Journal entry – John Grey – 14 Aug 1834

Thursday 14th August



When at Newlands lately I found a part of the Building done by Rewcastle two years ago, has not yet been finished.  The Slated Roof of the very expensive house inclosing the Horse Wheel of the Threshing Machine, has not been pointed, though the Tenant had the Lime as he showed me for the purpose, but which is long ago become useless; & now some of the Slates are beginning to blow off.  I wrote to Rewcastle today, calling his attention to that & to some other things at Newlands West Farm left in a very discreditable condition by him, expressing surprize that having received the payment, he should not have completed the Work, & begging that he would not give me occasion again to revert to the subject which I now do for the second time.  Wrote also to Stokoe the Millwright to know why £8 demanded of me in payment for a pair of Millstones annexed to the Machine at Coastley had not been included in his Estimate, & asking him to produce a Copy of it, as there is not one to be found in the Office.  In consequence of a complaint made by Mr Beaumont’s Tenant, I went to look at a Water course which the Hospital has made by permission through his Field that they might get quit of a Stream of Water, by turning it into the Tyne, which formerly ran through Widehaugh & would have been troublesome e & expensive to get through the embankment.  The cut being deep, the banks slide in, which occasions an obstruction to the Water and a waste of arable Land.  The most effectual care would be to make a covered Drain of it, & as it is not long, the expense would not be much, except for leading the Stones, which I proposed to him to do, for his own benefit.  This I think he will do, after Harvest, & I must be at the expense of making the Culvert.  I rode forward to a Mill belonging to the Duke of Northumberland to see the kind of sluices used in the Reservoir, for it seems to me that those employed in the Hospitals Machines of late years are unnecessarily expensive.