This photo shows Bridge Road with a view of the Metropole Hotel. The building next to it is the old Law Court which is now the Thomas Sheraton public house. This image was probably taken around the mid sixties. Courtesy of Peter Jordison. 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
The Met (berni inn) closed late 1973 I was the assistant manager, well trainee actually but I got to wear a suit and felt very important I was only 17 but that didn’t seem to matter. Wonderful days and nights. We had 2 restaurants and 5 bars, cellar bar closed due to IRA bombings
Film producer/director and general all round local lad makes good, Franc Roddham, was discussing his early life on BBC Tees today and mentioned that the met was the first port of call on lads friday night out in the early 60’s.
Chuck Berry was billed as the ‘King of Rhythm & Blues’ when he appeared at the Odeon in the early part of 1965. The tour was promoted by Robert Stigwood and Associates Ltd. Chuck Berry’s current 45 rpm single release at the time was ‘The Promised Land’ on the Pye International label. The supporting acts on the tour were as follows. ‘The Five Dimensions’ started the show and they were Peter John Hogman, playing harmonica, 12-string guitar and vocals. Brian David Katterhorn, drums. Bob Scrivens, piano, organ and vocals. Louis Cennamo, bass guitar. Jeff Krivet, guitar. They had recently parted company with Jimmy Powell. Next came ‘Winston G’, solo male vocalist. Next up was the ‘The Graham Bond Organization’ which featured Graham Bond on organ, alto sax and vocals, Ginger Baker, drums. Jack Bruce on bass guitar and harmonica and Dick Heckstall-Smith M.A. (Cantab) on tenor sax. ‘Long John Baldry’ closed the first half of the show. After the interval the show continued with ‘The Moody Blues’ featuring Denny Laine, Graham Edge, Clint (Whiskers) Warwick, Mike Pinder, Ray Thomas. They were riding high at the time with their first hit single ‘Go Now’. Topping the bill of course was ‘Chuck Berry’ who played in his usual inimitable live style which sounded nothing like his records. The compere was ‘Mike Patto’. This was the second vist to Stockton-on-Tees by Chuck in less than a year, his previous vist was in May 1964 when he played ‘The Globe’. ‘The Globe’ concert was one of his very first concerts in Great Britain.
I remember the first time I ate out with friends. We went to the Metropole and had the classic prawn cocktail followed by steak and chips. I knew then that I was grown up.
I remember seeing a pop concert at the Odeon in the early 1960s with Chuck Berry on the bill. After the show we were waiting for the bus to go home and Chuck Berry came out the theatre, carrying his guitar case, and walked along to the Metropole where I guess he was staying.
I have mentioned elswhwere on this site about sitting on those high stools in the Cocktail bar in the Metropole with two friends and meeting Ken Maynard and Frankie Vaughn when they were virtually unknowns appearing at the Globe. I did not class us as sophisticated or suave being apprentice Platers at Stockton Forge. I do remember the ‘in’ drink then was Strantons Strong Ale, it certainly had a kick like a mule. Not much chance of young men in todays Stockton meeting up with these stars, as there are now no theatres or similar that I know of in the area, mores the pity.
My friends and I would go to the Met cellar
bar on a Friday night and I got talking to a
handsome chap who is now my husand. Yes very
happy memories.
I celebrated my 21st birthday in 1959 by inviting all my friends to a dinner in the Met. It cost me an arm and a leg, or so I thought at the time. The soup was asparagus and nobody liked it. I remember feeling that it was all very posh and I don`t think that any of us were really comfortable in those surroundings. Why the Met? Well there wasn`t a lot of choice in Stockton around that time and it was a toss up between the Met and Fred Beaumont`s Grill in the Black Lion. After the dinner we beat a hasty retreat to the Red Lion pub in Ramsgate for some serious drinking.
