The rear view of numbers 26-27 and 27-29 Silver Street, Stockton.
Photographs taken August 1981.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
The rear view of numbers 26-27 and 27-29 Silver Street, Stockton.
Photographs taken August 1981.
I am thinking that this yard behind Silver Street was directly behind Percy Lockwoods shoe shop. There was a passage way next to the shop that took you there.
I think you are probably correct Bob, and as Ray Todd suggests, it is indeed Wasps Nest Yard….see this site at
http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2003/10/08/wasps-nest-yard-c1986/
and this is what it looks like now!
http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2007/10/13/wasps-nest-yard-2010/
We believe the name of the yard occupied by the flea market is Hodgson’s Yard.
I am almost certain that this was the where the flea market is now held. It is some time since I looked at the building in the yard, although I always intended to find who owned it now in order to photograph it when the yard was unoccupied. My personal interest at the time lay in locating where my ancestor John Howgill lived in 1841. I have since discovered that he lived near the north corner of Silver Street and Cross Street. Returning to the photograph. For copyright reasons I do not think that I am allowed to publish a section of an Alan Godfrey map of Stockton dated 1897 (perhaps the editors can advise?) The map clearly shows that the flea market is one building block east of and parallel to the Green Dragon Yard. When I look at the above photograph and compare it to when examined the ‘Flea Market Yard’ (for want of a better title) I am 100% certain that the same structural features still remain, sufficient to be certain that the places are one and the same.
I would be interested to know if anyone else agrees or if any photographs, unhindered by the flea market itself, exist. I will post my own pics when I can lay my hands on them!!
This is not where the Flea Market is now held, but its very close. This is at the back of Silver Street, almost opposite to the entrance of the Green Dragon Museum. I remember this old yard very well, as I worked in a Solicitors office in Finkle Street in 1968, and I often used this yard as a shortcut when delivering documents to other Solicitors offices in the area, as you could get to Silver Street through there. I think the name of this yard in the photograph was Wasps Nest Yard, but I am not certain about that.
Hi Derek, I too am related to John Howgill. Did you manage to get any photographs of the place you eventually tracked them down to? (North side of Silver Street from the ring of the High Street.) It would be interesting to see them.
Is the title correct – I think it should be 26-27 and 27-29 Silver Street.
These premises appear in various photos on the Picture Stockton site, usually with an unknown location. But this is what the frontage once looked like opposite the entrance to the old Green Dragon Yard Museum. The buildings were redeveloped as part of the regeneration of the Green Dragon yard area in the 1970s. The completed development can be seen if you search the site for a photo titled “Barnard Gallery”. As the development was completed by the mid-1970s, the suggested date of this photo as 1981 is wrong.