A view of Thornaby Town Shopping Centre under construction, on part of the site of Thornaby Airfield c1965. Construction work started shortly after the land was purchased in 1962 and the complex was completed in 1968. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
When Woolco opened it had exterior panels which were decorated with murals depicting different kinds of fruit and veg. Does anyone remember any details of these? Or have any photos?
Who’d of thought it… there’s a Woolworths museum site 🙂 and Thornaby gets an interesting article about it’s very modern Woolco store:
http://www.woolworthsmuseum.co.uk/woolco/woolcogallery.htm
Amazing to see the fields with no buildings or any sort of development. Its changed quite a bit since then.
Just to give some more history into the shopping centre. It started life as a WW2 airfield for Coastal Command. The majority of aircraft were the Hudson. You can see many old buildings around the area of Thornaby The old Station commander house, The main gate and Guardroom and of course several of the old hangers. In the picture you can see the remains of the peri (perimeter track)
The photo is of Thornaby town centre under construction with the ramp in the foreground. The building with the funny shaped room in the middle is what used to be Presto”s store. What is now the Post Office is in the bottom right hand corner of the photo (Appleby House). To the left hand side is Brus House with the driving school building to the far left(originally occupied by the Midland Bank). The buildings on the left as you enter the town centre was the car showroom for Tristar Neahsam – a local ford car dealership. Their factory and repair centre was on Martinet Road on the site of what is now the new housing development.
The buildings at the entrance to the site were built for Neshams of Teesside and did sell Ford from there. The main building was the showroom and the offices were in the centre of the site. There was a small workshop separate from the showroom. The main workshops, which also housed the Ford Truck Centre were on the airfield. The hanger was demolished in 2001 and new houses have recently been built on it.
The funny shape buildings as you enter the town centre were once a car show room. Ford I believe.
I believe this used to be a car showroom. The funny shaped buildings where made of glass I think.
Are there any pictures of what the new Thornaby is going to look like? What are the funny shaped buildings when you enter Thornaby centre (as if you”re going to Asda) They are boarded up now.