A postcard of of a view near Light Pipe Hall Farm in Stockton. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A postcard of of a view near Light Pipe Hall Farm in Stockton.
I recently accessed the 1921 census and found my Grandparents living with their 2 sons at number 24 Light Pipe Hall Road. Worked for Malleable Steel Works but was unemployed
Interestingly I’ve made a few discoveries about Light Pipe Hall Road this week of which my Great Grandfather (along with several other boys) was arrested for a juvenile crime of stealing biscuits and lemon peel from a shop there in 1899. I have just discovered that he also lived on the street as well!
Yes Julie, I can remember the storm. I was at Oxbridge Lane school in 1968, it was a summers day, but it became as dark as night, even the teachers looked very worried because at that time there was always a threat of nuclear war… anyway, in a matter of minutes the school yard was flooded. I also remember the club being near your uncle Billys – was there a betting shop near there as well? Do you remember the newsagents, Mrs Burns, near the Oxbridge pub and Tates near where the garage is now?
I remember light pipe hall road. I grew up in wren street. I also remember the storm in the 1960s. I think I remember the landlord of the moor canoeing down the subway. We all got sent home at lunchtime. Fantastic area, good old Oxbridge.
Billy East was my Nana’s brother and lived at No 16. My Nana lived opposite him at 27 Light Pipe Hall Road and we lived at 25 Light Pipe Hall Road. We moved out in about 1970. The Oxbridge Club was originally a few doors down from ‘Uncle Billy’s’ in Light Pipe Hall Road before it moved to Norfolk Street (near Stockton Football Club) and then it eventually moved back to where it is now. Our house was at the bottom of the bank – can anyone remember the very bad storm in the middle of the 1960’s – our house was flooded out and my mum had to get the fire brigade to pump the water out.
My nanna lived in Light Pipe Hall Road, Minnie Broadbent
For those who want to know when Light Pipe Hall Road was demolished; my family moved out in 1969 and the house was demolished around a year later. Our house was situated towards the Moor, however, the top end of the road, near the Oxbridge pub did not come down until the late seventies.
I also recall an old man called Billy East, who lived at the top end of Light Pipe Hall Road; he used to refurbish bikes, in fact my first bike was bought from him for 10 bob… anyone else out there remember this guy?
Yea Mike,you’re quite right, Butlers shop was the one nearest the Moor pub. Goldsbroughs was the one opposite the main entrance to Head Wrightsons,I know this for sure because my mother used to get groceries on tick from Mrs Goldsbrough, as many people did back then.
I remember Olives shop I was always frightened of her when I was a kid.
I worked at Head Wrightsons Stockton Steel Foundry in Light Pipehall Road from 1965-67 and we used to play football on a lunch time on the open ground opposite. Then, as Stephen says, Thompsons scrapyard acquired it in 1966 and fenced it off so they could extend their yard to include a huge car crushing machine. I watched from the window of the lab I worked in as they built it and then crushed cars into little cubes. Light Pipehall Road was still thriving then. I seem to remember the Moor Hotel, the Bookmakers, a corner shop and I think the old Oxbridge Club was there too.
I lived at 90 Light Pipe Hall Road from 1964-1970; The Moor (opposite the pub of the same name ) was open land until 1966 when it was aquired by Thomson’s scap merchants; soon after they built a large fence around the site which is there to this day.
I have in my posession a copy of an old map from the end of the 1800s and it shows Light Pipe Hall farm where Thompsons scrapyard is now, opposite Tyndale Street.
I think light pipe hall rd was demolished in the early 70″s. I was brought up in nearby Wren Street and remember the houses getting knocked down
Why did Light Pipe Hall Road come into my mind today? The tricks mental tricks that are played! For the life of me I can”t recall which was Light Pipe Hall Road – will have to Google it later. I have many clear memories of the general area, though, including the old mill/farmhouse derelict building. I recall Riley”s Boiler Works, too, as a friend of mine, Leonard Harding, was a clerk there after his war service, KORR, I believe. I also remember the annual fair, truly a major event in our young lives.Weren”t they called, “The Hirings”, which I seem to recall were contemporary labor recruitng spots years earlier. Correct me if my memory is wrong. I recall that there was a “subway” under the railroad tracks adjacent to “The Moor” that provided a pedestrian shortcut to Dovecot Street. These tracks must have lead into Stockton Station at one time. Remember we felt lucky to be served by both Stockton and Thornaby Stations giving us a choice of routes either southwards or to Redcar, Saltburn,( the funicular up and down the cliffs) Marske, and the moors OF Yorkshire. My father, Walter, was an office-boy and one of his daily jobs was to run to Thornaby Station to meet the managing director of a brewery, in from his country estate en route to the office. What meaningful task my Dad performed, I don”t recall – perhaps it was to carry a brief-case? But I digress! It has been great fun to recall these fond memories out of the blue. This web-site has proved to be informative and entertaining – there must be more to explore in October 2006.
