IMAGES TAKEN NEAR TO
Dikes Lane, MIDDLESBROUGH, TS9 6HL

An evening stroll up Capt.Cook’s Monument hoping to catch a spectacular sunset. Instead, a diffuse grey blanket gradually smothered the sun. The white cottages of Gribdale Terrace, built for whinstone miners, on the far left overlooked by Roseberry Topping. From my blog http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=20142

An isolated row of cottages built to house workers in the Gribdale Whinstone Mine which operated from 1891 to 1921. The spoil tip which can be seen in the foreground is from the Ayton Banks Ironstone Mine.

Teazles is still used for fleecing wool or raising the nap and three of them are on the arms of the Clothworkers' Company. Teazles were at one time known as Fuller's Thistles.

This is the road down from Captain Cook's Monument into Great Ayton, looking south at this point.

The initial thought is that these must have been erected for miners in the local iron ore mine or even for the jet mining, but the dates don't seem to match. The terrace first appears on the 1913 OS map, and it seems that they were for quarrymen working in the Whinstone quarry further down the hill. The whinstone follows the long thin line of the Cleveland Dyke which runs across much of the North York Moors from Great Ayton towards Robin Hood's Bay with the best deposits at this western end. Quarrying for whinstone, largely used in road construction, carried on in this area until the 1960's.

Unusual row of houses in a rural setting

A former "Equine Trecking Cente" but planning permission has now been approved to change to a "Cycle Hire Shop, Cafe and Holiday Accomodation" (sic) so photo taken for posterity. See http://planning.northyorkmoors.org.uk/northgate/documentexplorer/application/folderview.aspx?type=NLP11GL1_DC_PLANAPP&key=814506&iWgrnzsWW4I=aH8Pp24Bn4U=

This mine had short life, barely twenty years, from 1909 to 1929. The layout of the site indicates that it was an expensive operation. The actual mine entrance is at a level above this concrete chute down which the ore would be loaded onto tubs of an aerial ropeway taking the ore over one and a half miles to the North Eastern Railway sidings at Great Ayton (NZ568118). The concrete base in the foreground was probably an anchor point for the ropeway.

I thought I would have a look around the Ayton Banks Ironstone Mine before the summer vegetation growth takes hold, only to find when I got home that I have already posted a photo of the old drift entrance. But that was an eternity ago, in January 2015. Ayton Banks Ironstone Mine was the smallest of the three mines around Great Ayton, containing about 1½ million tons of rather poor quality ironstone. It was completely surrounded by the workings of the Pease & Partners’ Ayton Mine — that’s its official name which must have led to some confusion and probably one of the reasons why locally that was called ‘Monument Mine’. To give some comparison, in 1917, Ayton Banks Mine was producing 1,500 tons per week whereas Monument Mine was 2,100 per week. Ayton Banks was operated by the Tees Furnace Company, which at the time also ran the Roseberry Mine. The mine is pretty unique in that due to its constricted surface works, there was no room below the mine entrance to dump spoil below the drift entrance and so had to be transported up the slope. Another difficulty, which Ayton Banks shared with Monument Mine, is that the whinstone dyke had to be penetrated in order to access the ore to the north of it. Initially a branch line provided a connection to the whinstone quarry’s narrow gauge railway and thence onto the mainline sidings, but soon an aerial ropeway was constructed connecting with sidings near the foot of Cliff Rigg. The bases for these ropeway towers can be seen today in Cliff Rigg Wood. The featured image shows a concrete bunker and behind a chute where the ironstone was tipped into the ropeway tubs. In the cutting I counted at least three bases, possibly for the ropeway or engine or boiler foundations. One photo shows a group of boy miners with their ponies at Ayton Banks mine. Left to Right: Harold Robinson; Henry Hogben; George Williamson; George Haswell; Robert Bennison; George Bailey; Marvin Porritt. In the photo, George Williamson seems happy, the others stare tentatively into the Edwardian camera unsure whether to smile. The ponies look quite comical under their skull caps. The 1911 census records that Williamson was born in 1900, Hogben 1902 and Haswell 1899. So I guess the photo was taken about the mid-1910s. In 1913, another pony boy, John Garbutt, aged just 14 so would have been born in the same year as Haswell, was killed in Ayton Banks Mine, crushed by a wagon. At the inquiry it was found that Garbutt was killed as “the result of his own improper conduct” presumably absolving the company of all responsibility. Perhaps the lads were thinking of their lost friend. The mine had a short operational life. From 1909, at the height of the boom years to the post-war depression in 1921. For links, references and supplementary photo, see my blog http://www.fhithich.uk/?p=27475

Low lying wet area within former quarry at Slacks Wood