Ropery Street can be found between McColl’s and Greggs on the High Street. At one time this street stretched much further back and had a number of properties. Sadly because of so much High Street redevelopment the street has been reduced to a few yards.
Photographs and details courtesy of Alec Moody.
Picture Stockton Archive 
There are plans that could bring Ropery Street back into use. Plans were approved for partial conversion to residential use of 144 High St., which includes the buildings, behind no.142, that face on to Ropery St. (No.144 had previously been the site of the “F.W. Woolworths”). As retail is dead, is this the start of the High Street becoming more residential?
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I have been told that there was indeed a rope makers on Ropery Street, and they had a pipeline that fed from the factory, down across the High Street and onto Stockton Quayside. This allowed them to supply the long lengths required by the ships.
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“Tennant’s Patent Ropery was on the site of the present Ropery Street and beyond. The last of the rope-walk can still be seen stretching from Nelson Terrace to Vane Street, with “Clapham” the last of the ropemakers still showing over the door.”
(Extract from “A History of the Town and Borough of Stockton-on-Tees”, Tom Sowler, 1972)
Thomas Allison Tennant & Co. sail cloth manufacturer & rope maker, Thomas Allison Tennant, business partner younger brother to Christopher Tennant, the driving force behind the Clarence Railway.
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The Tennant/Allison family also had a Rope and Sail cloth factory off Bishopton Lane, in the area of Tennant St. & Allison St. The rope walk extended northwards to Bone St.
Next door to it, where Maxwells corner is, was a large dwelling with a large garden called North Lodge which had belonged to many notable families (Jenkins, Raisbeck, Allison).
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I think there was a younger brother, John L Tennant, both living as lodgers at the same address.
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Circa 1850 maps show that Ropery Street, a Rope Manufactory & Rope Walk went from the High St., almost all the way back to the railway line. There is also a Ropery Walk, which was where Nelson Terrace & Prince Regent St. are.
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Also shows another rope walk behind West Row, along where Prince Regent St. is.
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While we are on Street Names, does anyone know how Light Pipe Hall Road got it’s name? Obviously it’s named after Light Pipe Hall but how did the Hall get it’s strange name in the first place. Over to you, chaps.
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To add to the confusion it is shown on a few maps (circa 1850) as Leadpipe Hall, ( before any of Oxbridge had been built up)
How ironic, a lead pipe isn’t going to be a light pipe 🙂
“POLL BOOK FOR THE COUNTY OF DURHAM, December, 1832”
William Wilkinson, Occupier, Leadpipe Hall, Stockton.
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I used to live in that street and I would like to know as well. I do know that there was a light pipe hall farm on the site of Thompsons scrap yard at one time. I have also seen a very old postcard from the early 1900s showing a group of gypsies on light pipe hall farm.
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That’s right, seems ironic that these streets or walks were usually quite a length. There are a number of rope walks shown around the old village of Hartburn on early maps.
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I’ve seen a map showing one that starts in the middle of the village where Harper Terrace is, and another parallel to Hartburn Ave. where the entrance to Ropner Park is.
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I have been told that Ropery Street, was the centre of the Town’s rope making businesses when there was great demand during the sailing ship period.
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Yes I believe the rope makers were situated there.
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