In the foreground, boys prepare to launch a boat out onto the River Tees. In the background the view stretches down towards the Castlegate Centre and the Swallow Hotel, Stockton.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
In the foreground, boys prepare to launch a boat out onto the River Tees. In the background the view stretches down towards the Castlegate Centre and the Swallow Hotel, Stockton.
Public launching facilities on the River Tees were few and far between, even as late as the 1970s.
I recall a Hawaiian canoe being paddled all the way from South Gare up to Middlesbrough as part of the Captain Cook anniversary celebrations in 1978. But the paddlers arrived at Middlesbrough only to find that there was no slipway for getting their canoe out of the river, so they had to paddle all the way up to Stockton to use the slipway in the photo. Coming from the clean blue waters off Hawaii the paddlers were shocked at the state of the River Tees and the many outlets that they passed which poured effluent into the river.
If that was the state of the river I’m surprised anyone wanted to paddle in it!
Perhaps the most obvious change to be noticed here, for me, is that you can see the waterline slipping below the south bank of the river. You wouldn’t get that now with the Barrage! (Also, no Millenium Bridge.)