The Harewood Arms stood on the top of Brewery Bank across the road from the Bon Lea Hotel in Thornaby.
Harewood Arms, early 1900s
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
The Harewood Arms stood on the top of Brewery Bank across the road from the Bon Lea Hotel in Thornaby.
Picture Stockton Archive 
Stockton Road known as The Wilderness was paved on one side only and was often used to exercise greyhounds by walking them from Thornaby to the Newport Bridge, Middlesbrough, then back to Thornaby, a distance of about two miles. On the way to Newport bridge, you passed the Erimus and the Erimus River which flowed past the long gone Stockton Corporation tip on the right, a dumping ground for household waste dumped in huge heaps often 10 feet high. The 30 or so allotments on the left near the brewery, contained a number of small ponds which contained newts, behind these allotments were the Middlesbrough to Darlington railway line, and on the other side of the rail lines you could see the Teesdale Ironworks slag heaps containing maybe 500 000 ton of grey//blue slag waste. The famous ‘O’ bus ran every ten minutes in each direction along Stockton Road, stopping at the Harewood Arms, then the Racecourse, the Erimus, Cleveland Park dog track, the Blind School, Newport Bridge, Parliament Street, The Infirmary, Middlesbrough Town Hall, Linthorpe Road, the railway crossing, terminating at North Ormesby Market place. The buses were dark blue and open at the rear, the bus depot was in Parliament Street, and bus services commenced at 5.30 am stopping at 11.00 pm each night, from Thornaby to Stockton cost 2d, from Thornaby to Middlesbrough 3d. The United buses were Red, and served out of town areas including Thornaby to Darlington, Redcar, Saltburn, Hartlepool, Newcastle. My favourite buses were called ‘The Favourite Bus Company’ which served all the Durham Colliery mining villages. O’ happy days.
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One morning cycling to work at 02.30am to commence work at Thornaby MPD engine sheds I was confronted with a sight that made my hair stand on end thousands of rats were making their way out of the Brewery up towards the Harewood Arms I came to a stop turned around around then plucked up the courage to cycle as fast as I could towards them with my legs outstretched sometimes hitting them. I signed on duty telling the timekeeper of my experience about 20 minutes later we noticed that the brewery was burning fiercely resulting the closure and many trains cancelled that morning and the closure of the brewery.
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I walked past this corner hundreds of times as a child, if you walked down the bank heading towards Middlesbrough, at the bottom of Harewood bank was the allotments gardens, to the right of it a lane running alongside a stream which went past the Stockton Racecourse stables and the golf course and ended in The Pleasure Gardens, The road to the left over the road from the Harewood Arms (out of sight) ran to the Bonlea waste ground area which each year contained Crows Fairs fairground site, run by Mr and Mrs Sam Crow from Northallerton, and after his death by his son Mr Billy Crow, in Stockton road known then as the ‘Wilderness’ you had the brewery buildings, the racecourse main entrances, and the Erimus settlement. Going right from the Harewood Arms you entered Acklam Road, which leads to the Pleasure Gardens main entrance (built after WW1 as a pleasant walk for returning injured soldiers) the Golf Club entrance, and 300 yards further on The Littleboy Park. This was an important part of old Thornaby and it was all demolished in the mid-1960s.
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Started my teenage drinking in there in the early ’60s, not knowing any different I ordered a rum & black not knowing it was a ladies drink, should have ordered a pint, soon learnt however!
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Right turn to Acklam, straight on for wilderness road to Middlesbrough
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Been in there few times after having won on the dogs
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