A general view of Nos.58-64, High Street, Stockton – commercial signs for F. A. Woodroffe and Son, jewellers and silversmiths, Masterman, menswear, H. Farnaby, commercial stationers and office appliances suppliers, United Friendly Insurance Co. Ltd., Lassers, confectioners, The Vane Arms Hotel, William Strike Ltd., nurserymen and seedsmen, and the Black Lion Hotel c1966.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Just for information, the Safety Match was invented in a back room of the Jeweller, Woodruffes on the high street. This shop was owned by the Collingwoods Group and I used to visit the Watch Repairer who worked there, this was early 1960’s.
Can anyone tell me if they have heard of Flower’s Yard in Stockton and let me know where it was/is? Thank you!
Sarah, the building itself was called Chester House and the cobbled Chester House Passage seperated the two matching tiled frontages at ground level running all the way down to the river. That was in the 1950″s but I have a copy of Rambles in Cleveland published by Michael Heaviside in 1903 which refers to Mr. W. Strike”s Florist adjoining Chester House Passage.
How lovely to see this photo of the Vane Arms, never seen it before and it is the best one I have seen of this lovely old coaching inn. Evidently Edward VII stayed here, along with Lilly Langtree, so my mother used to say, don”t know how true that is.
Sarah – These comments might be of some help to you and this image gives a better view I think as regards to the building between The Vane Arms & The Black Lion. The building between these two hotels was known as William Strike (flowers and seeds retailer). I”ve no idea what it was before that, these building”s go back way in time. It”s quite sad that this lovely part of the High Street had to be knocked down. Still fantastic to look at on this web site.
Sorry Bob but I don”t have any knowledge of the interior of that building. The building Hales the bookbinders were in was halfway down the yard behind William Strikes. I do remember that Hales workshop was on the first floor, up a flight of wooden stairs, but they stored strawboards on the ground floor in some horse stalls which I seem to remember were marble. Could that frontage have been 17th century?
I wonder if Stan Hilton, or any ex Strike employee, can verify that William Strikes, Florist had roof beams dated 1647, (burnt into the timber) this I heard of during the demolition work of 1969-1970. This would tie into the Flemish influence of the port of Stockton at this time
The two shops to the left of the Vane Arms, Woodroffe and Masterman are 58 and 59 High Street which were the premises of the town”s first printers Christopher and Jennett and John Walker the inventor of the friction match. As an apprentice to the printers Edward Appleby in the 1950″s I was very familiar with this section of Stockton”s old High Street. On the right hand side of the Vane Arms (which I became more familiar with a few years later) was the unique frontage which I”ve always thought of as being Flemish or Tudor style, which at pavement level housed two black tiled shop fronts, which I think were a tobacconists “The House of Solace” and the Florists “William Strikes”. Between these two shops was an alleyway into a yard which led to William Hales the Bookbinders and then all the way down to the Corporation Quay area and the river. One of our jobs during the early part of our apprenticeship was to take printed jobs to Hales loaded on a handcart. Having pushed the cart down Dovecot Street we then had to negotiate crossing the High Street (which was the main busy route through the town for buses, cars and lorries), mount the kerb at the Vane Arms and aim the cart, which by now was more in control than we were, at the narrow entrance between the two shops into the cobbled yard. I often wondered how we stopped it (no brakes). One of our more long haul destinations with the handcart was Head Wrightsons at Thornaby loaded with clock cards.
Your comment on the large chocolate egg being donated to the Childrens Ward of the Stockton and Thornaby Hospital brought back memories of my time spent in the Durham Road hospital in 1956, I was there for 10 months with TB Spinal Meningitis and can remember the thick chocolate egg vividly.
Every Easter-tide one shop in this photo had a magnificent window display, this was “Lasers” sweet shop , a window full of easter eggs of all sizes , in straw. wicker baskets with fluffy “chickens” and chocolate rabbits. One of the selling points was a 1/- chocolate-egg could have the name of the child in coloured icing on the egg. The display centre piece was a very large chocolate egg donated to the Childrens Ward of Stockton & Thornaby Hospital.