This bus stop at the junction of New Road and Haverton Hill Road (A1046) in Billingham is known as Oxygen Corner, and the only sign of this today is on the remaining bus stops.
Photograph and details courtesy of Steve Frost.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Does anyone remember my mum Joy Hansell, also known as Esther, who worked in the labs at British Titan, I think in the late 50s, early 60s?
The direction signpost to Billingham still says “Oxygen Corner”!
Years ago my father-in-law, George Wood, worked at BTP & there was a chlorine leak. He put a scarf around his face (no fancy masks then) and went out to stop traffic from entering the area. When he hopped on a bus to inform them of the danger the “clippie” threw the money bag at him and told him to take it!
The area around here has completely changed in recent years. Intense heavy chemical industry, has given way to more service industries. British Titan had a plant adjacent to that corner, with its chimney always giving out white smoke, visible across Teesside, and ICI’s oil works, across the road. I remember in the 1950’s the aerial buckets crossing high above Haverton Hill road, charging the coke ovens inside ICI’s East Gate, and the journey over “Paddy’s crossing” on the Middlesbrough bus. The smell around there was unmistakable, and workmen getting off at that bus stop over many years will remember it well.