Whilst many former industrial sites in Europe, the US and even China are being preserved, reimagined and repurposed, the North East of England’s are being demolished and cleared at an alarming rate. Nowhere is this more apparent than Teesside.
Why not preserve and repurpose our industrial sites? Why demolish instead? In this talk Dr Jon Warren (author of Industrial Teesside Lives and Legacies) will focus on the demise of iron and steel on Teesside and how questions of heritage have been dealt with.
- Whose heritage is it anyway?
- Stockton Reference Library (Stockton Central Library)
- Friday 26 May, 10.30am – 12pm
- Free event, booking essential. This event can be booked online ‘Whose heritage is it anyway?’ or by calling 01642 528079. Light refreshments will be provided.
Having worked in both the local heavy industry in the 70s as well as leaving Teesside frequently for other work I’m afraid I do not share the same rose tinted view of our industrial heritage. What I remember is grim factories, polluted streams and rivers, toxic air, and the yellow layer of sulferous smock sitting about 3000 feet over Teesside. I believe we were “saddled” with many of these toxic, noisy, unhealthy plants and processess because no one else would have them (especially in the home counties). I remember the rainbow colours of the toxic stew that was Billingham beck. The oxygen depleted zones along the Tees, the Toxic alert alarm (9 am tuesdays) . I remember the roads being clogged with HGVs and non stop trains carrying everything with a chemical formula. YES indeed many well paid jobs were created, but to me the price WE paid, our environment paid, our health paid was simply to high, and TBH I prefer the clean air and greenery and the vastly improved public health standards we have today. If we are honest WE in the Tyne, Wear and Tees regions built the bulk of this nations wealth, but we didnt get to see that wealth spent in this region. BTW if these well meaning folks want to preserve the industrial heritage OK, but who will pay?
Wow – you are so right here! When a junior railway technical officer track-walking the busy line to Redcar in the 1960s and totally on my own…), when approaching Warrenby Halt there was a stream flowing underneath, the bright hue of which was redolent of copper sulphate and in which no life existed. Not far from home at Urlay Nook existed the “Egglescliffe (Eaglescliffe?) Chrome and Chemical Company, whose presence on many days was made evident as being the smell of cats… The family lived very near Yarm Tunnel, so I can also back-up your view regarding the passage of railway ‘tank’ wagons transporting chemicals. Also in the ‘sixties, when biking up Ormesby Bank, the view back revealed a blanket of smog. right over Tees Bay as far as West Hartlepool. The rising eruption from blast-furnaces(?) was also clearly visible.
Perhaps because Teesside was a very late comer to the Industrial Revolution, only really getting going with the invention of the basic Bessemer process in the 1870s, almost all of its industrial buildings have been recent. It has led to an attitude of, “If it is the way, get rid of it”. It isn’t important. The same spirit led to the destruction of Stockton Town Centre.
Old buildings and the remnants of key industries can help turn towns and cities into major tourist centres. This has been realised in other parts of the country and in this respect the Dorman Long Coke Ovens and the Redcar Blast Furnace could have become tourist magnets. This could have been done without impeding the development of the former South Durham and Steelworks sites.
To Town Planners and Developers, please be more careful in future.
Hello Fred I always enjoy reading your comments and believe we are very like minded, but I would like to add an aside and fuel the debate on the preservation of Stockton’s industrial past. Stockton was not the late comer to the industrial revolution you might believe. the main impetus to the industrialisation of Teesside was the discovery of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills in 1854. In 1854 Bell Brothers opened an iron works at Port Clarence – Bell Brothers Clarence Iron Works would go on to be one of the most productive and longest lived iron works on Teesside. In 1855 an iron works opened at Portrack. The Portrack works would progress to become the Malleable, a major employer in Stockton.
But if you class the industrial revolution as beginning with the advent of the steam engine then Stockton’s industrial past goes even further back.
I believe Blair Brothers which was situated on Norton Road and who were manufacturers of marine engines can be traced back to the 1840’s to a company who manufactured steam locomotives. Shipbuilding in Stockton was in existence in the early 1800’s, eventually leading to the building of iron ships in the 1850’s.
Sadly the depression of the 1930’s led to the demise of many big industries in the Stockton district. Some of the buildings though lived on until fairly recently. A building on Norton Road that became Hill’s door factory I believe was the offices of the Blair’s Engine works. West Row and Bishopton Lane in Stockton seem to be the last remnant of what were smaller, but equally important industries.
I realise any preservation projects need to be funded and to be self sustaining but if Stockton has the money to demolish old buildings to create car parks and roads as they have done in recent years. Roads which allow people to drive through the town quicker than ever to the next town. Car parks that may only be full when it’s the Stockton Riverside Festival. Wouldn’t some creative thinking be able to regenerate the few remaining old buildings.
As a final comment the main museum for Stockton-On-Tees is about four miles outside the town centre. Why should anyone interested in the industrial past of Stockton-On-Tees bother coming to the town?
First, Martin Dunhill, thank you for your own Stirling efforts to preserve the history of Teesside, particularly in the Haverton Hill area. But there is little doubt that Teesside was a very slow starter in the Industrial Revolution. The result is that because of Newcastle with its coal mines, Teesside is lumped in with Tyneside when people speak about the “North East”.
My own proper introduction to Industrial History was the book by Paul Mantoux I found in the Old Stockton Library (in Wellington Street). It was entitled “The Industrial Revolution of the 18th Century” It startled me in having to recognise that the Industrial Revolution was not a Victorian phenomenon.