Light Pipe Hall is shown on the 1899 Ordnance Survey Map at the bottom of Elsdon and Wren Street,on the Moor side of Tynedale St. The postcard of Light Pipe Hall Farm shows industrial chimneys in the background, this fits in with the map as it shows the Moor Steel and Iron Works beyond the farm. Relics of the iron works were still around in the 1940″s in the form of huge lumps of slag weighing many tons that had come from the blast furnaces, they were weird and irregular shapes had many sharp and jagged edges, we youngsters often played there, it was real exciting, we called them the rocks. I don”t know when Light Pipe Hall was demolished, can anyone help? During the war years a large brick air-raid shelter was built on that spot, and the surrounding area was allotment gardens.
The farmhouse at the top of the hill was called Wren`s Mill and I believe that the estate of council-built blocks of flats that were built in the fifties was called Wren`s Field. I think that these were the first flats built by Stockton Council and one of my good pals, Frank Cox, was re-housed from a house adjacent to the Gas Works into one of these flats. I remember being quite curious as to what these “flats” looked like inside. As I remember they were small but comfortable. I wonder what Frank is doing now. Does anybody know of his whereabouts? He married in Hull and I had the honour of being his Best Man. The comments about the kids playing in the war-time scrap at Thompson`s scrap yard brings back many happy memories of hours of innocent fun although by definition we were all trespassing. I remember assisting another kid to remove a fairly large section of scrap aluminium and struggling down to Lustrum Beck where we launched our prize and eventually “sailed” as far as the bridge at Durham Road Fish Shop. The raft remained there for several weeks until the council removed it. I remember my mother complaining about the idiots who had brought the “eyesore” to our neck of the woods and provided another attraction to what she already considered a dangerous beck for the local kids. I never confessed to being one of the “idiots”.
I am having a little trouble trying to remember exactly where Light Pipe Hall Farm is. I lived in Norfolk Street in Oxbridge and often I wanted to get to the Globe Theatre in the High street. I would leave my house, cut through Carr Street and into Light Pipe Hall Road and go past the Moor Hotel on the corner and onto the moor itself. I would just keep on walking and I believe there was a scap metal business on my left and I believe it was called Thompsons. I just kept walking and walking across this moor until I reached a building which brought me into a Steet which I think was Spring St (could be wrong here) and there about half a mile down was the Globe Theatre. Did anyone else do this walk, I would love to know? Great memories!
I too remember the moor scrapyard, were me and my pal Jimmy Gibson used to spend many an hour climbing in and out of the cockpits of fighter planes. Those were the days,
Thanks for the illuminating comments Colin. I remember fishes for redbreasts in the trickle of water that ran through the scrap yard and being horrified to find leeches in there. We of course knew them as bloodsuckers. The farmhouse in fact, I think,was the remains of a mill. It was so far away from water that it must have been a windmill. I also remember the barrage balloon ( swinging on the hawsers) but cannot recall the huts. The whole area was one huge adventure playground for us lads from the Hutchinson and Wellington Street area, we were probably lucky having it so near.
I think Alan is correct about his assumptions. I also had fun playing in the scrap. Part of the area was used as a fair ground, probably where these (I assume) gypsy”s are camped. There was a track which led to Bishopton Rd near Lustrum Beck, through a field which had a barrage balloon in it during the war. There were temporary huts to house the balloon operators. After the war they were occupied by squatters. Also on the way was a farm house on the top of the hill in which Matty Nightingale lived in.
If Light Pipe Hall farm was near the road of the same name then all I can remember during the period 1944-1951 there was the existance of a large scrapyard on land close to L.P.H.road. Living in Hutchinson Street my pals and I reached the fields, on which masses of ex war time scrap was laid out, by the footbridge over the railway. We called it the ” Moor” and spent hours of blissful fun climbing in and out of old bomber and fighter plane cockpits whist firing rusty old machine guns at each other . Nowadays children wouln”nt be allowed near in case they had an accident and Mummy and Daddy wanted compensation!
Was Light Pipe Hall farm any where near the road of the same name? I remember walking along Light Pipe Hall road on my way to see my paternal Grandfather who lived in Hampton Road,Oxbridge. My dad and I made the journey each Sunday before lunch. The Moor Hotel was at end I remember.