GRANGETOWN IN TIMES PAST
Football Teams
St Marys School
Mick Traynor - Boer War Recruit + Others
Streets and Buildings
Grangetown People
World War One 1914 -18
Parish, Priests and Processions
Street Stories + Characters
1925 Ladies Parish Outing + More
The Twenties
A Tale from the Duckie + other stories
The Thirties
School Teams
Junior Teams
World War Two 1939 - 45
Messages from Home & Abroad
Shops and Shopkeepers
Editor's Diary
The World of Work
V.I.P.'S
The Forties
CoachTrips
Upstairs and Downstairs...
The Board School
Pochin Road Infants School
Leisure & Sports
Grangetown Boys' Club
Memorabilia
The Mission
Sir Wm Worsley School
The Fifties
Maps, Plans & Aerial Photos
St Peter's Senior School
Local Books
Salvation Army
Low Lackenby
Eston Grange
Victorian Memories
The Sixties
Eston Junction
Weddings
St Matthew's Parish
Eston Grammar School
Trolley Buses TRTB
Grangetown Methodist Church
Contact Information for Grangetown in Times Past
Links for Grangetown in Times Past
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Event Calendar
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Clean Steps and White Pinnies: Sid France 1991
 Published by Action Faction & Printed by Artform in July 1991 Sid France writes vividly about his personal memories. The poem below is his tribute to Grangetown's past.
Cheetham and Vickers, Wood Street and Holden
The memories I have of these streets are golden,
Laing and Stapylton, Bessemer, Vaughan
THIS was the Grangetown where I was born.
Old Ma Grangetown’s a hundred today
And oh, what changes she's seen,
Since the days when the best-known place in town
Was the Irishman's shebeen.
Seven hundred and sixty-eight houses were built
To house five thousand people,
But they said it was a Godless town,
With no sign yet of a steeple.
A police station too must soon be built
To keep the Irish in order,
As well as the Welsh and the English
And the Scots from over the border.
But soon there was just one division
And that was between Cat’lics an’ Prods.
A gap that I came to wonder at,
For we didn't have different Gods.
The generations passed in those narrow streets;
Came the Boers and then Kaiser Billy
And the Cat’lics an' Prods fought on the same side
Coming home to Charity’s skilly.
But always, in wartime and peacetime
Furnace flames in the heavens unfurled
And Grangetown men made good iron and steel
To send all over the world.
And while they had work they were happy;
They'd the Top '0use, th’ Bottom and Middle
And even in bad time, they still had "the lineside"
To seek out some cinders to riddle.
And then in the Forties came Hitler
And more Grangetown lads left the street
To dress up in khaki and two shades of blue.
Their numbers came back incomplete.
The town really spread out in the Twenties
To the fields in the Southern part
But the Eight Streets were still the main part of town
And Whitworth Road was its heart.
For here were the grocers and chemists,
The fish shop and Gallon's big store
But Kendra and old Percy Porter
Did as much business .... aye mebbe more!
The Trackless turned round at the Market
In front of the Grangetown Hotel
And Bill Turner's Redcar-bound hoss-drawn brake
Left from the same place as well.
At the end of the Square, the Memorial
Honoured Short, the Grangetown VC
And the tin-sheeted Paragon Pictures
Showed another new world to me.
But my old town’s now just a memory
For the Eight Street have all gone - alas.
They've built a few fancy new workshops.
But the rest of it's nearly all grass.
Yet I can still see Sergeant Devaney
And Nickly Farley, his mate.
I can still hear "Gorr any bread left?"
As the workmen were leaving the gate.
I can still remember the Market
Lit up by Murphy's Fair,
While down at the bottom of Whitworth Road
Was the open hearth’s furnaces’ glare
Now the old open hearths have gone
The "modern" electric ones too
No clattering row from a long-dead Rail-Bank,
The men in the Works are few.
Yes, my old Grangetown's dead
With the Steelworks that gave it birth,
But the new Grangetown is just the same;
Its folk-the salt o' the earth.
They may have bathrooms instead of tin-baths
And gardens instead of back yards.
Ford Capri’s and Marina’s instead of trams
And mortgages in place of rent cards
But they are still the descendants
Of the Irish, the Welsh and the Scots
Who lived out their lives in iron and steel,
Making profits for BoIckows... aye, lots!
And the good times will come back again
And a bicentenary we'll see,
Where the Grangetown lads are all in work
And of poverty we're all free.
poem - courtesy of Maureen France
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Grangetown Remembered: Vera Robinson MBE 1990
 Grangetown Remembered: Vera Robinson MBE 1990
Printed and Published by Sotheran's of Redcar in 1990, this small book was written by a former teacher at Grangetown's Board School.
Vera Robinson's historical snippets accompanied by 29 illustrations hold the reader's attention until the very last page. |
The Story of Eston: Maurice Wilson 1972
 The Story of Eston: Maurice Wilson 1972
Published by the Author and Printed by Sotheran's in 1972 this excellent book of 298 pages contains interesting anecdotes, statistics and information from local council records which are a boon to amateur historians of local history. |
South Bank and Eston in Times Past : 1987
 South Bank and Eston in Times Past: 1987
Edited by DM Tomlin & Mary Williams with contributions from Richard Pepper, Dr G Stout, David Tomlin, Jim Turner and Mary Williams, this book of 88 pages published by C Books of Redcar, has a wealth of information with fascinating articles on local landowners, the ironstone mines, shops in South Bank in the 19th C, the local hospitals and Working Class Thrift. |
Grangetown; A Pictorial History : Local History Group 2001
 Grangetown; A Pictorial History : Local History Group 2001
Published by The Grangetown Events Group, printed by Sotheran's of Redcar in 2001 and funded through 'Lottery Awards for All', this 48 page booklet was only available to residents and ex-residents of Grangetown itself. It was obtainable from the FROG offices and had a limited number of copies printed. |
Around GRANGETOWN by John M O'Neill 2004
 | Around GRANGETOWN by John M O'Neill 2004
Comprehensively reviewed by Sarah Ivison on October 29th. This book of 128 pages and over 220 images was published by Tempus in October 2004. |
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Around Grangetown Book Cover
 | Around Grangetown Book Cover
Retailing at £12.99, the book can soon be bought from W H Smiths of Redcar and the Bookshop in Stokesley near the Thai restaurant. It is presently being sold at Waterstones of Middlesbrough, Findlays Newsagents of Eston, The Holy Shop in Borough Road Middlesbrough, Redcar Tourist Information Centre, Guisborough Bookshop, Kirkleatham Museum and Grangetown FROG premises near Birchington Avenue. Asda sells it locally also and the link below takes you to The History Press which sells it online. |
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