Looking down Belasis Avenue towards the Co-op Corner and the Picture House, Billingham.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Looking down Belasis Avenue towards the Co-op Corner and the Picture House, Billingham.
I was born in York Crescent, Billingham and have often wondered to which mill Mill Lane was heading. Can anyone enlighten me?
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Hi Eddie, I would assume it was Billingham Mill, shown on maps as a corn mill.
Mill Lane and the mill race ran parallel to each other, with the mill itself being near where there’s a later industrial rectangular reservoir. The mill race is also still there.
https://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=54.58888&lon=-1.28722&layers=6&b=1
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I have uploaded a map showing the Mill at Billingham, it is a Victorian map but has had some of the more recent features added.
The mill was fed by a Mill Race that tapped off Billingham Beck to the South of Norton Mill and rejoined Billingham Beck just after the Mill.
It looks to me as if the Mill was located in what was the Cassell works of ICI.
You can find the map here:-
https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ajpj0BgkXQUQgzw9CkphA4CobzcQ?e=gXaf8H
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I don’t know when The Mill disappeared Eddie. But I do remember Norton Mill being our playground for almost all of our childhood. It’s all changed now if you’re not living in Teesside.
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Happy memories of the old Co-op, it sold everything. There was a barbers, butchers,food hall, and the safe method of handling cash, put in tube, pull chain and of it went to cash office, where the change was put in and sent back to the counter.
The park opposite was my playground, it was a deep hole in the ground and had different levels, but now it is all filled in and flat. Also Mill lane shops were above the pavement, about 4ft above pavement, but now sadly level with the road. Happy memories of 1952.
Tom McGowan ( formerly of Mond Crescent )
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The Co-op had those tube things to send your money to a central cash point.
We used to go to the pictures on a Saturday afternoon. The rush cost 7d and you’d get zorro and a cowboy film which always ended in a chase with the goodie (hurray) chasing the baddies (boo). My uncle took me to see King Kong which I think he regarded as an epic film when it was first released – I thought that it was boring. However, the support feature “When Comedy Was King” was made up of a collection of silent films and that was excellent.
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I saw my first ever film at the cinema here around 1960 (about the age of four). Think it was Mutiny on the Bounty. Has anyone any idea when the picture house was built. Would it have been open prior to 1930 ish for viewing of silent films ? Photo shown looks mid/late 30’s to me.
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Hasn’t changed much. I lived on Tibbersley Avenue, to left of the photo, just behind the little park. Remember shopping in co-op with mam. Lovely and stylish building.
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