This small building dating from 1879 once housed a water pump for the village. The pump was shaped like the Sockburn Worm with its tail forming the pump handle.
After the pump was removed in 1911 the structure remained as a shelter, which is now a Grade II listed building. It caries a plaque with the 1879 construction date and the initials “SRW” for Samuel Rowland Chapman-Ward of Neasham (who committed suicide at Penrith Railway Station just a few years later in 1883)
Neasham Pump House
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Fascinating, I wonder what the circumstances were to cause the poor guy to commit suicide ?
According to a news report his wife had died a few years earlier and he was also in poor health.