Chapter 6 - Autopsy | Haverton Hill

The Furness Shipbuilding Yard with H.M. Wrangell and the London Pride docked in the basin, Billingham, taken 1950. High Clarence houses are clearly visible as is the Bendy Recreation Ground which points to a few old Haverton Hill house rows. The industrial desolation of the areas surrounding the houses is significant.

Chapter 6 Autopsy

My own ancestors on my mother’s side lived in Haverton Hill and this had some effect on my initial decision to study the village rather than other areas of Middlesbrough. Like many others they came for work from a rural parish (Brawby near Malton in North Yorkshire) and included:

George (a joiner and pattern maker in Haverton, and former wheelwright in Brawby) and Anne Thackeray, who arrived in Haverton Hill in 1861. They lived at 17 Clarence Street and later 1 Oak Street. Their daughter Ruth lived at 23 and then 37 Clarence Street before marrying George Moore and moving south of the river to St Hilda’s parish in Middlesbrough.

Haverton Hill parish has a dispersed pattern of primary sources and a surprisingly low level of secondary resources. My search information was deliberately limited to the Middlesbrough Reference Library and the Cleveland County Archives. This was to focus my study on what could be gleaned from the two main institutions. The town of Middlesbrough has much literature, but the area North of the River Tees has been neglected in this area as in much everything else and this was another of the reasons, I chose to study this community in such detail.

With all of the sources available the local historian must strive to relate at all times to the wider background of the community as a whole. Industry for instance, consists of not only the production of goods, but of the people who work there. These people had real challenges, they may suffer at work in dangerous conditions, or from low wages, or redundancy. Industry cannot be studied in isolation but must show how it inter-relates with education, religion, social lives and death within the community. I tried to keep this human experience at the core of the study.

Visiting the parish in person proved invaluable. The isolated location north of the River Tees means that not many people would ever visit the area, unless they knew someone in Clarence or worked there. I found this to be an advantage as I had no preconceived ideas of what I would find there.

The site of Haverton Hill in 1991 still contained a few buildings and the old road pattern was clear. It was enough to fire my imagination to recreate the history of this lost community and allowed me to relate the information I found to the site in question. Those researching rural parishes or areas where redevelopment has not yet occurred have the advantage of being able to see what the settlement looked like in the past. Whatever the existing state of the parish, it is unrealistic to expect to be able to write an accurate history without having tramped across the parish absorbing its unique atmosphere.

Since 1991 when this dissertation was completed Clarence community farm was opened reviving memories of the old Haverton Hill farmhouse. It had a 6 acre site and were set up for a cost of £120,000. The farm had an adventure playground and contained rare breeds of cattle, sheep, pigs and goats. Two donkeys and some ducks, chickens and geese make up the complement. The farm though now closed proved very popular with 11,000 visitors in the first 4 months.

A £250,000 refurbishment of the Clarence Enterprise Centre and the local school and environment took place with the support of residents. Other work from the early 90s included clearing the railway embankment area along the Port Clarence Road and new footpaths, fences and flowers appeared. £4million was spent on refurbishing 333 homes making the future of Port Clarence as a continuing residential area looking better than for a long time.

In 1995 the Bellasis Hall Technology Park opened with more than 30 tenants at the BizHub, these range from start-up businesses from the local area to regional, national and international organisations.

A more environmentally friendly approach to the area is encompassed by the Saltholme nature reserve opened by the RSPB in 2009. The £8m development involved creating and improving ponds and other habitats to provide perfect conditions for a wide variety of wildlife. A ‘green’ visitor centre, and a network of access routes and viewing platforms for people to visit were constructed. The Land Trust acquired reclaimed land at Port Clarence in 2016 to further develop natural diversity.

In 2017 Clarence had the cheapest house for sale in Britain in Limetrees Close “this house on Britain's cheapest street is available for just £5,000”.

The house was:

“situated in the deprived community of Port Clarence, close to the River Tees and the Tees Transporter Bridge. The area suffers from a very high crime rate, and high unemployment rate, and has seen its fair share of arson, fly-tipping and anti-social behaviour. It is also isolated from nearby towns with poor transport links to nearby Middlesbrough and Stockton”. 1.

House prices in Middlesbrough are still amongst the lowest in the UK.

Pollution problems have continued from time to time and coatings of dust around the Port Clarence Primary school have been a continuous nuisance over the years 2. The area is still being developed to this day and not without more controversies coming up. A proposal to create a green, hydrogen production facility and wind turbine in the former ship building yard has led to worries about air passenger safety and spoiling the views to the Transporter Bridge. 3.

Project Tees Valley Net Zero has the aim of becoming the world’s first Net Zero industrial cluster by 2040 with Haverton Hill being part of it. The future benefits should include the availability of green jobs, skills development and supply chain benefits in the area. 4.

Haverton Hill turned from farmland and countryside into a once thriving industrial community which eventually suffered major depopulation since the 1960s as a result mainly of pollution. The firms which caused this are largely closed down and demolished. Today, a light industrial estate occupies the site of Haverton Hill surrounded by nature reserves. Firm types in the district include marine fabricators, recycling, incineration and energy conservation, chemical processing and in a connection to the original glass works at Haverton Hill, Shotblast Glass production. The community at Port Clarence still continues after all this time.

Footnotes

3. Teesside Live, Wind turbine plan sparks concerns about aircraft safety and views of Transporter Bridge, 7 Jan 2023, https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/wind-turbine-plan-sparks-concerns-25913545

4. East Coast Cluster, 2023, https://eastcoastcluster.co.uk/

Other sites by the author: https://kstreete.wixsite.com/brambles-farm and https://kstreete3.wixsite.com/my-site/

Port Clarence redevelopment 1991. Old and gutted houses face new and rebuilt homes