An industrial landscape, possibly on the north bank of the River Tees… Date unknown.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
An industrial landscape, possibly on the north bank of the River Tees… Date unknown.
Hi, I’m currently undertaking my dissertation on heavy metal contamination of the river tees as a result of industrialisation.
I’m looking for images of past industries along the river tees, especially if any has any of Yarm. I would also be interested in finding out more information about past industries along the River Tees.
Emily
It is definitely Bell Brothers Blast Furnaces at Port Clarence as I have checked on the map.
Yes, there was a smell from ICI sulphuric acid plant, it was so bad at one time ICI had buy an estate in Hartlepool because the metal window frames were attacked by the acid. I believe ICI had to buy them and used them for their workers. When the wind blew in the right direction you could smell it in Norton.
I wonder if this is Bells Blast furnaces at Port Clarence with the picture being taken from the Transporter Bridge. Bolkow Vaughan had their plants in Middlesbrough.
We would not have a country at all, had it not been for Teeside – and its hard workers doing the dirty and dangerous work which was involved in the steel, engineering, and shipping industries that fed the heavy industries involved in so many applications using steel. It was ICI that saved Teeside in the 1920’s when we were having harsh times just like today when more jobs have been announced to go in the steel Industry on Teeside. At least in those days we at least owned our own companies. It makes you think, what went wrong?
This looks very similar to a photo published in Teessides Industrial Heritage. The picture’s title is “A portrayal of Bolckow, Vaughan & Co Ltd in 1891”. There was a celebration of their Jubilee.
There’s an irony in the fact that only in the last 15-20 years have Geordies n’ Mackems referred to us Teessiders with the epithet ‘Smoggies’ This as a result of the huge palls of smoke and other industrial emissions, such as those pictured above, that they would once regularly see on the horizon, as they travelled south down the A19. The ‘irony’ is that the scene above, due to industrial closures and gradual redeployment of manufacturing, was fast diappearing perhaps even 40 years ago.
Ah yes, the huge palls of smoke and other industrial emissions. When we visited Stockton-based grandparents from our home in South London in the early 1960’s, we always made a point of spending an evening touring the roads outside the ICI Works looking at the palls of smoke and flames belching from the chimneys. Fascinating for we young southerners! And the smells, wasn’t there a street in Billingham informally termed ‘smells street’? Presumably all gone now.