Here’s Stockton Town Hall, which dates back to 1735. That’s the market cross standing tall in the foreground… and, erm, Shoe Zone squatting in the background. I posted more about the history twelve years ago, when it seems that the lower windows had window boxes, and there wasn’t and industrial bin sitting outside.

I’m given to understand that the Council chamber in the Town Hall is still in use; I had previously assumed that it had moved to somewhere in the nearby municipal buildings, which just goes to show that one should never assume…

Twenty years ago, I used to walk across Stockton’s Trinity Green daily, shuttling between my rented student house and lectures at Durham University’s Queen’s Campus… though in those days, it wasn’t called Trinity Green; it was just a ruined church.

Twelve years ago, I got around to writing about the slightly grisly history of the ruined church that stands at its center—and the graveyard that has now become the Green itself.

Wandering across the Green again, I reflected on how lovely the space has become, mostly thanks to work that was done some years after I moved away from Stockton. It’s become a great bit of urban greenery, with the once frequently vandalized and graffitied ruined church now sensitively fenced off, adding a beautiful atmospheric centerpiece.

It’s easy to imagine an alternative history in which the ruined church was flattened and its churchyard redeveloped into a car park or something similar. Instead, Stockton Council had the foresight to create something really special.

Until I saw this sign, I’d never heard of the ‘8 Bridges Way’, a walking and cycling path along the River Tees—despite having visited the Transporter Bridge many times, which is where this circular route begins and ends.

Having seen the sign and searched the web, it feels very much up my street: a twelve-mile river walk is just the sort of thing that Wendy and I might mosey along on any given weekend, especially given that we could easily catch a train down to Middlesbrough which would leave us a stone’s throw from the start.

I’ll have to add it to the list!

In 1825, the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened, ushering in the era of steam locomotion—though initially only for freight, as passenger coaches continued to be drawn by horses until 1833.

But that’s not all that happened in Stockton in 1825: the Shambles also opened. It is still going strong 199 years on, though these days it hosts all sorts of shops rather than just the butchers that traditionally occupied a shambles.

This is Aeolian Motion by Phil Johnson, a sculpture that I could have sworn I’d posted about in the past. Located near the River Tees in Stockton. As its name implies, it’s ‘wands’ move in the wind.

It was plonked on its grassy verge in 2001. According to the plaque alongside it, it was ‘inspired by the rich history and industrial heritage of the Borough of Stockton on Tees, and the flowing movement of the river’.

It is very much not my kind of thing: I’d sooner have planted a tree.

When I went to give blood earlier this week, a nurse asked me to confirm my date of birth. I did so, and she commented on how I shared my birthday with the late Queen. She wasn’t wrong, but it was a slightly peculiar moment.

Wandering down Stockton High Street, I discovered via his memorial fountain that I also share a birthday with John Dodshon, a 19th-century Quaker philanthropist. And then I thought: surely I would have noticed such a prominent fountain with my birthday on it when I lived in Stockton?

And so I descended a watery rabbit hole.

Dodshon’s memorial drinking fountain was unveiled on Monday 26 August 1878. The Stockton Examiner described it as ‘a massive structure of stone’ with ‘a rather commanding appearance.’

But what did he do to deserve such a memorial? The newspaper considered it ‘unnecessary to say much here’, save that he ‘distinguished himself, and the many qualities of his nature fitted him for the different walks of life in which it was his delight to treat, and helped to make him a useful and esteemed townsman.’

But an anonymous letter to the Stockton Examiner a few weeks before the unveiling took a rather different, and rather more intemperate, view:

I have for some days been wondering what was about to be done in the middle of our much-boasted High-street, and now I learn that the site has been fixed upon to erect a memorial fountain in perpetuation of the memory of the late Mr John Dodshon. I confess I was astonished at this, and upon making inquiries I was informed it was a public monument! Really, what next, I wonder? Public monument! I pretend to know something about Stockton and what is going on, but I never heard of a public fountain to John Dodshon before.

What has Mr John Dodshon done for the town? Let’s know that first, and act when the question is answered. Verily, it seems our Town Council will allow Tom, Dick, and Harry, to erect monuments to their deceased chums if they only take it into their heads to do so. If those who are the prime movers in this scheme had only looked round, they might easily have found some more useful purpose for spending money—even to glorify the uneventful life of John Dodshon.

I have every respect and admiration for the late Mr Dodshon, but I cannot see that there is anything wise in sticking up a privately-provided fountain, the design of which has not been submitted to the public,m and of which everybody seems to be in ignorance about, in one of the finest streets of Great Britain. I hope the Town Council will reconsider this matter at their next meeting and come to some other conclusion upon it before the fountain is knocked down in disgust as a street obstruction.

‘Uneventful life’? ‘Street obstruction’? Blimey!

Clearly, there was something of a chorus of disapproval—so much, in fact, that it was mentioned in the local MP’s speech at the unveiling:

We regret to hear that some objections have been made to this monument occupying as it now does a portion of this magnificent High-street. No doubt it occupies a certain portion of space, and I am free to confess that I am one of those who hope that the time will come—and I must say I think it is not far distant—when all these hideous structures in our midst will be swept away, and this market place will be devoted to its more legitimate purpose—the accommodation of those who frequent our lively, rising, and increasing market.

