Leif
I can offer the following notes, which were compiled in the
course of railway history research, hence the references to
railway lines. I was not previously aware of their Norwegian interests.
Best wishes
Russell Wear
BEDE METAL & CHEMICAL CO LTD
(registered 16/5/1872)
HEBBURN WORKS, Hebburn
NZ 308654 (Map Grid Ref)
This firm was a member of the industrial empire of Sir Charles Mark Palmer
in its early days. The works was originally established in 1865 and was
served by a ½ mile long branch railway from the North Eastern Railway
Gateshead - South Shields line, ¾ mile east of Hebburn Station, a line which
also served the shipyards of R & W Hawthorn, Leslie & Co Ltd and Robert
Stephenson & Co Ltd (later Palmers Shipbuilding & Iron Co Ltd) and the pits
of Hebburn Colliery (Wallsend & Hebburn Coal Co Ltd) It smelted copper and
manufactured iron ore briquettes, the copper being obtained from mines in
Spain that the company owned.
The company went into liquidation in September 1957, and after demolition in
1959 the site was used for an extension of the Palmers Hebburn shipyard, by
then owned by Vickers Armstrongs Ltd
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