Greatham, Cleveland

My early childhood

Most of the photos here are from 1955. I was a five year old boy living in Greatham in 1955 with my dad, who was the local 'Bobby', my mam and my younger brother.  We lived at 3 Egerton Terrace which was a terraced house with an outside loo and we had a bath in a tub in the kitchen. Cerebos Salt was down the road. I remember friends at that time were Johnny Tully and Gerald Harper. I started school at the local primary in 1955 but was shuffled off to a bigger school in Billingham shortly afterwards, perhaps because I showed a spark of brightness. Anyway, there I was, a six years old, catching a bus [the number 24A I seem to recall] to Billingham and back every school day, completely unaccompanied.  Can you imagine doing that today!
I think life was much more placid and unworried in those days.  We did not have much by today's standards but we were intensely carefree and happy. I had nothing but fond memories of Greatham and so, some thirty years later, when I was visiting Newcastle on business I decided to go back to the village.   I stopped outside the house I remembered to be my old home, musing, when a lady popped her head out from the door opposite.  I reassured her I was not snooping and told her the story of our family and she declared 'Oh! The young Policemen!'. My dad is 87 next week and alive and kicking and living in Saltdean, Sussex!!  Happy days!

Philip Purdie, Haywards Heath, West Sussex.

Greenside in the 1940s

My memories are of Greatham mainly in the 1940s. My nan and grandad , Gertrude and Joseph Peacock Wilkinson, lived in the large house called Greenside opposite the Green, and now there are many houses there. My mum Joan was born in Greatham and lived there till she left to marry Walter Bowbanks from Stockton. I had many relations at Greatham, Aunty Minnie, Aunt May and Dolly, and I spent many happy hours on the green playing, down the beck, and at Seaton Carew. I remember with great fondness Uncle Ted and Aunt Phylis from the Grove, and their children, lots of wonderful memories.
From Valerie Bowbanks Horton

Cleveland Living Memories

The ancient settlement of Greatham lies halfway between Wolviston and Hartlepool. The large building on the right, at the entrance to the village, has always been known as Sappers Corner. Tommy Blumer built it for his fleet of buses, which was later taken over by the United Bus Company. He had been a sapper in the army in the First World War - hence the name. At this date it appears to be a petrol filling station, but it has had several other uses.

Cleveland Living Memories

The Smiths Arms on the right is an attractive listed building. The second building from the left, with the lancet-style windows, is the Gray Memorial Hall - a Wesleyan school dating from 1903. The tall gabled building just beyond it is the Greatham Independent Methodist church, constructed in 1883.

Cleveland Living Memories

On the left are the boundary walls of the Hospital of God at Greatham, founded in 1273 – this was not a hospital in the modern sense, but accommodation for the elderly and the poor, the earliest present buildings dating from a re-construction in 1803. On the right is the former Greatham Church School, founded in 1834, re-built in 1878, and enlarged in 1928. It now serves as the community centre.