Work in progress as the road to Portrack gets underway. Church Row Scheme 1934.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Work in progress as the road to Portrack gets underway. Church Row Scheme 1934.
From a newpaper cutting (August 17, 1934):
Headline: Trade boost road
“A NEW road is to be built at Stockton at a cost of £135,000
in a bid to bring new trade to the area.
The road, linking the town centre with Haverton Hill Road,
is expected to take two and a half years to build and should bring
jobs to many of the area’s unemployed.
It will run along Church Row, Paradise Row, Maritime Street, across the LNER
and through Portrack to a point on the Haverton Hill Road near to the new road
leading to Tees Bridge and will be one of the biggest schemes the Corporation has
undertaken for many years.”
I spent today at the Institution of Civil Engineers In London to try to find more information about the Church Road Scheme and the bridge under the North Shore Branch Line. I was not successful. There is nothing in their automated records, nor was there anything in the journal ” The Engineer” in the years from 1933 to 1936. I will keep looking.
This photo seems to of been taken not long after this one:
http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/church-row-scheme-c1934/
The “Ransome” concrete machine has been put to good use as the concrete walls have progressed.
Of course this hard work has been undone or buried, since 2003 the dip that went under the railway bridge (removed in 1980’s) has been levelled out to make the road surface more or less level with the height of the old raised pavement level. Which must be at the level of the concrete walls shown in this picture.
http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2003/06/25/church-road-stockton-c1985-2/
http://picturestocktonarchive.wordpress.com/2005/07/08/church-road-in-stockton-2003/