An aerial view of Newport Bridge with Billingham Beck in the distance and Haverton Hill to the right.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
An aerial view of Newport Bridge with Billingham Beck in the distance and Haverton Hill to the right.
Nice place Stockton. Been here 63 years in March. Dave. Years ago they should not have knocked down the properties backing on to the river. I don’t know. The Empire and those classic pubs. Its called progress they say. Even remember seeing small ships tied up near to where the Princess Diana Bridge is.
The Dorman Long main laboratory was located by the bridge in the large Edwardian building on the Middlesbrough side. It was known as the The Central Laboratory to distinguish it from the works labs at South Bank, Cleveland and Lackenby. Central Labs did chemical analysis, metallography and the testing of refractories.
For quite a time I was in the Physics Lab on the top floor, which at that time was developing plastic coated steel and also beginning work on Dormans first stress rupture tests. These became part of a national programme which eventually ended in the middle eighties. All of the steels we tested were straight bolier plant steels in which test temperatures were around 400-450°C.
The group of even older buildings at the right hand corner of the photograph were also used by the Physics Lab. Our first two stress rupture test machines were on the upper floor, and on the lower floor we had a 40 kW, thermionic valve, induction heating machine, costing £6000. The intention was to use this for heating up steel sections, after they had been coated with plastic powder. I did some tests to show that the idea was useless. So this was as good a start to my scientific career as I could have wished (I was 19 at the time)
There were a couple of people from Stockton Grammar at the labs who were a bit older than myself. Where are they now I wonder?
Look how simple Portrack roundabout is! far from the current version. The A19 viaduct was built 1973-76 so we must be before then. North Tees Industrial Estate (Teesway) and the northern part of Portrack Industrial Estate are taking shape along Haverton Hill Road, Portrack Lane started west of Lustrum Beck which is just in the picture on the left. Holme House looks a much nicer place than today’s HMP of the same name.
The picture was taken in the very late 60s/early 70s. The supermarkets (ASDA) built near the old Council Rubbish tip off Portrack Lane can be seen.These were some of the first hypermarkets in Britain. But there is no sign of the road works to the new A19 bridge, which I think was opened in 1974.
It looks like extensive new railway sidings to the west of the Billingham Branch bridge have been built and are full of trucks.
Billingham Beck is flowing into the Tees just by the bridge; in the far background is Norton with Billingham in the right background. Haverton Hill is actually a mile and a half downstream way out of view to the right!
To the right it is ICI Fertiliser,Nylon and Cassel works and Billingham further north.
The building on the far right with the steam coming out of the chimney is the ICI Complete Compound Fertilizer Plant. Built after 1956 – as this is the date when the plans were published. It does not show the first Nitram Tower, for the production of concentrated Nitrogen Fertilizer. I think this was built in the late 1960’s.