When the time comes to which I have just referred, I am sure the Corporation will be as liberal as at present, and if we have to find a substitute site for this fountain that it will be really afforded.

‘Hideous structures?’ Crikey!

Over the next few weeks, there was also a bit of a spat in the letters column about the functioning of the horse troughs which were part of the fountain, with the architect himself writing in at one point. It has very 19th-century Facebook vibes.

Its fate didn’t improve: perhaps out of convenience, or perhaps out of protest, the local fishmongers started to store and clean their wares in the fountain, leaving it in a right state—and making the water rather unpalatable. Within 15 years, it had been shifted away from the High Street and down to Ropner Park.

But in 1995, the Council decided to restore it to the High Street, albeit in a different position, more or less outside M&S. I used to pop into M&S when I lived in Stockton—so absolutely nothing in this tale answers the question of why I never noticed a fountain with my birthday on it.

Since I left Stockton, it’s been moved again: in 2014, the Council relocated the fountain back to its original position in the High Street, completing a round trip that’s lasted more than a century. It no longer works as a drinking fountain, of course, and a great many of the original features such as the bronze lion heads that used to spout the water have long since been lost.

It’s strange to think that a monument which was so controversial in its day has become so beloved a century later as to be worthy of several expensive relocations despite becoming relatively dilapidated. I wonder if it will still be there a hundred years hence?

This is one of the 1,000 cast iron Millennium Mileposts placed along the National Cycle Network. In 2020, about a quarter of the National Cycle Network was axed, which means that many of the mileposts no longer tally up with routes, which seems a bit of a shame.

This one was designed by the Scottish sculptor Iain McColl. Like most of the mileposts, it used to be black and had a circular disk attached with a coded message. The disk is long-gone, but the remaining post got a bit of jazzy re-painting in June 2023.

When I lived in Stockton, this life-sized sculpture by Irene Brown stood outside M&S. The sculpture was removed in 2013, when the High Street was being spruced up. M&S closed in 2018.

The sculpture isn’t really my sort of thing, but it is enormously popular with Stocktonites. There was great fanfare when the refurbished sculpture was repositioned outside the library in 2016, and where I took this photo yesterday.

Just along the River Tees from the Princess of Wales Bridge, one finds the Teesquay Millennium Bridge—locally known as the ‘wobbly’ bridge. I trudged across this many times when I lived locally.

At its northern end, the bridge used to give onto the Castlegate shopping centre. The bridge was accessible to pedestrians, but not to wheelchairs, when the shopping centre was closed. This gave rise to the above unusual sign, roughly 250m away from the south end of the bridge, directing those with disabilities to use the aforementioned Princess of Wales Bridge.

These days, the Castlegate centre is no more. While the new Stockton Waterfront is under construction, the northern end of the bridge is disconcertingly dangling. Once it’s complete, the bridge will be extended to join it, and will—for the first time—be fully accessible at all times.

It was always the bit over the road that wobbled. I wonder if it will still wobble after the extension is constructed, or whether a new moniker will be needed.

Council of Europe Boulevard is a road running between Stockton-on-Tees and Thornaby. It runs over the River Tees via the Princess of Wales Bridge, still locally known as the Diana Bridge. I had always assumed the bridge was named as a posthumous tribute, but in fact, it was named in 1992 and opened by the Princess herself.

But it’s the road I want to write about today. Until the late 1980s, it was called Trafalgar Street, but as the area began to set its sights higher and wider, it was renamed to reflect the spirit of European co-operation exemplified by the Council of Europe.

Over the coming years, the acknowledgement of Europe co-operation in a road name became ever-more relevant: Teesside became a huge net beneficiary of European Union funding, with hundreds of millions of pounds spent in the area even as national Government funding for the area dwindled. Indeed, the bridges immediately up- and down-stream of the Diana Bridge—the Millennium Bridge and the Infinity Bridge—were both built with European funding.

Yet, current Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen has said:

There is hardly a more prominent, but inappropriately named road in Teesside than ‘Council of Europe Boulevard’.

I struggle to follow his logic as to why the name is inappropriate. Given that the UK remains a member of the Council of Europe, the specific choice of name remains apposite even post-Brexit. Houchen has spoken at length about the importance of protecting Teesside’s heritage, and European co-operation remains a key plank of that heritage. One can’t even make a post-rational argument that the name was inappropriately ‘bought’, given that the Council of Europe and the European Union are entirely distinct entities.

Nevertheless, Houchen would prefer the road to be renamed again, this time after Stanley Hollis, a war hero with no connection to Stockton or Thornaby.

The Mayor of Thornaby, Steve Walmsley, disagrees: he has observed that a different war hero—Edward Cooper—was born in Stockton and lived in Thornaby. Cooper might therefore be the more obvious choice, but as Walmsley has acknowledged:

We should recognise these people, but this just seems a bit silly.

It’s hard to disagree.