Captain
Cook's Birthplace Cottage
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Stewart Park is situated near the village of
Marton, Middlesbrough in the north-east of England
and contains the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum.
Map
Reference NZ 516 162.
Twenty metres from the
museum is a granite memorial with the following
inscription:
“This Granite Vase was erected by
H.W.F Bolckow of Marton Hall, A.D 1858, to
mark the
site of the cottage in which Captain James Cook,
the world circumnavigator was born, 27th October,
1728.”
In 1997, as part of National Archaeology Day,
Tees Archaeology, working with the staff of Stewart
Park and the Museums Service, carried out an
excavation in an area close to the granite memorial.
The result of this work, along with a geophysical
survey of the area, suggests that the remains
of East Marton village and perhaps even the foundations
of the Birthplace Cottage survive below the turf.
In June 2003, Tees Archaeology took part in
the ‘Time Team Big Dig 2003’ in the
hope of finding Captain Cook’s birthplace
cottage. Tees Archaeology will be returning to
the site in late October 2003, during the anniversary
of Cook’s birth, to investigate further
the remainder of East Marton village.
James Cook was born on Sunday 27th October 1728,
the second child of James and Grace Cook. His
parents originally set up home in the parish
of Ormesby but soon moved to Marton where the
Cook family lived in a small cottage belonging
to James Cook senior’s employer, farmer
George Mewburn. It was in this cottage that James
Cook was born.
The birthplace cottage has been described
as a mud house (1788) and “ a low cottage,
of two rooms, one within the other the walls of
mud and covered with thatch.” (1810). The
single storey cottage had probably been built
in the late seventeenth century and most likely
had a two-room plan.
Houses
of this type were entered either by a door in
the front wall or the gable which led into the
main living room or fore house. This room might
have had a smoke hood over the fireplace made
of lath and daub, which supported a stone chimney.
The fire heated and lit the room and was also
the main means of cooking meals. This room would
have been open to the timber and thatch roof and
often filled with smoke from the fire. Small-unglazed
windows with shutters let in daylight.
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