Old picture postcards

More from Ellis Stubbs' postcard album:

Guisborough Priory and Lily Pond

Old Ormesby

Roseberry Topping

Trafalgar Terrace,Coatham

Loch Katrine

High Row, Reeth

Sandsend

(Sorry about the sloppy photography - I was watching the Tour de France in the Dales at the time!)

Hutton Rudby between the Wars: in newspaper cuttings

These notes were taken years ago, from a scrapbook that somebody lent me.  I think, as is often the way with newspaper clippings, they were mostly undated (I don’t like to think that I didn’t copy out the dates!) but I think they are interesting all the same …and I have been able to date most of them ...

The funeral took place at Hutton Rudby yesterday of Mr John Barnabas Smith, one of the best-known residents of the parish, and the proprietor of one of the oldest businesses on Teesside.  Mr Smith, who was 73 years of age, had all his life enjoyed excellent health, and as recently as Saturday he spent his leisure hours digging in his garden.  On Tuesday morning he got up at his accustomed time, and after breakfast set off, as was his wont, to walk to Potto Station.  So regular had he been in his habits that many residents of Hutton Rudby have set their clocks by him as he passed to the station in the morning when on his way to business.
Shortly after passing the Village Hall in course of erection in Lodge-lane [it was built in 1927], Mr Smith was seen to fall to the ground.  He was taken into Mr McKinney’s house, and Dr Proctor was called to him …

[Sister: Mrs Scaife.  Niece: Miss Finlayson.  J B Smith worked for Joshua Byers & Co, timber merchants of Stockton, which was taken over by Mr John Wilson Watson, and J B Smith finally became proprietor of the business.  He never married and in the 1911 Census was living at Jubilee Cottage on North Side, near to the (Wesleyan) Methodist Chapel]

Joseph Mellanby Mease

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January 1928
Mr Joseph Mellanby Mease, of Leven Valley House, the oldest inhabitant of Hutton Rudby and the oldest reader of the Northern Echo, has died at the age of 100 …

[He attributed his great age to an open-air life, plenty of sleep and always having been abstemious.  Never smoked until he was over 80, and after that had a cigarette after supper every night.  In early days was chief clerk at the chemical works in Jarrow owned by a member of the Mease family.  Came to Hutton Rudby in 1858 as manager of a corn mill, on the site of which the police constable’s house now stands.  Three years later he lost his arm when his sleeve was caught in the machinery.  When the Northern Echo had its jubilee in 1920 he was one of the 3 or 4 people who proved they had taken the paper from its first number, and he was presented with a silver teapot]

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Hutton Rudby Bridge
Reporting to the Highways Committee of the North Riding County Council with regard to the Hutton Rudby bridge, the County Surveyor states:-

The property on the south side of the river which obscures the view at the foot of Hutton Rudby bank is offered for sale at £1,750.  The property consists of a mill and 4 occupied cottages.  If the property were pulled down a good improvement would be effected.  The cost of clearing the site and making good would probably be covered by the value of the scrap material from the buildings.  The property adjoins the Bridge road which is maintained by the County Council.  The continuation of the Bridge road in either direction is a district road between Stokesley and East Rounton.
[The Mill and cottages were demolished in the 1930s to widen the road, which was dangerously narrow at that point]

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