Megalithic masons

[TisILeclerc]

The first real bridging point on the Tees was at Yarm I believe. That's as far as ships could get. Stockton, downriver has a bridge built in Victorian times. I'm not sure about others.

At Middlesbrough they built the Transporter which is a carriage suspended on cables from a high structure spanning the river. Another bridge built later further up river in the thirties was a bridge that lifted. Again to let ships through.

At Eston there have been no bridges as far as I know. It does tend to get wider there and ships were built at nearby South Bank until Thatcher shut them down.

But on the opposite bank there were salt works. The whole area is a salt marsh and Cerebos salt was produced there. So it would have been an important stretch of the river.

Up on Eston Nab there was also a Bronze Age camp as well as an iron age camp And the place was used as a beacon site in Napoleonic times. And, perhaps much earlier as well.

If you are on the top it's an easy job to walk towards Roseberry Topping or veer further east and finish up at Guisborough Priory. Home to the Bruce family.

[Mick Harper]

until Thatcher shut them down

What a bitch. And they were making so much money! Mind you the Iron Lady has been closing down shipyards in Britain since the nineteen sixties and all over Europe since the nineteen seventies so there's no call for Teesiders to start burning her in effigy. It wasn't personal. Good spot, the Bruces.

[TisILeclerc]

Here's an interesting site of the Brus lot put together by schoolkids.

http://www.debrustrail.org.uk/





De Brus Cenotaph.

This is a Renaissance gem possibly given as a gesture of reconciliation after the Battle of Flodden by Queen Margaret of Scotland, who was the sister of King Henry VIII of England, and wife of King James IV of Scotland - "The marriage of the Thistle and the Rose". It was originally located in the priory.

It would have originally been brightly coloured. On one side, are carved the knights of the Skelton/English de Brus family, originally in silver and blue and on the other side are the knights of the Annandale/Scottish Bruce family originally in red and gold. The Tudor rose would have been red and white; the Priory seal being decorated with a silver moon and golden sun. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the de Brus memorial (or Cenotaph) was taken into the church for safe keeping, but in the 18th century it was dismantled to be used in mock architectural ruins only to be re-assembled again at the beginning of the 20th century.

They were everywhere on both sides of the river before making a takeover bid for Scotland. Very enterprising chappies.

And here is the rusty lady and her works. Or lack of them.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22124996

That was Head Wrightson on the Stockton side of the river. It's now full of call centres and other dodgy dealers as well as students paying for edukashion.

Smiths Dock had several ships on the order books from Cuba. They had already bought some and specified Smiths Dock as the maker. Thatcher told them they could have them built dahn sarf. They went to Germany instead.



http://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/nosta ... d-12945705

The late Steve Race wrote in the Listener magazine a long time ago how she had told an academic who had been on a programme with her that regarding the working class she would 'sluice them away' if she ever got to power.

They were in a chauffeur driven car belonging to the BBC. When they got out of the car to go to the festive meal and drinks awaiting them Steve put his arms around her shoulders and said 'Surely you couldn't have meant what you said about the working class Margaret?' She looked daggers at him and then gasped. 'My god, the chauffeur.'

She had forgotten the old adage 'not in front of the servants'.

Still I had twenty years out of work where I discovered the joys of idleness. So it wasn't all wasted.

I wonder what the Brus lot would have made of this corner shop keeper's daughter?

[Mick Harper]

That's the worst map ever drawn. A shame because much British history is to be found in it. The key to understanding England and Scotland is to work out how the 'Norman' families organised things. Compare the Balliols for instance. I am presently investigating and argy-bargying with the academics about David I, the Book of Deer and the Cistercians so anything on that would be welcome.

I don't believe a word of the Smiths Ships story or the Race/Thatcher/chauffeur threesome. I'd call them urban myths except it looks from your photo that there is no urbs left. But I know it's important to you people to believe these things (it lets you all off the hook) so I shan't castigate you unnecessarily.

[TisILeclerc]

Well, Steve Race was a very reliable and steady commentator and if he was prepared to put it into print it can hardly be called an urban myth. Rather his version of an overheard conversation.

And it came true as well.



http://www.pickeringsofyorkshire.com/origins

Following a link from the schoolkids' site here is another map.

I think their map is done 'in the style of' their subject. As it is it is quite accurate. And you can see the relationship between Whitby the area in question and points north quite clearly.

There are plenty of maps or even google if the interested connoiseur would avail himself of their services.

[Mick Harper]

Margaret Thatcher (thinks): I am sitting with a well-known TV broadcaster and journalist, I'd better blurt out something that will cost me a million votes.

[TisILeclerc]

Smith's Dock was closed down. It is very well documented in the records of the time. There was a very big campaign to keep it open but she wanted to close it.

All industry was shut down. The docks were shut down. Furness's shipyard went. All the engineering works. You know the sort of thing, the ones that built the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and other such things.

As with Henry VIII the north was being shut down in favour of London. And didn't London do well.

[Mick Harper]

I'm sure there was. There always is. It often works to some degree. If you can give me a reason why Mrs T 'wanted to close it' I will believe your version of events.

[Boreades]

I don't believe a word of the Smiths Ships story or the Race/Thatcher/chauffeur threesome. I'd call them urban myths.

I appreciate why you have to call them "urban myths", as you are ignorant about their provenance. Fortunately, some of us mix in strange circles where both scruffy low-lifes and high-caste elites mix and interact, and do have direct access to the original material.

For example, one of my old muccas, Professor Peter Checkland, studied Chemical Engineering at the same place and time as Margaret Roberts. He described her to me (c.1986) as "invincibly narrow-minded". They had both applied for jobs at ICI; he got the job, she didn't. "Headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated" was the ICI opinion.

Some would say "visionary, courageous and indominatible". Some might say it all depends which side of the philosophical/political fence one is on?

[Mick Harper]

I'm sure you're right, Borrie, but we're dealing with the closing of Smith's Dock and a comversation in a car a little later than the events you report. Chronology is always important in history.