Grinkle Tunnel and Station (c.NZ740177)

The railway connection between Middlesbrough and Whitby along the Cleveland coast has long since been abandoned. It is, perhaps, a project which should have never left the drawing board if the truth be known. Victorian verve and ambition took the thin black line winding around natural obstacles and, at times, perilously close to the sea – but it can now only be traced as far south as the Boulby Potash Mines. The remainder to the east and south was dismantled around 1960 and given over to a coastal footpath.

The easternmost stretch of the surviving line, from Skinningrove to Boulby, was closed, too, at this time, but was revived in the mid 1970s when Boulby Potash mine opened. It is used solely for freight, the passenger stations remaining closed (many having been demolished). One such stopping-off point was Grinkle Station, to the south-west of present-day Easington where the tracks emerge from Grinkle Tunnel. Track and tunnel alike first saw light of day in the early 1880s after almost two decades of confused planning and awkward construction. Originally known as Easington Station and Tunnel, they were renamed ‘Grinkle’ in 1904.

The station was the first on the line to be closed in 1939, the line was lifted in the early 1960s … then relaid a decade later in 1974 to enable minerals to be transported from Boulby Mine to Skinningrove and onwards. It is still in use today.

More info and pics available here.

Honest, it was THIS Big! (c.NZ713203)

On 17^th February 2003, 40 year-old angler Val Fletcher was casting for little fishes from the beach at Skinningrove. She baited her line with squid and hoped for a nibble – perhaps from a mackerel or something equally as undramatic.

She got a bite all right, but it was no tiddler; for it was a 11½ft, 140lb oarfish (aka the King of Herrings) – and it took her a good 40 minutes to reel it in, aided by her partner, the appropriately named Robert Herrings.  Though the size of the fish was on the large side, it was a minnow by oarfish standards: they can reach 50ft+. Anyway, the 5ft 4in, eight stone woman beached the monster, dragged it home and left it outside for a couple of days for the locals to gawp at. No one was able to identify the specimen for some time.

Oarfish are incredibly rare – especially live specimens. They are the oceans’ longest bony fish, and prefer warmer climes and deeper seas.  One hadn’t been caught anywhere in the world since 1996 (off the US coast) – with previous UK finds including two at Whitby in 1759 & 1981 and one off Northumberland in 1794. Val is thought to have been the first person to have landed one with a rod and line.

When word finally got round, marine biologists were keen to examine the creature. By then, though, it had already been sliced up into steaks and shoved in Ms Fletcher’s deep freeze.

Tom Leonard’s Little Project (NZ712192)

Not many folk have a museum named after them, but Thomas Leonard does. As a consequence – and despite its present-day reincarnation as the ‘Cleveland Ironstone Mining Museum’ – the man’s name is one of the best-known in the region.

Tom was born in 1922 at Charltons, a small mining village a few miles to the south-west of the famous museum which now sits betwixt Loftus and Skinningrove. He was schooled in Boosbeck, before beginning his career in the ironstone business at the offices of the South Skelton Mines. He served in the RAF during WWII, resuming his career after hostilities – whilst honing his writing skills at every opportunity along the way. He soon moved into journalism with the Cleveland Standard and then the Evening Gazette, penning many articles – including sports reports.

He was heavily involved with The Green Howards for many years, but for a long time nurtured his dream of establishing a museum to the memory of the dying ironstone industry of the area. Indeed, as the mines closed, Tom began collecting various bits and pieces in the hope that he could one day fulfil this ambition.

The Gun Room at Gisborough Hall housed his growing collection for many years; then, in the 1970s, the opportunity arose to move the equipment into the old Loftus Mineworks (which themselves had closed in 1958) with a view to opening the collection up to the public. Several years of preparatory work and fundraising saw the new museum open its doors in 1983 – the first (and, I think, only) institution of its kind in the country.

Sadly, though, Tom himself had passed away in 1981, and never saw his dream properly fulfilled. The museum was named in his honour – The Tom Leonard Mining Museum – though it has since been rebranded after a radical revamp during 1999-2000.

[Much of the above information was taken from the museum’s website at www.ironstonemuseum.co.uk , where you can catch a glimpse of the man himself]

Eston’s ‘Bold Venture’ (c.NZ562179)

In the spring of 1850, the fledgeling Cleveland ironmaking industry was floundering.  Established as recently as 1840 by those great speculators Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan, the first iron foundry at Middlesbrough was not shaping up as planned.  Despite the construction, in 1846, of smelting works to aid the operation at Witton Park, 20 miles to the west, the business was struggling to keep its head above water.  Ore quality and quantity, as well as transportation costs, were becoming unmanageable.

In 1847, the ‘Cleveland Main Seam’ of iron ore had been discovered at Skinningrove, and Bolckow and Vaughan soon began shipping it in – but the solution was not ideal.  Then, sensationally, in 1850, Vaughan and his mining engineer, John Marley, fell upon new deposits of iron ore in the Eston Hills.  It was the defining moment in the history of Cleveland, and the point at which Middlesbrough’s looming financial disaster was averted.

In August 1850 – within weeks of the discovery – the first trial quarry was dug in the heights above Eston, and named ‘Bold Venture’ by it’s chief engineers.  By the end of the year, 4,000 tons of ore had been extracted, smelted at Witton Park, and the iron finished and rolled out at the Middlesbrough foundry – all making full use of the new railway network.

On 6^th January 1851, the Eston Mine and its railway branch line were formally opened amid great pomp and ceremony – and production began to boom.  By the mid-1850s, Eston had its own blast furnaces…

And the rest, as they say, is, er, history.