STOCKTON WARD 



STOCKTON ON TEES 



bake-house at the north ; the houses on each side the 

 High Street formed the borough. The ancient staith 

 or landing-place on the river side near the castle 

 has expanded into a long line of quays, of which the 

 principal one is owned by the Corporation. 



Finkle Street leads e.ast from the town-hall to the 

 river and Duckett (Dovecot) Street west, marking the 

 northern end of the mediaeval borough. The lord's 

 dovecot stood at the corner of the street named from 

 it ; its site was marked by Dovecot House standing 

 in the roadway" until it was taken down in 1839 

 to widen the street.'** At the south end of High 

 Street Yarm Lane or Road goes west and then south 

 through Preston to Yarm, Hartburn Lane turning off 

 westward. The latter passes through East Hartburn 

 village to Elton and Darlington. At its northern end, 

 as stated above, High Street is prolonged as Norton 

 Road, e.istward there is a lane to Portrack, and west- 

 ward Bishopton Lane leads to Darlington with a wide 

 straight road, formed in 1830, branching from it 

 towards Durham. The districts called Mount Pleasant 

 and St. Ann's Hill lie to the east of the Norton road, 

 Smithfield was by the river where it turns east, 

 Newham Grange and White House are between 

 Bishopton Lane and the Durham road, Bowesfield 

 stands in the extreme south of the township, and a 

 rifle range, now disused, was made for the volunteers 

 beyond it, near the Tees. 



The ancient roads and lanes continue in use and 

 have determined the direction of the modern streets, 

 but some of the older names have changed in course 

 of time. In the former days most of the minor streets 

 or lanes of the town went east down to the riverside. 

 One of them, called Boathouse Lane, Ferry Lane or 

 Cook's VVynd, opposite Yarm Lane, was the passage 

 to the ancient ferry across the Tees, the boat being 

 somewhat to the south of it, near the later bridge. 

 Each of the inhabitants of Stockton andThornaby on 

 Easter Monday and St. Stephen's Day paid a cake 

 valued at \J. for passing freely over the river all the 

 year except when the river was frozen ; at such times 

 they paid \J. each w.iy." After the adjoining castle 

 had been quite destroyed High Street was prolonged 

 to the south and then, curving eastward, crossed 

 the river by a stone bridge of five arches built in 

 1764-9.^" After that the ferry was discontinued,-' 

 but tolls were paid by those who used the bridge until 

 its cost had been repaid. It was declared free in 

 1820.** After having been enlarged for increasing 

 traffic it was in 1887 superseded by the present Victoria 

 Bridge on an adjacent site. This bridge is of stone 

 and iron, crossing the river by three wide arches. At 

 the south end of the town, on the Bridge road, was 

 St. John's Well ; it yielded the best water in the town, 

 and there was a bath near it.-' Over the bridge, on 

 the Yorkshire side, has grown up the modern borough 

 of Thornaby, formerly known as South Stockton. 

 Ferry boats still ply across the river and are largely 



used by workmen crossing to the dockyards and other 

 works. 



There are many buildings and institutions worthy 

 of notice. Borough Hall, in High Street, was built in 

 I 8 5 I on the site of an old dwelling-house ; it contains 

 some public offices, a Corn Exchange and a hall for 

 meetings.-'' The Free Library, in Wellington Street, 

 off the north end of High Street, was opened in 1877. 

 A literary society or book club was formed in 1776, 

 and a subscription library in 1792.-* The first Me- 

 chanics' Institute was established in 1 82 5, and revived 

 or joined with the Reading Association in 1836-7; 

 in 1852 it obtained Corporation Building, which had 

 been erected at the corner of Dovecot Street for public 

 uses in 1839,-^ and was given up when Borough Hall 

 was opened. The name was changed to Stockton 

 Institute of Literature and Science in 1846,-" and 

 since then to the Literary Institute. It contains 

 reading and chess rooms and a public hall. The 

 Exchange Hall, in High Street, built in 1874, has a 

 large concert room, now a cinema theatre. 



There are numerous chapels. Protestant Noncon- 

 formity took shape here after the Restoration, but 

 nothing very definite can be related until the Tolera- 

 tion Act of 1689. John Rogers of Barnard Castle 

 (d. 1680), an ejected minister, is said to have founded 

 a congregation here.-* At the Indulgence of 1672 

 Joseph Gill of Stockton took a general licence as a 

 Congregationalist.-' Presbyterian and Quaker congre- 

 gations appear after the Revolution, as is shown below, 

 and in i 748 John Wesley paid his first visit to Stockton, 

 preaching near the market-place to ' a very large and 

 ver)' rude congregation,' who grew 'quiet and serious.' '" 

 He preached again in I 751, finding that 'the society 

 was more than doubled since he was there before.' " 

 The first meeting-place is said to have been in Bolton 

 House Yard,'- Thistle Green. Wesley preached, 

 usually in the High Street, on many later visits down 

 to 1790; in 1770 he ' preached in the new house, 

 strangely raised, when the case appeared quite des- 

 perate, by God's touching the heart of a man of sub- 

 stance, who bought the ground and built it without 

 delay.' " This was probably the Smithfield chapel of 

 the Methodists marked on the plan of i 796 in Brevv- 

 ster's History tf Stockton to the east of the parish church. 

 It was rebuilt in 1813, and the congregation removed 

 in 1823 to Dovecot Street to a new chapel c.illed 

 Brunswick. It had a library connected with it. This 

 building remains in use, and there are more recent 

 chapels in North Terrace, 1 867, Oxbridge Lane, Yarm 

 Road, 1904, and mission stations. The Welsh Wes- 

 leyans have a chapel in \'illlers Street dating about 

 1878. The Primitive Methodists held their first 

 ' camp meeting ' in i 82 I and had a room in Playhouse 

 Yard ; they opened a chapel in Maritime Street in 

 1825,'* and now have three — Pandise Row, 1866, 

 Norton Road, 1876, and Bowesfield Lane, 1887 — 

 besides some mission rooms. The Wesleyan Associa- 



'^ Plan of 1724 in Richmond, Local 

 Records of Stockton. 



'* IbiJ. p. 181. 



"* Brewster, op. cil. 92. 



*" Ibid. 91 (Act, 2 Geo. Ill, cap. 52) ; 

 Surtees, op. cit. iii, iSi n. The f0rm.1l 

 opening seems to have been in 1771. In 

 Brewster's 2nd edition (1829) a view of 

 the bridge is given. 



^ Brewster (p. 92) •tales that the 

 boathouse became an iron-foundry, and 



a soap factor)' was built on the land ad- 

 joining. 



" Surtees, op. cit. iii, 182. 



-'Brewster, op. cit. 8S n. In iS+8 

 700 houses drew their supply from this 

 well (Fordyce, op. cit. ii, 18;;). 



" Richmond, Local Rtc. p. 214 ; For- 

 dyce, op. cit. ii, 175. 



-^ Brewster, op. cit. 103. It w-as 

 broken up after the Free Library was 

 formed. 



349 



'• Heavisides, Annah of Stockton-on- 

 Tect, 74- 



*' Fordyce, op. cit. it, 172. 



»' Diet. Nat. Biog. 



" Cal. S. P. Dim. 1672, p. 401. 



*• tfeilryl Journ. (ed. 1903), ii, 105. 



" Ibid, ii, 220. 



" Richmond, Prot. Nonconf. in Stockton^ 



^' ff etUys Journ. Iii, }8o, 

 ^* Fordyce, op. cit. ii, 165, 



