This is a wonderful photograph showing the Fox Almshouses in Norton on a snowy day in January 2006.
Photograph courtesy of Bob Harbron.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
This is a wonderful photograph showing the Fox Almshouses in Norton on a snowy day in January 2006.
Photograph courtesy of Bob Harbron.
This lovely photograph is one of many that my wife has taken of Norton showing the seasons and various activities of the village.
They look beautiful. Like a xmas card. I hate when old buildings get knocked down. Norton town has kinda stuck to the victorian-type town. The cobbles, for example. My aunt lived there before she died in 2005.
A piece of history occured in 2008 regarding the Fox Alma houses.
When John Henry Fox made his will and appointed a number of Gentlemen of Norton executors and trustees, he stipulated the £20,000 be used to provide a residence for the deserving poor of Norton.
A stipulation was no land was to be purchased from the initial sum and if no site was volounteered in the Parish of Norton, the sum £20,000 was to given to the Hospital of God Greatham.
The site was given alongside the Priory Garth-End Farm and opened in 1897.
History was made in 2008 when the stewardship of Fox Almshouses was given into the care of The Hospital of God, Greatham (1273).
They started a brilliant renovation of the building, with glowing red clay pantile roof and sparkling paint-work, which is one of the prides of our village.
My Grandmother used to live in the Foxs Almshouses. I walk past them regularly and I remember calling into Gran Boistons bunglow when I was a schoolboy. My Gran hung our wet clothes in the back yard. That must have been in the 60s. I am still using the hammer that we kept and I have a wooden statue of a Black Warrior that used to be in my grans bunglow.
Snow must be the only thing that ever makes the appearance of the Fox Almshouses change. So much has changed over many years around them in Norton High Street, but nothing changes there except occupancy.