This is an interesting design for an engine house... do we know anything re the engine?

Photograph:

🔗St-Hildas-Coal-Mine-User-Album-Image-39745[linkphoto]St-Hildas-Coal-Mine-User-Album-Image-39745[/linkphoto][/link]

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Nope, afraid not.
It's open for public viewing in a few weeks but I presume the engine won't be there.

http://www.southtyneside.info/applications/2/whatson/event-detail.aspx?year=2009&month=09&day=10&tags=&id=636&inst=9405&free=true 

Though the internet might.

ST. HILDA COLLIERY.

WINDING ENGINES.-Double Cylinders, 36 inches diameter, 6 feet stroke; horizontal drum, 19 feet diameter; automatic expansion gear, made by the Grange Iron Co.; round steel ropes; cage at present for two

decks, but arranged for four decks, with eight tubs (and double heapstead), safety links for prevention of over-winding.

PUMPING ENGINES.-Single Cylinder Vertical Condensing; cylinder, 65 inches diameter, 96 inches stroke; pumps, 12 inches diameter; sets lifting.

HAULING ENGINES, UNDERGROUND (WITH BOILERS AT SURFACE).-One Pair of Horizontal Engines; 2 cylinders, each 22 inches diameter, 36 inches stroke, working an engine-plane, with main and tail ropes, 24 miles long, with 100 tubs in each set.

SCREENING.-Belts with steel plates on ropes for screening best coals.

VENTILATION.-Guibal fan, 50 feet diameter, the largest erected. WORKINGS.-Board and pillar system.

PATENT FUEL.-In course of erection, Yeadon's (of Leeds) system.

Not Wiki so it might even be true....

http://www.mininginstitute.org.uk/papers/Collieryvisit.html 

Don't think it was an engine house. I think it was part of the heapstead around a shaft top, admittedly ornate but then it was in the middle of South Shields, one of the better class parts of Tyneside! The closeness of coal mining and better class residential area was the main reason for having an extensive surface electrified railway serving pits and staiths.

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Spent all my life living in Tyneside, and thats the first time I`ve seen South Shields called one of the better parts of Tyneside

Thanks Simon.
Bar a few potted histories out of books and a scrap or two on the internet I've struggled to find out much about St Hilda or for that matter anything else within about twenty miles which is a pity.