Hi
I was there recently, its a an impressive engine house, but I was informed by some locals that it was to do with the local water board, and nothing to do with mining.
They may of course have been wrong and I didn't follow it up.
Allan

NMRS British Mining No. 70 describes it as the Pump House - presumably to de-water parts of the mines (built in 1906) and Keys to the Past say it was later taken on (no date as yet found) by the water company to provide water to Consett.

As you say it's impressive as are the various chimneys and flues in the area.

The Presser lead mine was later taken over for water supply hence the impressive building still remaining. There was a range of buildings, probably the shop, demolished in the 1970s, of which the remains can still be seen.

That chimney is built of a different type of stone to the engine house buildings and I've wondered for years if it was in fact left over from the mine and reused for the pumping station.

Two shafts appear to remain close together on the NW side of the engine house; it would appear this was a feature of the mines in this locality as two close together may be found at Sikehead and Ramshaw nearby.

Of particular interest is the route of flat rods, partly covered over, which ran from here to Taylor's shaft on the hill top.

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This building had intrigued me since I was a child with it's odd shaped roof and a chimney at one end and a squat wooden headstock at the other but it was some years before I was able to piece together what it was. The Weardale & Consett Water Company had been looking to pump water from the Presser shaft back in the 1890s by which time the mine had been disused since 1883. It was to be a few more years and some difficult negotiations with the mine owner. a James Joicey and the land owners, the Lord Crewe Estates but the go ahead was finally given in 1902 with the proviso that the new building had to contain the wherewithal for Joicey to resume mining at some future time if he wished to. The building therefore had to be dual purpose - part engine house and part pump house.The water company then engaged the services of T. & C. Hawksley the London based engineers to design and build a pipeline take water across the moors to the new reservoir at Hisehope near Waskerley on an "as required" basis to maintain the water levels there. As the plant in the new building was steam driven initially the chimney from the original 1860's building was incorporated into the design as were other parts in:( the interior. Whether the lifting plant and headstock were from the original is not known. Many years later when 3 phase electric became available in the area pumping was done from a borehole put in adjacent to the old shaft. The lifting gear certainly saw some use at some point as can be seen by large grease stains from the cables on an internal wall but whether this was from some rumoured fluorspar extraction about 1970 I cannot confirm. The building was virtually emptied in the '70s with the headstock chopped down and the end wall bricked up. The old mineshop at the rear of the site also disappeared soon after. With the building of new reservoirs in the area notably the Derwent, the need for water from the Presser disappeared and now that the electric supply has been removed the building has been virtually abandoned by the Chinese owners of Northumbria Water and despite being Grade 2 listed is falling into poor state of repair with perhaps an inevitable result.