house, formerly Molly Linton’s quay, on the south. This ferry carried horses and cattle, and very often the boats used were too small to take more than one or two quiet horses! It was said that, passengers were afraid of going in the boat when the ‘horse was unruly’. (i)
The proposed new bridge could take the heavier traffic. ‘When the ferry boats are more properly adapted for the purpose and not incommoded with horses, carriages &c, less inconveniences & risk will attend crossing the river.’ (ii)
A century later four ferries still operated from Deptford dock to Southwick, from Wylam wharf on the ancient route, from Ettrick’s quay and from Commissioners’ quay to the undeveloped shore of Monkwearmouth, as well as that at Hylton. (iii)
The Pann’s ferry, though, after enjoying a brief surge of popularity carrying workmen and horses during the building of the Wearmouth Bridge, was too close to it to compete after 1796. (iv)
https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/explore/items/sunderland-ferries
The river, unlike what we see today, was awash with ships and vessels of every size. In the 1790’s there was an average of 452 keels on the River Wear, more than on the Tyne. There were claimed to be 631 keels working in 1800 and 570 in 1809, the latter employing 640 men besides 100 trimmers (in the ships’ holds) and 400 castors or coal-heavers plus perhaps 57 foremen. The last keel was in 1862 - mining created employment opportunities throughout Sunderland and the Durham coalfields.
Ships were built in Sunderland long before the town was known as the “largest shipbuilding town in the world; ” its beginnings can be seen in 1346 when Thomas Menvill established a shipyard in Hendon. The Napoleonic Wars laid foundations for Sunderland’s extraordinary rise in shipbuilding. By the 1700s Shipbuilding in Sunderland was well establishes and in 1805 output was only second to that of the Tyne. In 1816 there were on the river 20 shipyards, four dry docks and four floating docks, and also five boatbuilders’ houses and yards. One commentator noted, ‘the port of Sunderland stands at present the highest of any in the United Kingdom.’
https://www.victoriacountyhistory.ac.uk/explore/items/shipbuilding-sunderland
i Corder 29, 426.
ii Plymouth & West Devon RO, 105/167.
iii OS Durham VIII.10, .14, .15 (1897).
iv Gateshead Observer, 14 Nov. 1846; Corder 29, 428.
