Mandale Bridge – Updated

/ James
Mandale Bridge, Thornaby
(15/11/2020)

Near to the course of the old River Tees (negated by Mandale Cut) is this bit of stonework, on one side of Acklam Road only. This is Mandale Bridge, Mandale Beck passing under in order to join with the Tees.

Mandale Bridge, Thornaby
(15/11/2020)

The area indeed is to be found on OS mapping labelled as Mandale Bridge, with also Mandale Mill (a corn mill according to some maps) occupying the area where a white building can be seen in the background (currently a golf club building).

Benchmark, Mandale Bridge, Thornaby

Another Ordnance Survey link here is the benchmark which appears on the bridge, seen also on the map…

Reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland, under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC-SA) licence.

Back in the 1800’s the road here was the main road between Stockton and Guisborough. As seen in the following indictment from Quarter Sessions in the 1800’s.

From the North Yorkshire County Records Office (NYCRO) collection QSB 1816 2/6/14 reproduced here thanks to and with permission from NYCRO.

The indictment states that Mandale Bridge was somewhat neglected by those in the township of Thornaby, and had fallen into a ruinous state. Submitted in October 1811 it was then discharged upon the certificate of Thomas Hustler and who I assume to be the Right Worshipful Charles Baillie, Clerk and Archdeacon of Cleveland, in 1816.

8 thoughts on “Mandale Bridge – Updated”

  1. Use to pass under it as a kid.across the road were the old folks home is now was the white house.. had a big orchard we use to raid it now & again.

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    • Thanks for sharing your memory of this bridge Harry! Things like this add another dimension to what I’m trying to do with this site and I’m really enjoying the stories which are being told!

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    • I remember getting caught raiding the orchard as a young lad! The beck used to run under the bridge until it was culverted in the late 50’s early 60’s!

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  2. When they put the pipe in to take the Beck and to make the surrounding land drier we(our gang)got down one of the shafts opposite Redcar road when the workmen finished for the day, with our torches and came out at the bottom of the Bridge entry
    Talk about the fantastic five

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