Wynyard: the Best in the Land (NZ421257)

Wynyard Hall, c.1880

The Wynyard Hall/Park Estate, a few miles north of Stockton-on-Tees, has long been a beauty spot. Though the current magnificent mansion dates from a two-pronged building programme spanning 1822-41 and 1842-46 (divided by a catastrophic fire), its history – and reputation – as a site of splendour goes back many centuries.

In the mid-1600s, for example, it was described as fruitfull of soile and pleasant of situation, and so beautified and adorned with woods and groves as noe land in that part of the country is comparable unto them. In the ensuing two centuries, various avenues, terraces and gardens were added to enhance the landscape, until the Grecian mansion was added as per above. It was the 3^rd Marquess of Londonderry who was responsible for the construction of the present edifice – the famous coal magnate himself – and it was at the brand new hall that, in 1847, a lavish birthday bash was laid on:

Amongst the distinguished company present was Prince Louis Napoleon, afterwards Emperor of France. On this occasion there was a curious card party, which deserves to be made historical. The gentlemen who took a hand in it were Louis Napoleon, Benjamin Disraeli, George Hudson (the Railway King), and J.J.Wright of Sunderland.

Disraeli, in fact, loved the place. On leaving London for a trip to Wynyard he once said, “I never left London with such a sense of relief and such anticipation of happiness.” More recently, Nikolaus Pevsner described the hall as “the most splendid 19^th century mansion in the country.”

Royalty and the social elite have frequented the establishment, including visits in the Victorian era by Edward Prince of Wales and later by Queen Elizabeth II. 

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Will Hay of Stockton (c.NZ446193)

[from Wikipedia]

The great William Thomson “Will” Hay was a famed comic screen actor of 1930s and 40s Britain. As a child, he lived in several locations throughout England as his father sought work, but was actually born in Stockton-on-Tees to parents William and Elizabeth in December 1888.

Will began his adult life as an engineer in Salford, but decided to become an actor in his early 20s, spending many years as a music hall performer – including some time in Fred Karno’s famous comedy troupe. After a long and successful stage career, he broke into film in his mid-40s and spent a short but highly successful few years in the business (1934-1943), before moving (very briefly) into radio. His film portrayals saw him play bumbling authority-figure characters – among them lead roles in  Boys Will be Boys, Oh, Mr Porter!, The Ghost of St.Michael’s (above), and My Learned Friend.

He wrote much of his own material, and was also, interestingly, a highly-respected amateur astronomer (and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, no less). Furthermore, he was one of Britain’s first private pilots (he gave lessons to Amy Johnson) and spoke several languages proficiently. He was married – and fathered three children – before separating from his wife, Gladys. Sadly, he spent the last two years of his life disabled following a stroke in 1947.

Will Hay died in 1949, aged just 60, and was buried in London.

Important Notice

Henceforth I will only post to this blog ONCE per week - usually a Tuesday. Any guest posts by other folk will appear on Fridays (though no one has yet submitted any articles). If you wish to contribute - or for further details in general about this change in policy - see here.

Walker’s Friction Match (c.NZ445189)

One of Stockton-on-Tees’ greatest claims to fame is that it was the home of the man who invented the friction match, one John Walker. The chap in question was born and died in the town, spent most of his days there and, crucially, made his invention in his little chemist shop on the town’s High Street.

Matches weren’t a new idea. The Chinese had a version of them when the British were still in the Dark Ages, and many famous names had fiddled about with the concept in Europe way before Walker was born (including Robert Boyle). However, the self-igniting friction match was something new – and the North-East is most certainly the place where it first saw light of day (as it were).

Walker was born in 1781, and was supposed to have been a surgeon. Not liking the sight of blood, he instead switched his studies to chemistry, and eventually opened up his own place in his home town. He became obsessed with the idea of obtaining fire easily and began experimenting with various concoctions – until he hit upon a successful combination of chemicals and equipment in late 1826. There are various versions of the momentous event itself, but it seems that Walker noticed that a mixture of chemicals he had been working with had hardened on a mixing-stick – and when he tried to rub them off on the hearth, the thing ignited in his hand. And thus the friction match was born.

He didn’t seem to think much of the invention. From April 1827, he sold a few dozen packets of them (complete with a sandpaper sheath through which to draw the match-stick, and called ‘Congreves’ in honour of another inventor, one Sir William Congreve), but never got round to patenting the idea. Inevitably, others copied or came up with near identical ideas in time, and the fortune-making ended up elsewhere (notably Samuel Jones’ ‘Lucifers’ from 1829).

However, John Walker seems to have done sufficiently well out of his creation to enjoy a reasonably comfortable life up to his death in 1859, aged 78. He is buried in nearby Norton.

Important Notice

Henceforth I will only post to this blog ONCE per week - usually a Tuesday. Any guest posts by other folk will appear on Fridays (though no one has yet submitted any articles). If you wish to contribute - or for further details in general about this change in policy - see here.

