Lemington Gut
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The Lemington Gut was formerly the main channel of the River Tyne. It took a sharp bend around Blaydon Haugh, which was cut across by the Tyne Improvement Commission in 1876 to straighten the river for boats. This resulted in the river being shortened by three quarters of a mile, creating deeper water at Blaydon and leaving the Gut as a backwater.[1] Before the cutting of the new channel, Lemington Staithes were housed on the river bank here, marking the end of the line for the Wylam to Lemington Point waggon way, where coal from the local collieries was exported. Frequent dredging was required to keep the staithes in operation. The Tyne Iron Works were also situated on the river bank here. Over the years the Gut has been gradually filled in and has overgrown.
[edit] Lemington Bridge
There had once been a footbridge on the west side of the Gut near Lemington Power Station from 1916 up until the 1950's, and more recently a small bridge linking the main road across the Gut toward the Anglo Great Lakes Graphite Plant. In 2001 a new road bridge was built to give access to the newly created and still developing Newburn Riverside Industrial site and business park. The bridge is quite an elegant, two-arched concrete structure and at low tide there are large expanses of mudbanks exposed.[2]
