This Grade II Listed building of the Friarage, Yarm was built c1770 on the site of a Dominican Friary. The Friarage once belonged to the Meynell family who were active in promoting the Stockton to Darlington Railway. The Senior pupils of Yarm School are now based here. We believe this photograph to be taken c1890s.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Could I ask my former HW colleagues to remind me where Neasham Hall is/was? From reading what Bob wrote, it sounds as if I have got it wrong yet I am sure this shoot took place in a thickly wooded area that was alongside the Tees as Bob describes.
Roy. Neasham Hall is next to Hurworth Village and Hurworth is next to Croft. When you get to Hurworth there’s a turning left in the village which takes you up to Neasham Hall. I remember the nanny at the Hall. Every Tuesday, family allowance day she took the pram with a child in it to the Post Office to collect the family allowance which at a guess would be about five shillings.
Dear Anon
I am 98% sure the shoot was at the Friarage. Please bear with me as memory fades but I am talking here of 1957. The place I am thinking of was in Yarm. If you come from Stockton, along Yarm High Street, almost to the end, the Friarage was on the left behind baronial gates. Have I got it right?
Dear Bob (Irwin)
You have got me thinking, did I ever do beating at Neasham Hall? I don’t think so as Neasham is not in Yarm is it? I was delighted to read about the French Poodle, at least the dog didn’t know its place. I am happy to be corrected as I am now 75 and have lived in the London area for 54 years. The shoot I am recalling was 60 years ago so the accuracy of my memory is unreliable like some of my other faculties.
The Friarage is a lovely looking house in this photo. I have a conservatory at my house in Epsom but it is barely an 1/8th or even a 1/16th the size of the one on the side of this house. Only people our age will know about those fractions. I wonder if we will go back to them when Brexit kicks in. We will be talking about chains next.
I worked on the Friarage house when I was 19/20 and that would be in 1957. I can’t remember any shoot taking place there and don’t think it would be possible. Around the house were lawns and about 50 yards from the gable end showing was the walled garden and after that were thick wooded area that took you along the riverside up to and beyond the Clock House on the Leven Road. I once tried to get up to the Clock House because I could here peacocks screaming but was unable to get far because of the thick under growth.
When I was a first-year apprentice at HW, I was used as a beater when Sir John Wrightson had one of his shooting parties. At the time, I was a council-house kid from a very modest background and remember being impressed when I thought that this large palatial house was once a family home. I remember being told that, on no account, were the dogs or the apprentices to be allowed into the house. The dogs were fed from troughs in the yard whilst we were fed from wooden trestle tables, also in the yard. It was prudent to know your place in those days. I am not so sure I would so obsequious today.
Was this shoot at the Friarage or Needham Hall, Roy?
This is the Friarage at Yarm. I worked there for HW’s when they took it over and changed it to offices.
Hello Bob, do you know anything about the large computers that where housed in the prefab buildings at the back of the Friarage. They where there up until the school took possession of the buildings?
Roy, I also did beating at Neasham. At the end of the day the kill was laid out in the yard at Neasham Hall. We were allowed to choose either a rabbit or a pigeon to take home. I refused. With having dogs in the house. I was working in one of the bedrooms making a walk in wardrobe when a French Poodle walked in and lifted its back leg and peed up against the furniture.
My sister has just sent me a great book called Life at Heads. Memories of working at Heads Wrightson edited by Margaret Williamson and published by the Teesside Industrial Memories Project. It has brought back some memories for me and some familiar names.
In the 60’s I worked at Head wrightsons as a Plumber, and often did work at the Friarage.. In 1966 we were told that the place was being taken over by the National Trust and had to be put back to the way it looked originally. Part of that was to change all the exterior pipework, gutters downspouts etc. to lead. Of course we had to make them as they were not available, so our Supervisor, Bob Fishburne, gave that job to Wilf Frier and me. We had to make molds in sand and pour molten lead into them to make collars and brackets etc. We could however buy the pipe which was a good thing. I made the collection hoppers, and had to cast the date numbers, 1966, and leadburn them to the hoppers. It took 3 men to get them up the scaffold and bolt them to the wall. I was back in the U.K. a few years back and visited relatives in Yarm, so I took a walk through the grounds and the place had been taken over by the Private School. All the work we had done had been cleaned and polished and looked quite impressive ( to me anyway ). What nobody else knows though is that as well as putting the date on the front of those big hoppers, I also put my name on the back of them, I wonder what Bob would have done to me if he had known that!!
I guess when they are finally taken down somebody will see my name and wonder who I was.
When Head Wrightsons owned the building it was there main offices I worked there often doing electrical work I also worked there a lot when yarm school took over. I was given an old safe that was left in the cellar, it has hardwood drawers in side lined with green felt. It was used to keep the silver cuttlery in from the previous owners.
When HW’s bought this building for offices I and George Reeves were the 1st to enter this building. It was our job together with electricians, plumbers, glaziers and bricklayers to transform this into offices The roof was fully covered in lead. In the good weather which was often we had our lunch on the flat roof. Before it was HW’s the St. Johns Ambulance or the Red Cross used a couple of rooms there for training. In the conservatory was a lead trough with the emblem of the previous owners. I would think that it took approx 12 months for the changes to be completed. The chap over seeing the work was Jack Whitaker.
The name of the people on that lead tank was the name Scropes.
Hi
That makes sense. My g g grandfather was Henry Scrope or Scroope. I was following up a family story that he was ‘involved’ with Stevenson and the first railway, but followed another career after a terrible explosion in which people were killed.
I had been trying to verify this story for years. Last year I was researching his mother’s family, the Meynell’s and it all fell into place especially with the 200 year anniversary of the Stockton to Darlington Railway.
Hopefully I will get to Yarm one day.
Kind Regards
Maria
Sydney
I worked here in 1974 when it was an office of Head Wrightson and Co and housed amongst others the Head Office Accounts and Personnel department.
I remember the Computer department in separate building in the grounds with an airlock double doors. The canteen was a portacabin also in the grounds. The Putting green was used on a lunchtime if you could stay out of the Black Bull or Cleveland Bay…
Hello Keith, I remember the computers when I started school there. My Dad worked at HW also. The school turned the computer room into the dining hall eventually. I’m really keen to learn more about what type of computers they where and what there job and capacity was. I got to this page by searching for them on google. Kind regards. Jon (Bentley Motors)