Digging into the Lost History of Old Middlesbrough

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fmttmadmin

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Today at 2pm you can step into a brand new office block - with a rare if not unique view of the working River Tees in one direction, the other overlooking old Middlesbrough where archaeologist Oliver Cook has been digging deep beneath Victorian Middlesbrough.
You can hear what he had found and the tantalising glimpses he has unearthed pointing to an earlier history than the Infant Hercules.
Talk starts 2pm at AV Dawson - The Staiths office block at the Port Of Middlesbrough - visitor parking available in main car park and car park across the road.
FREE EVENT for Discover Middesbrough

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It would be wonderful if we could get a good turn out to welcome Olive Cook back to Teesside today. Am so grateful to him for giving up a day's holiday to drive over to Middlesbrough to deliver this talk.
He has really opened up the story of early Middlesbrough and we hope to bring the next instalment later this week if the surveyors can find any tangible remnants of the ancient medieval Middleburg.
 
fmttmadmin said:
Today at 2pm you can step into a brand new office block - with a rare if not unique view of the working River Tees in one direction, the other overlooking old Middlesbrough where archaeologist Oliver Cook has been digging deep beneath Victorian Middlesbrough.
You can hear what he had found and the tantalising glimpses he has unearthed pointing to an earlier history than the Infant Hercules.
Talk starts 2pm at AV Dawson - The Staiths office block at the Port Of Middlesbrough - visitor parking available in main car park and car park across the road.
FREE EVENT for Discover Middesbrough

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I'd have loved to come to this, but can't make it today. Will the findings be online anywhere Rob?
 
Thank you to archaeologist Oliver Cook, our hosts AV Dawson and everyone that turned out to hear a fascinating talk about investigations into medieval and early 19th century Middlesbrough.
We started with a panoramic rooftop view over the original Port Darlington coal staiths site with the new 1830 worker town on the little hill to the immediate east.
Oliver Cook travelled over from Salford Archaeology and gave a fascinating presentation incorporating early maps and his excavation photos as well as finds. Those finds stretched back to a tiny piece of Roman pottery found in a ditch. Could the ditch possibly be Roman? There were medieval remnants, pieces of green glazed jugs through to 19th century drinks bottles from Middlesbrough company T Dent found in a cellar.
There were glimpses of a 19th century well, barrel roofed brick drains and a surprisingly well built cellar beneath a rare back to back terrace, Newcastle Row. By all accounts this was classic slum housing owned by Bolckow and Vaughan, notorious slum landlords.
One of the most tantalising finds was a stone wall found near the later (now also demolished) St Hilda's church. Could this belong to the lost medieval priory chapel of Middlesbrough?
We hope to find out more later this week when a geophysical survey is carried out around that area. These are exciting times for the archaeology of Middlesbrough.

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fmttmadmin said:
Thank you to archaeologist Oliver Cook, our hosts AV Dawson and everyone that turned out to hear a fascinating talk about investigations into medieval and early 19th century Middlesbrough.
We started with a panoramic rooftop view over the original Port Darlington coal staiths site with the new 1830 worker town on the little hill to the immediate east.
Oliver Cook travelled over from Salford Archaeology and gave a fascinating presentation incorporating early maps and his excavation photos as well as finds. Those finds stretched back to a tiny piece of Roman pottery found in a ditch. Could the ditch possibly be Roman? There were medieval remnants, pieces of green glazed jugs through to 19th century drinks bottles from Middlesbrough company T Dent found in a cellar.
There were glimpses of a 19th century well, barrel roofed brick drains and a surprisingly well built cellar beneath a rare back to back terrace, Newcastle Row. By all accounts this was classic slum housing owned by Bolckow and Vaughan, notorious slum landlords.
One of the most tantalising finds was a stone wall found near the later (now also demolished) St Hilda's church. Could this belong to the lost medieval priory chapel of Middlesbrough?
We hope to find out more later this week when a geophysical survey is carried out around that area. These are exciting times for the archaeology of Middlesbrough.

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I think Bolckow and Vaughan were rather better known for iron and steelmaking than landlord-related activities.
 
fmttmadmin said:
It would be wonderful if we could get a good turn out to welcome Olive Cook back to Teesside today. Am so grateful to him for giving up a day's holiday to drive over to Middlesbrough to deliver this talk.
He has really opened up the story of early Middlesbrough and we hope to bring the next instalment later this week if the surveyors can find any tangible remnants of the ancient medieval Middleburg.
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2pm on a Monday doesn't seem like the best crowd grabbing time to be fair
 
Perhaps that is the best time for the speaker to give up his free time to drive all the way from Manchester. Mostly everyone involved in Discover Middlesbrough is giving up their time for free and fitting it with their work and family commitments - the same also applies to the venues.
ThatFragranceGuy said:
2pm on a Monday doesn't seem like the best crowd grabbing time to be fair
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fmttmadmin said:
Perhaps that is the best time for the speaker to give up his free time to drive all the way from Manchester. Mostly everyone involved in Discover Middlesbrough is giving up their time for free and fitting it with their work and family commitments - the same also applies to the venues.
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Don't say it wasn't, but I imagine majority of any target audience will be at work. How many turned up? If he had to take a days holiday to come do the talk that doesn't sound like the best time for him to be honest.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Don't say it wasn't, but I imagine majority of any target audience will be at work. How many turned up? If he had to take a days holiday to come do the talk that doesn't sound like the best time for him to be honest.
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He was happy to travel over. We have to fit around people's availability.
But there are also events at weekends, when again I understand audience have other commitments. There are few venues with staff available for free on evenings these days.
 
