IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Westpoint Road, STOCKTON-ON-TEES, TS17 6BL

Teesdale Business Park is a redevelopment of land formerly occupied by the large heavy industrial works belonging to Head Wrightson. At its peak the Head Wrightson plant employed some 6000 people in the construction of sizable industrial components. The works closed in 1987. The centre of the redeveloped area is the Wharf, connected to the Tees by two canals.

Teesside Development Corporation's vision for the redevelopment of Stockton and its surroundings involved a mix of office buildings a residential areas around the River Tees, whose water quality was much improved by fixing its level at 2.65m above Ordnance Datum by means of the Image], thus avoiding twice-daily exposure of large areas of stinking mudbanks. It is hardly Venice, but some of the developments are quite striking and in this area the buildings styles seem to go together quite well. Some of the other nearby developments look more like something built by a six-year-old in a video game...

Office building on University Boulevard

Looking towards University of Durham, Queen's Campus.

Opened in November 2000 the Teesquay Millennium Bridge is exceptionally well used providing a link between the University of Durham Stockton campus and offices on the south bank and the town centre on the north. At the time of opening it was criticised because of the lack of provision for cyclists.

A river scene taken from the Teesdale Way in Stockton, just upstream from the replica of HM Bark Endeavour.

This once would have been a very busy and industrial scene. On the far bank there would have been the iron and steel foundries of the Head Wrightson works whilst the near bank would have been full of ships moored at Stockton quay. Today the only boats plying the river are the dinghies of Castlegate Quay Watersports and new offices and apartments occupy Head Wrightson's site at Thornaby Carrs. In the foreground is the Cafe Indi-Go, an Indian restaurant. Well recommended.

View westward, towards Bowesfield Junction and the division of main lines northward to Stockton and across Co. Durham to Ferryhill, Sunderland and Newcastle by three routes, also westward to Eaglescliffe thence Darlington or Northallerton and the South: eastward from here was Newport Yard, Middlesbroug with all its great industry, then Saltburn and the Cleveland lines to Whitby etc. Therefore passing through Thornaby was a constant procession of heavy freight traffic. Here a Class J freight is headed by one of the ex-NER W. Worsdell class P2 (LNER J26) 0-6-0s concentrated in the area, No. 65774 (built as No. 525 in 10/1905, renumbered in 1946 as 5774, withdrawn 7/61).

Northern diesel unit 142 084 leaves Thornaby as the 1808 departure to Middlesbrough; the destination blind is showing "MetroCentre", apparently for the next service to be operated by this unit. I travelled on it from Newcastle (via Sunderland and the coast), though I believe it may have worked through from Carlisle, a truly epic journey for a unit designed for short distance work.