Taken c1890, this photograph shows the west side of Stockton High Street. It also shows the south side of the Town Hall.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Taken c1890, this photograph shows the west side of Stockton High Street. It also shows the south side of the Town Hall.
There’s a bloke with a ladder on the Adamson’s roof, any ideas about what he would be doing up there?
Perfectly proportioned Georgian facades of what were once presumably private-residences before being converted into shops with accommodation above. I note a particularly fine columned portico to the Adamson’s shop. The printer seems to have a window full of prints, engravings and trade-poster examples on display. Like many ‘market square’ towns, traders would often place a signboard high up on their building’s facade in order that their actual premises (as opposed to houses) could be readily identified at some distance, above the stalls and general hub-bub, mainly to those travelling into the town from remote country districts on busy market-days, in order to purchase necessities and services. I’d have said this photograph was certainly earlier than 1890, or perhaps this block was one of the last to survive the High Street’s ‘morphing’ into more recognisable Vic-wardian architecture?
I agree that the picture looks earlier than 1890. The steam tramway was built in 1880 (approx) and I suspect that its track would have been visible in the foreground, if built by the time of the picture.