A photograph of Dovecot Street in 1977, shows numbers 62 – 68. Number 62 was the Friends Meeting House built c1816 and number 66 was formerly the Post Office built c1860/1870.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A photograph of Dovecot Street in 1977, shows numbers 62 – 68. Number 62 was the Friends Meeting House built c1816 and number 66 was formerly the Post Office built c1860/1870.
My grandfather, George Dean, probably bought it from your great grandfather/grandfather as he was running it as a tobacconist and newsagent during the first world war. I have a photo of it with a very large queue of men outside of the shop and post office waiting to buy cigarettes. There is a policeman there looking as if he is trying to keep the queue off the pavement so that others could access the Post Office. My grandmother has written on the back of the photo saying why the men were there and that it was 1914 World War I.
Yes you’re right, Sue, it’s still a paper shop, the shop next to it, not in the pic, was a gas board show room, now an advice centre, the next building was the Clarendon hotel pub, and in 1977, across the road ( Russell Street) from the Clarendon the building was Radio Tees, it became Magic radio later. Happy days in the Clarendon.
The shop in the left foreground with the mini parked outside is a newsagents shop. I believe it is still running as such today and I have read elsewhere that it is one of the longest continuously run newsagents in the area.
I live in Australia but my interest in the shop is because my great grandparents Thomas and Emma Brown moved into the premises about 1880 and Emma began to run the shop. My grandfather Percy Brown was about one year old at the time and the family continued to live above the shop and run it as a newsagent for many years. My father Thomas Yorke Brown was born there in 1911 and I believe the family moved out a few years later, probably when great grandfather became too old. They moved to Garbutt Street.
From what I been able to discover, the shop was built around 1880 and I am assuming my great grandparents lived there from the beginning. I don’t know whether they owned the building or just rented it, but the family of three generations was there for more than 30 years. My great grandfather came from a family of bricklayers in East Hartburn and described himself as a “builder” in the census (rather than a bricklayer) so it is possible he may have built the property himself. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of this yet.
This part of Dovecote Street was originally called Mill Lane, but was incorporated into Dovecote Street in the first decade of the 1900s.
My regards to all who contribute to this site, it’s a daily read for me as the only way to connect to my previous generations. Keep up the good work.