Over the years I got to recognise that the story was even worse for Teesside, it being quite a late entry into industrial development. We suffered by not being situated on top of coal fields, as were places in Midlands, South Yorkshire and the North West. We were also on the wrong side of the country for the import of cotton.
Real take off on Teesside didn’t happen until the discovery of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills. But these high phosphoric ores, although suitable for the manufacture of inferior grades of wrought iron, could not be properly exploited until the development of the basic Bessemer and Open Hearth Processes in the 1880s.
Because Teesside was a late comer to the Industrial Revolution, and much of its industrial development took place in the 20th Century, it has been neglected by historians of industrial history. The first person who tried to rectify this was PW. Semmens, who wrote a splendid account about ICI in the Transactions of the Newcomen Society.
I completely agree that old buildings should not be preserved in aspic, but one feels that there hasn’t been much attempt by the Local Authorities to keep anything of Teesside’s industrial past. As I mentioned, when Jonathan Aylen and myself came to organise the Newcomen Society’s “Summer Conference” on Teesside, I was personally embarrassed, having come up with the idea, to find out just how much had been bulldozed and landfilled to destruction.
Hello Fred Star it’s sad that Stockton-On-Tees has been swallowed up under the general term of “Teesside” if you read the following two books, Teesside’s Economic Heritage by G. A. North and A History of the Town and Borough of Stockton-On-Tees by Tom Sowler, they tell of Stockton’s leading role in the early industries on the river Tees. Stockton may not have been at the forefront of the industrial revolution, probably because of the size of its population – 4,200 in 1801 – but it was not a sleepy market town.
In 1783 Stockton had three shipyards. Ancillary industries to manufacture sails, ropes, blocks and pumps were also established in the town. Two ironworks to serve the shipbuilders were opened – the Stockton Ironworks (circa 1770) and the Portrack Ironworks (1806). In 1808 the Tees Navigation Company was created to make the river Tees to Stockton more navigable and thus increase trade. The Companies first project was a cut of 220 yards across a meander in the river at Stockton. The Mandale Cut opened in 1810 and shortened the distance from Stockton to the mouth of the river by two and a quarter miles enabling coastal ships to reach Stockton on a single tide. At this date Stockton was the main port on the river Tees.
In 1821 it was proposed to link the south Durham coalfields to the port of Stockton by a railway line, enabling coal to be shipped to London via the River Tees. On the 27th September 1825 the Stockton & Darlington railway was opened. By 1828, 52,290 tons of coal was being exported from Stockton. Until the founding of the town of Middlesbrough in 1830 Stockton was the centre of shipping on the Tees. In 1831 another navigational cut in the river Tees at Stockton was opened- the Portrack cut, at this date the populations of Stockton and Middlesbrough were 7,991 and 383 respectively.
In 1833 a second railway for the transportation of coal from the south Durham coalfields was linked to Stockton – The Clarence Railway – this line would continue to new coal staithes at Port Clarence. The arrival of the railway led to the opening of engineering works in the town. In 1839 Fossick & Hackworth took over disused flour and saw mills to the north of Stockton and began producing stationary and locomotive steam engines. On the opposite side of the river to Stockton, in a township known as South Stockton – later Thornaby – the Teesdale Ironworks was established in 1840.
All this industry was operating in Stockton-On-Tees long before the discovery of ironstone in the Cleveland Hills and the Bessemer process but seems to be overshadowed by the Middlesbrough ironmasters.
In another post, I suggested Stockton should aim to become a University Town specializing in Mechanical, Aeronautical, and Manufacturing Engineering. Courses Currently, in the UK, Universities that offer engineering courses are extremely popular. .
A nostalgic comment: Alas the famous 30 foot road in Middlesbrough is long gone, this road was named because it could roll the longest steel beam in the world; how long – you can guess at 30 foot or about 10 metre. I have seen their produce in various places, from near Belo Horizonte, the mining capital of Brazil to India and Malaysia. We can afford to recall the past and use the memory to move forward; but I agree that because we led the world in so much is no reason to be physically swallowed it. The libraries and the archives etc need the past; the land and our brains has use for the future.
Is it not called 40 Foot Road?
Could well be! Age is not all advantages.
My father, sister, sister in law, brother in law (2) all worked on Teesside, mainly the ICI chemical side. I went abroad with the armed forces and didn’t get back to “home” for many years and OMG what a change, what a difference. Initially outraged I then gradually came round more to the thoughts of Philip McNeil and have to agree 100% re the government and industries going abroad. Though the idea of preserving these old sites is OK, are we not creating a living museum here in England with so much history being preserved visitors can be forgiven for thinking we live in the past, or do we?
Lots more navel gazing and how great the good old days were, they weren’t. Having worked in this industrial era I have experience of how the status quo had to be maintained but no one had the willingness to look to the future and ask “what next”. Now we have politicians dabbling in things they don’t understand and wanting to level up something that is already broken. So don’t hang on to the past by keeping these old relics. Think to the future and what the area needs now and in 50 years time and take action not building another museum.
I see no point in preserving old industrial buildings. Too many people want to keep them, but too few of these same people are prepared to put their hands in their pockets and maintain them. Far better to clear and if necessary decontaminate to repurpose the brown field sites, that demolition makes. These site can but used creating a new industrial base. But alas our successive government masters have by design neglected to do. Allowing companies to flee to cheap near slave labour lands, at the expense of our diminishing individual purchasing power while the bankers and industrialists get richer. If the government, bankers and industrialist, aren’t the solution to reversing the demise of the U.K., they must be the problem. It’s all very well to preserve these places and reflect of what as a nation our ancestors DID. Instead we should be showing the world what we in the present can DO.