I used to go to the Electric Onion in 1974, great at first. Then I started to go to Bailey’s (ex Tito’s)in Brunswick Street around 1975. The old Job Centre was opposite the Talbot in the High Street and DHSS office (Bayswater House)was in Prince Regent Street in 1977/78. Guessing the Met was still there until the new Job centre was built.
Sunday Night at the London Paladium with Bruce Forsythe as presenter. Watched by me and a couple of mates each Sunday in the Bar on the left as you entered from Bridge Road. Then to Gum Yums in Yarm Lane.
Was it a Mr Cross, the manager, and Lil the barmaid ?.. Great memories of the cellar bar.
I started going in the Electric Onion which was opposite the old law courts (Thomas Sheraton) around 1974 and can’t remember the Metropole being there at that time, but remember going into the Bernie inn around 78/79 which was built on the Metropole site.
I can rember going for a meal upstairs in the Metropole and having chicken in a basket. My grandad and the rest of the family used to drink in the bar next to the court house. I remember the cellar bar as a place for drugs and it often got raided in the sixties. Happy days.
We had our wedding reception in the blue room at the Metropole in 1959, a 3 course meal for 10s 6d a head. You couldn’t even get a bag of chips for that now!!
To Mike Nelson – I did attend Holy Trinity but left in 1952, about the time of King Richard setting setting off for the crusades.
To Mike Renwick – Yes the brew was Camerons Srongarm!!
Sorry Mike I went from Newtown to Grangefield. Another memory coming back to me was of finishing work at Power Gas on the last working day before Xmas and crowding into the bar in the Met for a celebration drink.
Late fifties up in the blue room at half time at the maison, you could only buy half pints but they seemed to go down faster, then on to the Jockers and the Brunswick, then back to the Maison, if you didnt pull it was on to the chinese in Yarm Lane then the long stagger home, happy days.
I remember not being able to buy pints of beer upstairs. We used to fill our table up with halves before last orders!
I and many of my friends had (have?) many happy memories of the “Met”.
It was very handy for the Maison dancers who were let out of the dancehall and had their hands or wrists stamped with a logo stating admit one or something like that. (The 1952- 1958 period.)
After a drink or three in the loungebar (first door on the left) we rolled our way back to the dance to ask that very dishy girl if she wished to dance. Such confidence was not present “pre-Met”.
I seem to remember a door on the right as you entered the front door was into a bar exotically called the “cocktail bar”.
We glanced in but all the fellows in there seemed suave and sophisticated unlike us rough types. All sat on high stools with glasses of strange coloured liquid in their manicured hands.
Happy days. I was sixteen at the time but a cig in my hand and a pint touch in the other and I thought I was transformed into a man about town.
Stupid boy!!
Yes, good memories of the Metropole. I was born in Park Terrace, which is to the left of the picture (not shown) My Gran & Grandad lived there. My Mum lived there until a house came up, shortage of housing then.
I would as a very young boy, pass the Metropole every Saturday going to High street from my Gran’s house and would smell the beer, smoke and the Grill Room.
Also, there was I remember on the Park Terrace side, The Cellar. I think there was always trouble breaking out on Saturday nights down there.
Alan, yes I remember the met from 1966 onwards. One could get chicken and chips etc in the downstairs restaurant and steals upstairs along with the schooners of sherry irish coffee etc.
Were you ex Holy Trinity by the way, the name rings a bell?
I remember going down the cellar bar in the Metropole listening to music with people like Harry Hickman, Stewart Ashworth and Mick Hope and lots of others too many to mention great times had by all.
Also fond memories for me. I had started work & would take young ladies along there in an attempt to impress them, the height of sophistication. My memory says the bar served Cameron’s beer, is that right?
I remember working on the Metropole’s demise, it was before I started at Harker’s which would be 1975-76.
This immediately brought to my mind Sunday nights eating Chicken and Chips at 5/6d followed by a ‘Schooner of Sherry’. This was late ’60s or early ’70s as I remember. Anyone else have fond memories of the Met.?
Does anybody know what year the Metropole was demolished?
1971