A view from Silver Street, Stockton towards Teesdale and Head Wrightsons, Thornaby. The ‘mans shop’, Donald Carruthers can be seen on the left of the photograph.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
A view from Silver Street, Stockton towards Teesdale and Head Wrightsons, Thornaby. The ‘mans shop’, Donald Carruthers can be seen on the left of the photograph.
Living in Regent Street, on the other side of the High Street, I was often in these four streets and remember Glasby ( a fascinating display of strange items for a young lad, who had no interest in smoking) and also the model shop, which was a different proposition. Would have liked to buy the whole shop out, but had to be satisfied with the (very) occasional treat with saved-up pocket money. Pro rata, things were very, very much more expensive than nowadays. To an extent which modern youngsters would not be able to get their heads around. They can now buy more sophisticated items for,comparatively, far less than the odd plastic construction kit cost us. The old Plaza Cinema, known, quite unfairly as the Bug Hutch ( I never came out itching!) was a delight for me in being able to catch up with older, re-run MGM musicals, etc. I probably visited it just as much as the Empire/Cinema/Odeon/Globe.
Donald Carruthers had a shop in Mill Lane (Dovecot Street) where the new bungalows are, by the tunnel. That would be around 1962 if I remember rightly, different times then I once left my cycle outside all day and it was still there come evening and no lock!
Anyone remember the model shop in Silver Street run by a chap called DeVreis? (I think that’s how it was spelt). He shut up shop around 1965 and opened another in Whitby.
Rather late for a reply, but only just spotted this!
I remember the DeVries model shop – there was an intricately carved wooden (Chinese?) landscape in a glass bell jar by the door. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, I used to buy my Airfix kits, paints, bundles of balsa wood, cane and raffia for weaving, and plaster of paris there.
Mr DeVries always seemed suspicious of small lads – I suppose some of us did nick things if we could.
Martins, Winpenny’s. Carruthers, Grabham’s all independent Stockton shops involved in the old tradition of ‘gentleman’s outfitting,’ selling, usually British made, high-quality, items of clothing and accessories. I know of only Gillow’s in Grange Road, Darlington who these days operate such a similar business.
I think the large building on the quayside was the SDP warehouse
It could have been SPD…
Where is Silver Street? I can’t place it at all and I know I should. Please help.
Paula; Silver Street and Bishop Street, at the Parish Church end of the High Street, were the other two streets (besides Finkle Street and Castlegate) that ran directly off the High Street toward the River Tees. Bishop Street and Silver Street were the original local ‘shopping’ streets of the early town. There’s also a Silver Street, off Yarm High Street. I’m not sure whether or not the word ‘Silver,’ is a derivation of another word, rather than a reference to currency, or the precious metal…
Thanks for that, Chris. I know where it is now, though I don’t think I was ever down there.