Stockton’s Stocks (NZ445189)

[From The Monthly Chronicle of North Country Lore & Legend of April 1888]

‘Reminiscences of Stockton’ by W.Fallows

Some time ago, I was inquiring when the old ‘stocks’ were removed from Stockton, but no one knew anything about them. The punishment of setting people in the stocks was general in former times, being a frequent order by the justices in Quarter Sessions. We are told by the antiquaries that stocks were used in Anglo-Saxon times, and anyone who owns a copy of the ‘Records of the North Riding’ will learn their use at a very early period, with particulars, also, of the whipping-post, a punishment to which women, as well as men, were condemned. At a Quarter Sessions in 1651, the inhabitants of a parish near Easingwold were fined for not having a pair of stocks in their constablewick. I remember having seen men in those at Stockton, but do not remember seeing anyone whipped. The stocks and whipping-post were at the south-west corner of the Town Hall. I have made a drawing of both, which I remember well.

The market of that day was very thinly attended; the butter-sellers were all on the north side of the Cross, and the corn market at the north side of the shambles. There were a few stalls for the sale of different kinds of clothing and very small hooks; also carts with vegetables, &c. On the west side were all kinds of odds and ends. On one occasion a man got on to one of these stalls and called a public auction for the sale of his wife. The woman was sold for 2s 6d. The affair caused a great noise in the town.

The rage for improvement has cleared away another mark of an old pastime in Stockton. That was a flat stone about three feet square with a pin in the centre, to which in former days was attached a ring with a chain for holding a bull to be baited. This was near a public pump, and on the west side of what was called the Coal Hill, where carts with coals, for the supply of the town, usually stood for sale on the Wednesday and Saturdays.

Important Notice

From this week onwards I will only post to this blog ONCE per week - usually a Tuesday. Any guest posts by other folk will appear on Fridays (though no one has yet submitted any articles). If you wish to contribute - or for further details in general about this change in policy - see here.

Preston Hall (NZ430158)

© Copyright Peter and licensed for reuse under this Creative CommonsLicence.

The Preston Hall we all now know and love as one of the region’s premier museum attractions was once, of course, a private residence. Built in 1825 to displace the original manor house (which itself was not demolished until 1974), it was rather less grand than the structure we see today. When David Burton Fowler raised the new pile it had little of its ‘modern’ trimmings.

In 1882, the hall was sold by the Fowler family to Robert Ropner, a high-profile immigrant shipping magnate. A Prussian by birth, Ropner spent years building up his business in, first, Hartlepool, and then Stockton (from 1888). He moved into politics, where he was Conservative MP for Stockton during 1900-10, was knighted (in 1901) and then raised to the baronetcy.

Ropner spent many years developing Preston Hall. He changed its entrance from the river side to the existing position, added a ballroom, as well as an elaborate porch and winter garden/conservatory (latter two illustrated above). He also constructed many of the estate’s outbuildings for his staff and servants.

Sir Robert Ropner died, aged 85, in 1924. The family lived on in the house until 1937, and it eventually passed into the hands of Stockton-on-Tees Council in 1947. It then re-opened as the borough’s museum in 1953.

The museum is presently undergoing a multi-million pound facelift, and is set to reopen in the Summer of 2012.

Official website here.

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Port of Yarm (NZ417131)

Though it may seem utterly unbelievable today, the town of Yarm, in the very depths of North-East England (and eighteen winding miles from the sea), was once the premier port of the River Tees. The industries of Middlesbrough, Stockton and Billingham – all downstream – now far outstrip Yarm in terms of river traffic, yet for centuries this was far from the case.

Until the building of the bridge at Stockton in 1771, the aging structure at Yarm was the nearest crossing point on the Tees to the sea. Furthermore, Yarm represents pretty much the tidal (and navigational) limit of the river, so the town understandably became an important spot for trade and commerce. However, it probably owes its ancient foundation to its easily defendable position in an inverted ‘U’ in the river’s course.

A royal charter granted in 1207 gave the Yarm its weekly market and two annual fairs; and the Black Friars settled in the town in the 13^th century, remaining until the 1580s.  The old stone bridge – still standing – was built in 1400, and the settlement grew and prospered until, essentially, merchant ships became too big to make it up river – with first Stockton, then Middlesbrough taking over the role as the River Tees’ main port. Yarm, however, remained prominent as a coaching stop – as is evidenced, at least historically, by its high number of inns and pubs.

Yarm looks anything but a port these days, yet is still as charming as ever.

An Infant Hercules (c.NZ494210)

Yes, “Middlesbrough in 1832”.  To the uninitiated, it seems incredible.  The former medieval village had shrunk to little more than a farmstead by the turn of the nineteenth century, but would soon see its population boom beyond belief in the ensuing decades…

Yarm was, Stockton is, Middlesbrough will be.

[Old Teesside proverb, believed to have been uttered by industrialist Joseph Pease in the 1830s]

Population of Middlesbrough:

1801:   25

1829:   40

1831:   131

1841:   5,500

1851:   7,600

1861:   19,000

1871:   40,000

1881:   58,000

1891:   75,000

1901:   90,000

1932:   139,000

Present:  c.140,000

A growth rate believed to be unprecedented in Victorian England.

This remarkable place, the youngest child of England's enterprise, is an infant, but if an infant, an infant Hercules.

[William Gladstone, 1862]