Dovecot Street railway tunnel is a well known landmark of the town. The tunnel links the town centre with the Oxbridge & Grangefield areas of Stockton. Many supporters will also remember the tunnel for getting to and from the old Stockton Victoria football ground. Courtesy of John Robson. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Picture Stockton Archive 
I was born in the Moor Hotel on the other side of this tunnel. My dad Eric Foggin was the landlord of the pub. At some point between 1965-1967 there was a massive flood which blocked off access through the tunnel. My dad took his canoe and went back and forth between Dovecot Street and Oxbridge ferrying stranded shoppers from town with their groceries.
LikeLike
Up until a couple of weeks ago, I had never used this tunnel since I was at Mill Lane school n the early 60s. I have used it twice recently, to get from my sons house in Grangefield back in to town to get the bus home.
When I was at Mill Lane, there was a toilet on the right hand side just before the tunnel, and an old pair of rickety gates on the left, which I think belonged to an old man with a horse and cart. My oldest brother worked in the he building on the left, which housed several wagons of the day which I think were Thames Traders. Some of the science lessons at school involved us going on to the moor which was always exciting. It was also invariably used as the venue of choice ( rather than the school yard) for the many fights that went on at the time. We also used it to get to Rudds Rec, as that is where we had to go to play football. I remember, there was one boy in our class, Ronnie Cockin, who was in another league when it came to football. I think he lived in Scarth Street where the front of the infants school was I lived up Ewbank Street in Stoker Street until I was 6 months old apparently, when we moved to browns Bridge.
LikeLike
A bit before your time, but you can see the area around the tunnel, Mill Lane School and even sports in Rudd’s rec, in these two 1950 images:
https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW033955
https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/en/image/EAW033960
(If you register, it’s free, you can zoom in to see more)
I lived in Grangefield so used the tunnel quite a lot to get to town, not sure I’d be so keen to use it these days!
LikeLike
Thanks for that, those images are incredible.
LikeLike
Agree with Steve,
Fantastic aerial photo’s. The first shows where Browns bridge estate was to be built. We were one of the first families to move to Wrensfield Road, I think the estate started to be built 1957 and we moved in before the estate was complete. The large building in the centre was where the flats were built. You can see Lustrum beck meandering in the field adjacent to Grays Road before it was straightened and flood banks put in about 1958 – 59ish as I can remember the crane and the bulldozers. The land from this photo looks pretty flat, but it isn’t, as the building / flats I mentioned are on the top of what was a hill. You can also see a faint circle on the ground near to where Newtown School is situated and a think this must have been where the barrage balloons were tethered during the war. Always wondered what it was like before the estate was built. Fantastic memories.
Dave.
LikeLike
Used to use this tunnel every Saturday night after being to Tito s nightclub to get back to grange field estate, unfortunately in those days all street lighting was turned off about midnight meaning it could be pitch black going home , very scary when you had to pass the cemetary
LikeLike
This certainly looks like the tunnel that as an apprentice at the Head Wrightsons foundry
(which you can see in the top of in the picture the geen and red building inthe background)
we used to walk through after getting the 0 bus from Norton and walking up Dovecote street,
The moor was on the right as you walked up the apprentices used to play football on the moor most lunch times with the backdrop of Thompson scap yard on the right of the moor.
LikeLike
I remember being pelted with snowballs by the boys playing on the Moor as I cycled to Grangefield Grammar School in the winter in the 1960s. I had to run the gauntlet frequently!
LikeLike
When I worked at Raylor’s Plant Hire in Portrack Lane back in 1971 I would meet my mate, Steve Rayner from Whessoe’s at the the bottom of Dovecot Street and we would walk through to the old ‘Moor’ Pub for opening time….. I think Bob & Gladys? …. ran it back then.
LikeLike
I remember when we had heavy rain around 1967 and floods throughout Stockton town centre, this was the only way I could get home for dinner on my motorbike. I lived in Ragworth and worked in Yarm Lane at the old Bensons garage( next to Wheatleys garage) all the roads were waterlogged, Durham road and Oxbridge road both have dips to go under the railway line so these were both too deep.
LikeLike
Well this is a great pic. The tunnel was part of my childhood, we lived in the little end of Tarring street. As a kid we used the tunnel for a playground riding our bikes playing, with balls and when it rained everything you played as a kid.
It was a very dirty place and I can still remember the smell, if you shouted it would echo. We would climb up it somehow and sit on the railings and do a bit of train spotting. At the Dovecot Street end there was a Urinal on the righthand side, a few yards from the entrance. Us girls would dare one another to go in causing lots of giggling. What a big occasion it was when the fair came, even if we didnt have money we would just go and watch the goings on. The big swinging boat named the Lusitania was great and if you stood under it money would drop out of peoples pockets so sometimes we got enough for a ride. My favourite was the Waltser. As you walk along the path along the moorside there is a wall. When I was a kid it was just all open. The ground was black earth not much grass and mam would know when we had been on the moor we would be filthy. I could go on and on, Oh happy days
LikeLike
For anyone walking into or from the town centre from Grangefield the tunnel route was very familiar. People with their bikes, others pushing carts, mums with the prams of that period. I can picture it now. From the Oxbridge end, through the tunnel and past Mill Lane Schools and the Post Office in Dovecot Street. I presume that there is a picture of that somewhere on this site.
LikeLike
I used the tunnel a few weeks ago, walking from The Arc to Hartburn. It was early evening, and still a bit scary. I wouldn’t do it on a dark night.
LikeLike
The photograph is most certainly the tunnel at the end of Dovecot St, linking Oxbridge & Grangefield. I took this photograph there myself within the last 4 weeks.
LikeLike
Don’t know where this picture is of. It’s certainly not the moor tunnel linking Oxbridge with Dovecot St.
LikeLike
Thank you JR. The tunnel, the way to the tip where we scavanged for metal remains from the foundry to sell to the scrap-merchant. Also remembered as a very foreboding place at times.
LikeLike
I took this photograph two weeks ago, close to the Tarring Street area of Dovecot Street.
LikeLike
Many will recall his tunnel leading to ‘The Moor’, on which the yearly week long Stockton Fair July /August was held. Steam traction engines, ablaze with lights, drove the many entertainments their coal-smoke and steam, the roaring of the ‘dodge-ems’, the steam-yachts ‘Aqutania’ and ‘Mauretania’. Big-dipper and caterpillar, the roll-a-penny, shooting galleries and hoopla stalls, blending with the smell of fish and chips and crushed grass. It was here in July 1902 ‘Buffalo Bill’s’ Great American Wild-West Show was held.
LikeLike
A very interesting photograph,what year was it taken??? Is this from the Dovecote St end? Would the old Mill Lane school have been on the right?. I am just trying to orientate myself with what it used to be like when I lived in Ewbank St.
LikeLike
I think Ewebank St was on the left. The smelly old urinal on the right.
LikeLike
Spot on Keith Tilley.
LikeLike
Just one of the ways I used to cycle to Grangefield – it stopped you having to go the same way every day and getting bored with the route.
LikeLike