railway_indepth

Although Stockton and Yarm acted as ports from the medieval periods onwards there were significant problems with navigation along the Tees. The depth of water in the river was not enough to allow passage of heavily laden ships at low tide and vessels had to wait for eight tides to carry them as far as Yarm. To improve the situation a small canal was cut in 1810. This removed a loop from the river at Mandale which shortened the journey by several miles. A second longer cut was made in 1830. This was known as the ’Portrack Cut’ and removed another large meander out of the river.

Despite these improvements Stockton and Yarm fell out of favour as ports as the depth of water was not sufficient for the fully laden colliers that industrial trade demanded. A new port, Port Darlington was designed at Middlesbrough and opened in 1830. On the Stockton Bank of the Tees a second new Port was established called Port Clarence. This opened in 1834 and had four coal staithes.

With the coal trade moving downriver Stockton began to specialise in shipbuilding and repairs. Amongst the larger yards was the ’South Stockton Yard’ on the Thornaby side of the river. It was from here, in 1854, that the first iron ship built on Teesside was launched. It is unfortunate that there are now traces of this major industry largely due to clearances in the early 1990’s with the development of the University at Stockton.

Salt was an important later Victorian industry. The Tees saltbeds were discovered almost accidentally when local iron companies sank bore holes to check for coal measures. In 1881 the Bell Brothers were the first to access these salt beds at their works at Port Clarence. They achieved this by introducing water to the salt beds by means of wells and extracting the resulting brine by pumping it to the surface. Remnants of many of the salt works can be seen around the Tees Estuary, particularly in the Haverton Hill and Port Clarence area.

One of the principal industries on Teesside was the manufacture of iron and steel. This became particularly concentrated following the discovery of locally available ores at the Eston Hills and elsewhere in East Cleveland. Amongst the many works at Stockton were the Malleable Works the Bowesfield Works, and Tees Bridge Works. More rurally located sites were at Norton and Stillington.

Despite industrialisation there was still a large agricultural workforce. There were at least 30 corn mills in Stockton in the 19th century. It is extremely likely that many of these were medieval in origin. For example the watermill at Norton is recorded in the Boldon Book of 1183.

Unfortunately none of Stockton's former mills survives in working order. There are however some interesting mill buildings particularly to the south of Yarm. Two of these at Ingleby Barwick are now surrounded by housing estates.

One final industry worthy of mention is pottery manufacture. There were several such sites in the district including factories such as the Wolviston Pottery, The Clarence Potteries at Norton and the North Shore Pottery at Stockton. The Thornaby Pottery on the east bank of the Tees named itself the Stafford Pottery. It was established as early as 1825 by William Smith. The factory produced high quality white wares before closing in 1910.

19th century Stockton