took over the works on 1 December 1858. At that time, of the tunnel had been excavated, out of a total of . From sums of money paid to Cail, it would appear that he was employing 200 to 300 men on the contract, and the tunnelling progressed well, although there were difficulties at both ends, where the limestone was particularly hard. The tunnel was completed by 31 December 1859, thirteen months after Cail took over the contract. Shortly afterwards, much of the plant used on the project was put up for sale, including nine steam engines, 60 tons of bridge rails, 14 sets of pumps and two brick and tile making machines. The land at Tongues Farm, where the brickworks had been operating, was returned to agricultural use. Many of the workmen had lived in huts in this remote area, and those were demolished. Most of the shafts were arched over and filled in. The main fault identified was a step at the western end, resulting in water standing to a depth of , which Cail claimed was due to inaccurate drawings. In 1862 the company found out that Riddell would not object to a reservoir at Hallington, and so this was included in an Act of Parliament obtained in 1863. The engineer for the company was John Frederick Bateman, but it was Thomas Hawksley who steered the bill through Parliament, so he may have been acting to protect the interests of Newcastle Corporation. The landowners were Henry H Riddell and Catharine Ann Tevelyan, and following negotiations with both parties, the company paid £9,500 for the land on which to construct the reservoir. The contract ensured that the fishing and shooting rights were retained by the landowners, but were also available to the directors and their friends. Measurement of the flow in various streams in the vicinity had shown that the yield might not be as high as Bateman had estimated. The Act authorising the reservoir received Royal Assent on 11 May 1863, and also changed the name of the company to the Newcastle and Gateshead Water Company, reflecting the area they supplied rather than where the water came from. In addition to the reservoir, two aqueducts were authorised, one to the east and another to the west, which fed water into the reservoir. The enabling Act had imposed time restrictions on completing the reservoir, and in 1866 the