East Cleveland Image Archive

This line drawing of the Calcining Kilns and materials hoist at Lingdale mine gives a true impression of their size. Eric Johnson informs the Archive: ”This drawing of the calcining kilns and materials hoist, shows the three kilns which were originally on the island of RAASAY in the Inner Hebrides; dismantled in about 1943, each part carefully numbered and loaded into ships. One local man John MacLeod was killed in the hold when the sling broke. The kilns were taken to Lingdale and re-erected shortly afterwards.” Image courtesy of Joan Webster and thanks to Eric Johnson for the update.

A lovely clear photograph of Claphow Road with Stone catching bridge demolished in the 1950’s; but when in the 1950’s ? Any advice is welcome.

George Searle tells us: “I remember my sister Enid and I walking under this and one of the buckets over tipped spilling its load onto the road just in front of us. After that each time we walked down the road we made sure that no full buckets were crossing overhead.”

Alan Etherington advises: “I recall standing just about where the photographer was standing waiting for a bus to Gerrick. Later in life, 1961, I worked on a building site on Lakes Estate, Redcar, when I was straight out of school and one Horace Marson was said to have bought the vast spoil heap and was using it to fill in the footings of the houses being built. So the bridge would have gone by then.”

Thanks to George Searle and Alan Etherington for the updates.

A good image of the engine house at Lingdale mine.  The brick-kiln (and associated brick wheel) was part of an attempt to make the mine profitable (especially during slack times).  It wasn’t particularly successful, but probably contributed enough to prevent total closure of the mine.  Lingdale mine was the deepest mine in the Cleveland system and also at the poorest yield, there being a large band of shale splitting the seam in two.  This resulted in the huge shale heap which took forever to dispose of!  Lingdale village was described as almost derelict in the late Victorian era, the difficulty of winning the stone meaning that the mine was closed more often than in production. Paul Stonehouse tells us: My Granddad worked in quite a few or the East Cleveland Ironstone mines for most of his working life from a young boy to retirement. His name was Douglas Stonehouse and he lived as a young man in Lingdale and then later in Brotton. I know from stories he told me as a young lad that he was an ‘overman’ at one of the mines and I seem to think it was Kiltonthorpe but I can’t be sure. Any information or web sites etc would be greatly appreciated.” Peter Appleton comments: “I am not sure that the statement about Lingdale being the deepest mine is true. Peter Tuffs, in his “Catalogue of Cleveland Ironstone Mines” (pub. April 1999) gives the following depths for shafts: Lingdale 628 feet; North Skelton 740 feet 6 inches.
I accept that these are only the shaft depths. It is possible that the dip slope of the seams could have taken Lingdale’s workings to a greater depth than North Skelton’s. However, North Skelton had a sizeable head start on the depth – over 100 feet.
The matter could be settled if records of depths within the workings have survived for both mines. Anyone know the answer to that?”

Image courtesy of Maurice Grayson, tany thanks to Paul Stonehouse for that update and query; also to Peter Appleton for the hard facts.