This is an image of the north end of Stockton High Street as it looked in 1790 although the postcard was not produced until the 1980s. The view includes the Parish Church (built 1710-12), the Town Hall (built 1735, extended 1744) and the Unitarian Church (built 1699, closed c1872).
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
I have learnt a lot this evening about Stockton!! Thank you for the historical information. I have lived in Spain since 1973 but until then, I worked for some time in Newcastle in the General Hospital as a student nurse, then I moved down to London and eventually to Spain. I have never honestly missed Stockton, but, seeing these pictures, I must admit that it was more attractive in the past than it is at present. It is a great pity that they decided to “modernize” the High Street and removed most of its personality. When I was home, a couple of years ago,they were changing the roads again and heaven knows what more. What a pity we can’t have the good old High Street as it used to be with the market in the middle of the street and the Town Hall as it all used to be, with the shops and pubs, etc too. Perhaps that is why I never missed it, it never had a real personality….. What a pity.
Looks better then than what it does now even with the new rescaping
Can you tell me where I can buy the old postcard of the high Street Stockton please ?
Hello Enid.
We would be happy to provide you with a copy of any image you request (assuming there are no copyright issues). The prints themselves are produced on quality photographic paper and are as close to A4 size as we can make them depending on the quality of the original image. We sell them for £5 each including postage. Please email us at pictures@stockton.gov.uk with the image title/s and your address and we will send the images out to you. We will need a cheque to the value of £5 per image, made payable to Stockton Borough Council and sent to…
Picture Stockton Team
Stockton Central Library
Church Road
Stockton. TS18 1TU
There was a brilliant book which I read some years ago written by I think Minnie Hauxwell or Minnie Caulden which went out of print but Stockton Library may have some knowledge of it. There are many other books about Stockton and the surrounding area which are worth looking for.
It has been done Maureen many books have been written by some very good local historians though some are now out of print. Stockton Library Staff are brilliant at finding maps and texts and helped me when I could not understand why my Father was baptised in St Johns Church Stockton when he was a Norton Lad, they have shelves of books on the subject of Stockton.
I do write from the point of view of my growing up in Norton then still a village, Schooling in Stockton and starting work in Stockton and have thick files which will be passed on to my children and Grandchildren.
It is a personal account knowing full well I was privileged in having transport pre-war during and after, something most of my friends did not have. Seeing the area and various Factories as we delivered steam coal for the boilers then the beginning of the build up for war, it was unique in many ways so is sharp in my memory, just do not ask me what I had for breakfast this morning or where I put the car keys.
I cannot think any one but family would be interested, they are beginning to ask questions now as they get older and the grandchildren do war time projects at school.
Picture Stockton is a wonderful asset even if it is run on a shoe string, Steve and the girls involved do a great job, those of us still able to share some of the historical moments need to get it down fast before we fade away.
Yes I agree Frank Picture Stockton is a great site and due to you and others we learn a lot more about Stockton’s past. We left Stockton in 1978 but it’s still our home town and has a special place in my heart. As for the memory I can recall most of my childhood in Tilery and my school years at Grangefield Grammar but ask me what I was doing this time last week and my mind is blank!
In my travels I have met many Stockton people in some strange places, they were all homesick for news of Stockton and thought of it as home, it is a unique place after all with its mixed communities; little Ireland Portrack, Little Scotland Billingham and Little Wales Haverton, all wonderfully gregarious people who mixed and looked after their own. That spirit is still there although not quite as open as it once was.
On my last visit to my Daughter living in California they took me on a trip round the Bay, to my amazement we were driving down Durham Road to Stockton where we stopped for a meal with a German couple who told me that many Durham miners and people from Stockton joined the gold rush hence the name.
Coming home after periods away reaching Thirsk was as if coming in the front door then half an hour later the comfort of the Stockton high Street we were home. I know how you feel Maureen.
Thanks once again to a brilliant exposition by Frank P Mee. I have always imagined Yarm,at least as it was in the 1960s to have been very similar in character to the Stockton of the late 1700s. I understand the building of the bridge to Thornaby killed off growth in Yarm which it resulted, to some extent, being preserved in aspic.
“Thou dost maketh me blush Fred” I do get on my high horse when I hear people ranting about the destruction of Stockton as they Know or Knew it.
Stockton was a main thoroughfare from North to South, from Durham through Stockton Yarm and on to Thirsk or Darlington and South on the Great North Road. All single carriageways, no ring roads or by passes, getting through Stockton and Yarm even Darlington took time as traffic got heavier and I know I often drove those roads. Stockton on market day was a nightmare for pedestrians as traffic was on both sides of the road causing many accidents, buses parked in phalanxes as they dropped and picked up passengers until it became total chaos in the 1960’s. From Stockton to London on a motor bike or by car took me nearly nine hours, by the 1990’s I was leaving here and in London four hours exactly without breaking any speed limits.
What was done was needed and I did see in one of my books a reference to Lindsay House being one of the finest 1960’s buildings? The comment was that it would be declared a loss to the Town if it vanished in the 21st Century? I saw it come and go, in the words of one Royal it was a carbuncle.
Yarm was at one time as important a port for Coastal shipping as was Stockton, it was the centre of the farming area and ideal for shipping cereals plus animals to London. If we see the North Sea for what it was, the main highway for all goods South before railways then we have an idea of how important these ports were. Consider too the chance of pirate raids on Coastal Towns, North Sea Rivers and we know why ports had a guard house on the river or why they were built inland, most vessels at that time were armed.
Stockton was developed continually over many centuries, it has seen many rises and falls in many industries, the influx of people from many area’s and foreign parts, the Gas works area was built became a lively community and vanished in less than one hundred years and so it will always be, it is called progress.
There doesn’t appear to be any shops in the High Street then just private residences!
There were no shops in the High Street until late 1800, the Town was noted for its Great Street later the High Street which was paved and lined with handsome brick built town houses for the wealthy merchants shipping grains and dairy produce to London. Stockton and Yarm were very busy shipping ports from the 1600’s and everything was around the Quayside area.
The main shopping area was Silver Street and Bishop Street with the twice weekly market this was enough to service the town surrounded with market gardens and farms.
The first main industry were the rope and sail making works, Maxwells store was at one time a sail making workshop and we had Chandlers and ship repair on the Quayside.
As the Town became more industrialised with Engine and Boiler works being rapidly built, the streets and alleys behind the town houses degenerated into slums, the works built lines of street houses next to the works for the workers which were a vast improvement for the working people.
The well to do people moved out of what must have become a noisy busy and probably smelly area to new houses on the outskirts of town.
In the late 1850’s onward shops began to take over the old town house and convert them for their own use this gradually crept along the High Street and in the 1890’s a rapid building programme gave us theatres and other places of entertainment later becoming Cinema’s and Dance Halls that was the Stockton I knew now gone removed in large chunks in the 1960’s as war weary people decided to be out with the old in with the new, a mistake? Some think so some of us thought it could not happen quickly enough, we all make choices not all are right.
Many thanks for the history lesson Frank…..you certainly have an amazing memory! Have you ever thought of writing a book about Stockton and environs?