Loading pipes at Corporation Quay in Stockton, possibly 1950s or 60s. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Loading pipes at Corporation Quay in Stockton, possibly 1950s or 60s.
Hi there, I’m trying to find out any information and photographs of Elsie Hind. I would be very grateful for any information on her.
Hi, I have a lot of information on her (she was my great, great grandma), please do get in touch if you’re still looking!
Hello
My grandad Bill Barthram apparently used to be a chauffeur for Elsie in his younger days driving her around my mother told me once.
When she had scrap yard love to hear a bit more history.
Hi Georgia,
I’d love to hear more about Elsie. How do we go about getting in touch?
Kind regards
Marie
My older Brother Curly Brown was a driver on these Cranes all his working life from leaving school as a 14 years old he was promoted to Crane driver after completing his National Service with the Royal Engineers circa 1947, he retired from the same job after nearly fifty years working for the same Company. He used to say they made their best wages when the scrap boats were in dock. Perks of working on the docks were cheap duty free cigarettes and liquor when foreign boats came in. He loaded and unloaded all sorts of goods including a drunk Skipper one cold wintry night who was too drunk to walk the gang Plank. Curly was called from his bed for one special lift.
Can anybody read what the sign says halfway up the crane jib ?
It says “Stothert & Pitt, Bath” an engineering company that made dockside cranes, based in the city of Bath.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stothert_%26_Pitt
http://craneworks.org/bath/
Thanks for that Jonathan, and please keep up your excellent contributions on this site.
Certainly remember Elsie very well and her ‘antics’ in the scrap game along with her non tax paying downfall, some of the previous comments are correct. Elsie owned the property which is now the Open Prison on the left hand side of the road. On the right hand side is the property known as ‘Judges’ which indeed has an interesting background, now a Hotel previously it was the accommodation for Circuit Judges and before that part of Army Northern Command.
As far as I am aware it was the control centre for all the A.A. Gun/Searchlight Sites in the Teesside Area during WW2. There is a Bunker in the grounds which was converted into a bungalow by the late Capt Hand? when he bought the house (now the Judges Hotel). The Bunker is fairly large with holes cut into the blast proof walls for windows etc, the Bunker had/has? an underground reserve which was/is as large as the surface building. When you drive up to the Judges Hotel and look to the right you will see the Bungalow although you would not think that it was at one time a bomb proof surface Bunker! The roof line has been altered with cornices attached.
The large house and grounds were as far as I remember still used by the Army during the 1950’s, the Guardhouse was the Cottage which is on the right just past the roundabout and new Married Quarters were built on the grounds in the 1950’s. Shortly afterwards the Army moved out and the building transferred to the Ministry of Justice.
As I have indicated as far as I am aware the Army used the property as the main A.A Control Centre and accommodation during WW2 and I would be very interested if there is any information on other uses by the Army.
The object at the front of the picture was the Scrap Grab which dealt with the Tons of Battlefield scrap that passed across the Quay then into railway wagons. Rifles, Machine Guns, just about everything which collectors would pay a fortune for these day’s!!
My father often mentioned a woman called Elsie Hinds from South Bank, who with her husband? and son set up a business collecting WW2 battlefield scrap, and shipping it to Teesside, it appears your post refers to her shipments.
Elsie Hinds scrap yard was next to the Junction pub, in South Bank, Middlesbrough, a Teesside scrap dealing millionaire famous in the 1950s, for owning a racehorse that won the famous Gimcrack Handicap at York Races.
Mrs Hinds owned Kirklevington Hall, Yarm, which at a later date became a HMP Borstal. She lost her fortune when she tried smelting her own steel ingots using scrap metal and she had purchased two furnaces to do so, her bankruptcy was a sensation at the time when it emerged she had been using company funds to purchase luxury goods.
* Kirklevington Hall: Prior to Mrs E Hinds purchasing the Hall, it had a British Secret Services history and was a hotbed of covert activity during the WW2 period. The hall was built by the Richardson shipping family of Hartlepool in 1881, and used as a family home. The final surviving Richardson family member died in 1940, and it passed into the hands of the military, which set the place up as a secret command base – a WWII command centre for the North-East. Today the hall is now a hotel called the Judges Hotel.
*The Gimcrack handicap is remembered today for being named after a famous racehorse called ‘Gimcrack’ the winner of 27 of his 36 races in a turf career spanning 7 seasons. Gimcrack won his last race in 1771, at age eleven, and he retired to the Grosvenor stud races. He is one of a select band of racehorses commemorated by the name of a race: the Gimcrack Stakes.