200 yards from the site of the old Middlesbrough farm, are these stones which have been used in the old coal yard. I wonder if they are the quarry, as they obviously very old.
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Today two guys from Sheffield University spent all day doing a GPR survey - ground penetrating radar - we hope to build up a picture of the former 19th century graveyard. It was supposed to have been emptied mid century but the archaeology dig in 2021 proved otherwise. The GPR survey works by bouncing radar signals off underlying objects and surfaces, by timing the signal returning it you can work out depth. Then different readings allude to different features. Once it is all processed by computer. I learned all this today. Ha ha. We really hope that beneath the graves there might be earlier features. Beneath or adjacent we hope to find further evidence of pre 19th century Middlesbrough. The really exciting find would be remnants of the medieval monastic cell that was here until the 16th century and then remained as a ruin for a couple of hundred years after that. A couple of walls were picked up by the archaeologists in 2021/22 and we are keeping our fingers crossed that they could be linked to the former monastic buildings.
I have just been reading that medieval Middlesbrough would have been a reasonable sized village of maybe 100 people with an inn, a mill and a small priory. It clung to a small hill which is today surmounted by the Old Town Hall. But by the 19th century it had dwindled to 20 or so people, most of whom presumably would have worked on Middlesbrough farm. The farm house was next to the priory site and even incorporated some of the relics in its walls. Then in 1830 the farm was bought by a group of Quaker businessmen and a new town planned and built around four streets, North, East, South and West radiating out and down from the top of the hill. The rest is industrial history.
 
fmttmadmin said:
Today two guys from Sheffield University spent all day doing a GPR survey - ground penetrating radar - we hope to build up a picture of the former 19th century graveyard. It was supposed to have been emptied mid century but the archaeology dig in 2021 proved otherwise. The GPR survey works by bouncing radar signals off underlying objects and surfaces, by timing the signal returning it you can work out depth. Then different readings allude to different features. Once it is all processed by computer. I learned all this today. Ha ha. We really hope that beneath the graves there might be earlier features. Beneath or adjacent we hope to find further evidence of pre 19th century Middlesbrough. The really exciting find would be remnants of the medieval monastic cell that was here until the 16th century and then remained as a ruin for a couple of hundred years after that. A couple of walls were picked up by the archaeologists in 2021/22 and we are keeping our fingers crossed that they could be linked to the former monastic buildings.
I have just been reading that medieval Middlesbrough would have been a reasonable sized village of maybe 100 people with an inn, a mill and a small priory. It clung to a small hill which is today surmounted by the Old Town Hall. But by the 19th century it had dwindled to 20 or so people, most of whom presumably would have worked on Middlesbrough farm. The farm house was next to the priory site and even incorporated some of the relics in its walls. Then in 1830 the farm was bought by a group of Quaker businessmen and a new town planned and built around four streets, North, East, South and West radiating out and down from the top of the hill. The rest is industrial history.
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I'm over the moon that this is happening. I was genuinely worried that the ancient origins of our town would be wiped out forever by a gargantuan piece of brutalist architecture.
That ancient burying ground must back to 7th century and even more.
St Cuthbert and St Hilda both loved this hallowed ground, and the ecclesiastical events that must have happened, can mostly only be imagined, so any single piece of that jigsaw that is discovered, is of massive interest to me.
Well done to all involved.
 
I get you. Might be worth us taking a glance around there. Looks interesting. We also recently looked into the basement of one large old house over the border and it had a substantial stone flagged floor.
delgrapos said:
In the old Woodhouses coal yard at the bottom of Stockton St
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fmttmadmin said:
I get you. Might be worth us taking a glance around there. Looks interesting. We also recently looked into the basement of one large old house over the border and it had a substantial stone flagged floor.

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I just have a gut feeling about the stones. I know that the farmhouse survived a number of years as the town was growing around it, and when demolished, the priory relics were kept, but what happened to the rest?
At the time, with the new brick buildings being constructed, these old, heavy cumbersome stones may have just been considered useful enough to shore up that flood prone bunker, being as they only had to shift it 200 yards, downhill.
It would be interesting to see what an expert thinks, for sure 👍
 
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Pointless. As any fule kno, history started with the formation of the Premier League. Sky TV consistently informs us no event of any significance occurred before this.
 
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