Stockton & Darlo Railway . What survives ?

BB - thanks for this - Its easy to forget it was not just Stockton to Darlington, but the railway also connected the West Durham coalfields to the River Tees at Middlesbrough by 1830.

When the iron furnaces opened up in Middlesbrough traffic of coal and limestone went through the roof in the 1850s. I have a copy of the figures from an educational pack I bought when I was student. No wonder the Ironmasters were shareholders and directors of the railway companies. Hugh Bell was on the board of LNER and had a private station built for his family home @ Redcar. In the 1850s & 60s the area must have been the silicon valley of its time. The iron built steam ships, steam railways, iron rails, the iron structures of many railway stations.

CW - the video mentions and shows NR station - I must visit.
 
If you are going to North Road Station then you need to take the new walkway from the museum down to Skerne Railway bridge, shown on the painting above, the oldest working railway bridge in the world. The whole area has been landscaped and tidied up, so you can walk to the town centre along the Skerne and beneath the railway bridge that used to be on the bank of a fiver note.
 
Cheers Borobarmy. I can't say I am a fan of history but my wife is, and especially local history. She is enthralled by this and it's given me a much needed break to revisit some old boxing matches!
 
If you are going to North Road Station then you need to take the new walkway from the museum down to Skerne Railway bridge, shown on the painting above, the oldest working railway bridge in the world. The whole area has been landscaped and tidied up, so you can walk to the town centre along the Skerne and beneath the railway bridge that used to be on the bank of a fiver note.
I love this. That's my plans when I'm next up north sorted
 
The Locomotion No 1 pub, which sits opposite the platform of Heighington train station, at Newton Ayclifffe Ind Estate is still there. (although long closed).

"Dating back almost 200 years, the former Heighington Station is where the pub’s namesake and first steam locomotive to run on the Stockton and Darlington Railway was assembled in 1825 - heralding the start of the railway system in Britain."
 
The Pease family were at the centre of the development of Teesside

Stockton to Darlington railway (they lent a lot of the money and later the LNER)
Middlesbrough Estate (the land that Middlesbrough was built on) they were landowners that developed the Victorian town, but were not industralists.
The whole development of Saltburn
Hutton Hall - Guisborough
The Hall near the beach at Marske
Northern Echo
Local Liberal MPs (Cleveland, Darlington, Whitby) once quakers were allowed to be MPs.

They were South Yorkshire quakers who made money from wool originally, then set up a bank with the profits.

Their bank folded in 1903 after a lost legal battle about inheritance. What was left merged into Barclays Bank. One arm of the family moved into the City of London and a family member married Chrispen Odey who owns some very big funds (worth £300m), her brother is a major Investment Trust manager too.
 
The Pease family were at the centre of the development of Teesside

Stockton to Darlington railway (they lent a lot of the money and later the LNER)
Middlesbrough Estate (the land that Middlesbrough was built on) they were landowners that developed the Victorian town, but were not industralists.
The whole development of Saltburn
Hutton Hall - Guisborough
The Hall near the beach at Marske
Northern Echo
Local Liberal MPs (Cleveland, Darlington, Whitby) once quakers were allowed to be MPs.

They were South Yorkshire quakers who made money from wool originally, then set up a bank with the profits.

Their bank folded in 1903 after a lost legal battle about inheritance. What was left merged into Barclays Bank. One arm of the family moved into the City of London and a family member married Chrispen Odey who owns some very big funds (worth £300m), her brother is a major Investment Trust manager too.
I understand them being Quakers meant there were no pubs on the new ‘development‘ on top of the cliff ( Jewel streets etc ) to keep it ’devout’ during the working people’s holidays . Their bricks are also white which was a Quaker preference .
Id imagine the pub at the bottom of the cliff got rammed 🧐
 
The Ship Inn was not officially in Saltburn. It was there before the Pease family.

In the past Saltburn was always a bit quiet, sedate, and for Teesside a bit middle class. My parents said a lot of the senior managers from ICI Wilton lived in the big Victorian houses on Glenside/Albion Terrace. although there was a popular dance hall half way up the cliff road, did it become a night club. There were also private schools and a big Conservative Club. It was somewhere the kids from Middlesbrough and South Bank went for their posh sunday school outings. 30 to 40 years ago it appeared to be in steady decline with some houses being turned into bedsits, but the decline seems to have stopped. I always thought it was a pleasant and relaxing day out - with no loud pubs, limited tacky amusements with empty sandy beaches, great views, free and easy parking, gardens, miniature railway, Victorian pier (most Northerly in the UK), Victorian lift car. Maybe I am a boring quaker nowadays.
 
Part of the track bed from Darlington to Middleton St George is now a footpath with an adjacent "Community Wood", you can walk through to the Fighting Cocks Pub at MSG which was a stop on the original Stockton to Darlington line. Sadly the pub (most recently branded "Platform 1") closed during the second lockdown and Sainsburys are trying to turn it into a "Convenience Store". The people of MSG are trying to save it...

https://www.darlingtonandstocktonti...edged-buy-fighting-cocks-middleton-st-george/

When I lived over on the east side of Darlo I used to walk the dog along the line, there were still dozens of the stone "sleepers" discarded in the diches at the side of the overgrown path. Part of the line is now the bypass road that joins the A66 next to the Amazon warehouse.
 
I remember as a kid the path along the inside of Preston park being more "embankmenty". I was also told that the line cut across the road near to the old Clareville hotel as it headed off to Urlay nook, you can see the houses here just down from titty bottle park (Victoria park) are set at an angle this was to accommodate where the old line ran in front of them.
 

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Also the old ticket office building in Stockton boils my blood, anywhere else it would be a museum or attraction.:mad:
 
The old
I remember as a kid the path along the inside of Preston park being more "embankmenty". I was also told that the line cut across the road near to the old Clareville hotel as it headed off to Urlay nook, you can see the houses here just down from titty bottle park (Victoria park) are set at an angle this was to accommodate where the old line ran in front of them.

Yeah boynogg, the "embanmenty" bit can be seen clearly alongside Preston Park further north where the Stockton/Thornaby junction now is, that's the original alignment there (y)
 
I have always said that the local authorities have missed a trick here. When I lived in Darlo I met a man who came from Sweden to see the place where modern railways were born. He explained that an ancestor of his worked on the construction of the line as a navvy. He was astounded that nothing was made of the acihevement and relics no longer existed. The local authorites should have preserved the line or at least made the trackbed a walking route with information boards along the way. There could have been mock ups of the engines and carraiges that have used the line since it's inception. Old halts could have been marked (such as the one at Urlay Nook). Just think of the revenue that could have been earned in food bars/cafes etc along the route. All with historic photo's and posters.
Instead we have Red Hall estate adjoining the old line which has been tarmacced over.
 
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