I took this photograph of the long demolished Victoria Inn in New Street, Thornaby in 1974.
Recently an uncle gave me an envelope of RAOB cards relating to my Grandfather Harry Fulton and I’ve only just realised the venue was the same hotel. RAOB is of course The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes a kind of working man’s Masonic order and well respected in Thornaby and Stockton.
Originally held at Preston Hall Museum – the exhibition entitled ‘Victory’s Children’ including new material (created by Derek) will be available to view at Thornaby Town Hall from Saturday 12 September 2015.
Photographs and details courtesy of Derek Smith.
The Bradford Vaults, Thornaby on Tees.
What a wonderful trick question it would make if you met someone from Thornaby, who stated he knew Thornaby like the back of his hand”, and, you asked him “Okay, then tell me where the Bradford Vaults, Thornaby is”. It’s a pub everyones heard of it, but not 1 in 25 locals knew where it was.
Bob I can tell you that one and I’ve never lived in Thornaby. It finished up in Head Wrightsons factory when the houses in Trafalgar Street were demolished and HW’s bought the land. I worked there on the Dock Gates and Boiler Reactor launches and after the launch we celebrated it by enjoying a pint in there.
Hello Bob. Did you know my dad Tommy Dover who worked at Head Wrightsons? Regards Sandra Dover
Sandra Dover, I most certainly recall your father Thomas (Tommy) Dover, who was a leading light amongst the Head Wrightson workers, a man who was highly respected amongst his fellow workers and colleagues. In its day, the Head Wrightson company produced a wonderful range of engineered products and employed 6,000 people. Head, Wrightson & Company can trace its roots back to 1856, when Thomas Head started the Teesdale Iron Works at Stockton-on-Tees in partnership with Joseph Wright. The firm-built then rail locomotives, cast iron boilers, naval ships, and road and river bridges.
Thomas Wrightson joined the company in 1866, and 12 years later Thomas Head sold his interest to C & A. Head and Thomas Wrightson. The reorganized company was renamed Head Wrightson and Co Ltd. In 1892 they employed 1,200 people. H&W was a member of a consortium to design and build nuclear power “furnaces” for the British Atomic Energy Authority in 1955. In 1968, the firm was primarily engaged in heavy engineering and employed nearly 6,000 people and. Its factories covered 68 acres. Head Wrightson was eventually owned by The Davy Corporation and, under their 1983 management, the H & W Thornaby and Billingham foundries were closed, thus bringing to an end a proud and legendary engineering company, which had been in existence for 127 years.
Bob Wilson.
Hi Bob. Thank you so much for the reply. I am honoured to think that my dad was so highly respected at Head Wrightsons. Makes his loss for me more variable. I am a highly respected retired teacher here in Rotherham. I am only sad that dad did not live long enough to see me pass my Grade 8 singing exam. I am already a grade 8 pianist. Daddy was a musician too. Many thanks. Made my day. Regards Sandra Dover
Was it better known as Matties and at the bottom of Trafalgar Street?
I have found a post office savings book that belonged to my father and one of the addresses in the book relate to my father in 1925 living at this pub.
My grandfather was a publican all his life.
Billy and Reene were my Auntie and Uncle, Billy was my mothers brother. We thought it was so exciting when visiting the pub. Happy days.
My aunt Lil lived next door
In the 1970s, during a car journey from Manchester Piccadilly Station to Oldham, 12 miles away, my children started to play the game known as “I spy a … A Pub,” and counting them, before we got to Oldham they had counted 320 in Oldham Road, Manchester, before packing this game in, a figure which shocked me to the core.
For this reason (and out of curiosity) I started counting the pubs in my boyhood home town of Thornaby-on- Tees, and, the results should shame everyone of us. Most of us can name with no problem at all 20 pubs in the Thornaby area, and according to the record books there was at one time 56 Public Houses in Thornaby alone. For instance there was two pubs in New Street, the Market and this one the Victoria Inn, five pubs adjacent to Thornaby Town Hall, six in George Street, and six public houses on Mandale Road stretching from the Five Lamps to the Harewood Arms, a distance of just just 300 yards, from this one wonders what was the Magistrate Licensing Courts thinking off by allowing so many pubs to practice a trade that must have ruined hundreds, if not thousands of families lives in the Thornaby area. Both, Stockton and Middlesbrough nearby have similar public houses figures, Stockton had around 50 active pubs at one time, and Middlesbrough had about the same number but with today an estimated 80 closed and defunct pubs.
What’s laughable is these self same Magistrates would fine people for being found drunk in the streets, or even worse for being drunk and disorderly when arrested. It appears to me that they are the one’s who should have been in the dock because they sanctioned this state of affairs by issuing so many liquor licenses?
In Trafagar Street in Thornaby there were 4 pubs. With Head Wrightsons buying up land there the Bradford Vaults became planted in the works. Quite a few sackings when they were drinking in works time.
My uncle Billy and aunty Reene (Brownlee) ran this pub up until its closing and demolition. I have some good memories of playing in the big dance room up stairs with my cousin Janet … the bedrooms were used by lorry drivers during the day and then by the family at night.
Billy and Reene were my aunty and uncle. Janet is also my cousin. My mother Ruth Brownlee used to take us over to see John and Reene. My bother and I loved to go down in the cellar.