I don’t wish to nit-pick but unless I’ve read your post wrong you mention Kirklevington Hall becoming a borstal and A hotel by the name of Judges. I believe the borstal and Judges still both exist so surely it has to be one or the other.
Kirklevington Grange became HMP Kirklevington Grange.
Kirklevington Hall became Judges Country House Hotel.
You don’t want to get those two mixed up!
(Jon) During the war the Hall was a British Army Officers residence with office space, which had POW pens and accommodation intended for interrogating German prisoners, this aspect was abandoned and it then became a local Command Centre, after the war the Hall reverted to being a private residence, then turned into an Circuit Court Judges residence for Judges attending the Middlesbrough Courts and Assizes, then turned into an hotel (the Judges Hotel) which is often the case with large country homes. The grounds of the Hall now contain an HMP prisoner pre-release centre – formerly it was a borstal.
* Judges houses still exist despite enormous disquet over their cost to the taxpayer. (www/quotes>) High Court judges could be forced out of their historic homes and into hotel rooms as part of a far-reaching review into their accommodation costs. The Government has confirmed that it is examining the accommodation provision for the country’s 106 High Court judges amid concerns that the taxpayer-funded arrangements have become unsustainable. The move comes as it can be revealed that some judges’ residences are costing taxpayers more than £5,000 a night. The properties, some of which have their own servants, wine cellars and sporting facilities was set up to ensure that judges travelling the Courts Circuit had a secure place to stay, away from contact with lawyers and witnesses.
Cheers Bob, Judges Hotel and the borstal are on opposite sides of the road to Kirklevington, has this always been the case or is this relatively a new road.
Bob, Elsie (known as the Bessie Braddock of South Bank) was not the only one to take the scrap from the Battlefields, part was sent to Darlington and part went into the Yard on Thornaby Road which was opposite the the flattened area where the German Land Mine hit. In regards to the house, after I made my comment yesterday I Google mapped the area and found to my surprise that both houses had the same sounding name but with a slightly different spelling. The property Elsie had was called ‘ Kirklevington Hall’ and the property which the Army once had was called ‘Kirkleavington Hall’. Strangely enough there is a Farm next to the former Bunker on the Kirkleavington side called ‘Kirklevington Farm’.
Charles; I’m fascinated by Mrs Elsie Hinds history and wish I had more knowledge concerning her. South Bank used to have the nickname “Slaggy” in those days, and anyone with 10/- in his pocket was said to be out doing “the Charleston Walk”. When ever I think of South Bank, I immediately associate it with Cannon Street, Middlesbrough, the same people, the same Iron Masters attitude to life, with Police Officers walking around in two’s wearing those huge Police Bobbys helmets seen in the late 1940s.
Me’thinks the scrapyard opposite the Thornaby Road bomb site, in the 1950s was run by Miles Turnbull and his brother. Miles Turnbull at a later date had the tool shop in Skinner Street, Stockton, the scrapyard you mention was only a small, rarely open, and never looked prosperous or busy, so maybe the one you are referring to was run by the former owner who had sold it to Mr Turnbull?
Bob, next to the Yard was an area with a couple small businesses one of them being Wiggins Engineering. Do you remember this Company?
Charles: I recall the yard, but not the tenants or various businesses, Wiggins Engineering was not one I recall. Regards. Bob.
Hi Bob, Elsie was my great, great grandma and I have plenty of information about her if you’re still interested. Feel free to get in touch.
Georgia,
My apologies I have just seen your post today 14 December 2021, 2-years afterwards, my father Jacob Wilson claimed he was related by marriage to the Fosters of South Bank, and was related to Elsie Hinds nee Foster (my father was a well-known hawker known far and wide as Uncle Jacob – the Uncle bit meant a man of respect amongst hawkers) His father my grandfather was called Quiet Henry Wilson (a fighting man) who had a car scrappers yard over the border which he allowed gipsies and hawkers to park their caravans on. I tried tracing this yard with no success, I was told it was in Feversham Street.
For obvious reasons Elsie Hind’s was the talk of the town, it’s on the www that she employed 500 men and won the Gimcrack horse race with Eudameion, it was a sensation for the tittle-tattle merchants when the Evening Gazette made it known she had bought a bed for £3500,00 when £400 would buy a semi-detached house. The world Elsie Hinds occupied was a hugely important part of Teesside history and now long gone, I was a 1941 child and at home, in those post-war parts of Teesside the three councils involved disapproved of and demolished them, for all its faults Teeside was a strong hard working community area built by strong forceful men, men who were solid Brits through and through who was described by many “as the most awkward and obstinate people in England” I am very proud of that description.