A view of the River Tees at Stockton below Corporation Quay, probably taken from ‘Hubback’s Quay’ or Granary. On the left is a slipway for Craig & Taylor Shipbuilders’ Yard. To the right of the lamp is Corporation Quay and Warehousing c1910.
Photograph and details courtesy of Martin Stabler
Thank you Martin for this intriguing set of pictures of the river from the early 1900s. On this particular one, there appear to be a collection of sailing boats moored on the Head Wrightson side of the river. Could they being made ready for breaking up, I wonder?
One of my first memories is of a German E boat being broken up, at the end of WWII, further downstream of this point. This boat can be seen in some of the aerial views of the river in the Britain from Above series about Stockton and the River Tees.
Fred, the forest of masts that you can see on the other side of the river is actually the scaffolding timbers of a shipyard. If you have a look at the map which accompanies the photo, you will see the slipways running down into the river .
Correct Cliff, the Thornaby Ship building Yard almost opposite the Corporation Quay, the ships launched South towards Yarm with five slipways. Further round the bend near the Ship Inn at the end of Trafalgar Street you came to the South Stockton Ship Yard, they launched towards Middlesbrough with five slipways.
The whole river would be the M1 of its day as the trade to London of coal Butter and grains left from a myriad of Quays Wharves and Loading Stages, it had been so for hundreds of years, even the Romans shipped out of the Tees.
The Railways finally reduced this trade although during the war I often saw ships tied up all along the banks.
Parts of the Mulberry Harbours used for the invasion were built and slipped into the river from the Thornaby Side from the old slipways, watching as a lad I could not see how such large concrete units could ever float, they did and all the way to Normandy were they did such a good job, well the British one did, the Americans lost theirs in the big storm.
Stockton’s River has seen so many engineering wonders from Ship building to Mulberry Sections, Dock Gates too large to move by land and large Vessels again easier by river and sea. The skill of the workers was world renowned and justly so, a different time with differing expectations but then we Stockton folk know how to diversify and move on.
This is almost the point, where the Bishop of Durham’s ‘mansion’, or ‘castle’ once stood on the bank of the River Tees, in medieval times. Hence, Bishop Street running toward it, out of ‘The Great Street’ (High Street) and ‘Thistle Green’ being a corruption of ‘Castle’ green.
Oh wow what a truly fantastic photo,brilliant.