Today Stockton Road, running from Newport to the Mandale triangle, can be quiet. This stillness and vacuity broken momentarily by the passing of the scheduled stopping bus services between Middlesbrough and Stockton, by often speeding cars taking advantage of the long straights of the road or by trains passing by.

The Mandale end of the Wilderness Road, in the area pictured below, was surrounded by two areas of brewing industry, marked on an OS map published in 1899 as the North Riding Malthouse and Brewery, however in a larger scale map published in 1915 just one side of the road is taken up with the malthouse of the North Eastern Brewery.

The road was built between 1856 and 1857 after a bill was passed to authorise the construction of the road through “the wilderness” of reclaimed marshland. Indeed Stockton Road is often referred to as The Wilderness Road. In the 1930’s the road was improved after complaints about potholes and precarious tram lines.

A former popular road being the main and most direct route between Stockton, South Stockton (Thornaby) and Middlesbrough the road has been superseded now by the A66, with most traffic not needing to access the few businesses along The Wilderness Road.

Back before the expansion of Tees Marshalling Yard (which has changed in operation beyond recognition and the associated traction maintenance depot demolished) and the movement of the main passenger running lines there was the small community of Erimus, with its public house rows of houses and allotments, sitting around the area of the railway yard “viaduct”.

Once you’ve passed the academy, if you’re travelling from Thornaby toward Middlesbrough, the sight of Newport Bridge through the trees, the start of the terrace dwellings and the “blind school” herald the end of the wilderness road.

Then you reach the allotments, beyond that the big roundabout and Middlesbrough’s town.

Completed circa 1865 this terrace of six houses was part of George Dickenson’s plan for the seaside town. Dickenson was the winning surveyor and was employed by the Saltburn Improvement Company to draw up a plan for the town. There were design codes imposed by Dickenson for the construction of the town, these stipulated the height of buildings, and building materials used (including the distinctive Pease facing bricks), though the Saltburn Improvement Company’s design codes did not extend to the architectural design of the building.

Some of Dickenson’s plan didn’t come to fruition however. It was planned that the cross roads now formed by Station Street, Windsor Road and Albion Terrace would be “Regent Circus”, a circle of buildings of which the Queens Hotel and the post office were the only actually built.

Like me, a gull had decided to have a look around the wreck on the Bran Sands at South Gare.

This Vickers Machine Gun Pillbox is one of a number of defence structures on the breakwater at South Gare. Over the years shifting sands and coastal erosion has lead to the pillbox becoming dislodged from the original location and sliding down to the beach.

For obvious reasons during WWII this area was one which was well covered; with surviving anti aircraft gun holdfasts, a large gun emplacement toward the lighthouse, the former submarine mine depot (with its own pillbox) and a number of other pillboxes and wartime related structures. Perhaps more interestingly there is a petroleum warfare site which is now mainly hidden in the sand dunes.