In 1874 on the station approach, the rather grand-looking Queens Hotel was built. It had more than 40 bedrooms and claimed to be “the most modern hotel in Stockton” with “excellent cuisine and moderate charges”.
Ian Reeve, more usually seen reporting on Look North on the telly, was among those who noticed that it was in the background of one of pictures from Florence Jennings’ album from around the time of the First World War.
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The Queens Hotel around 1907The Queens on the left of our picture of the scouts paradeThe grassy spot where the Queens Hotel once stood with Balaclava Street in the middle. The buildings on the right can be seen on the picture of the Scouts parade. Picture: Google StreetViewThe hotel burned to the ground in 1981, sparking a long running dispute. Its owner, millionaire Ted Winter, received £600,000 from his insurance company, of which the Inland Revenue laid claim to £120,000 in capital gains tax. The taxman had Mr Winter, of Yarm, declared bankrupt, and he spent decades pursuing the companies who had advised him on the matter – his MP, Stockton South’s Tim Devlin raised his plight in the House of Commons in 1994, and the Echo last reported on his legal action in 2006.
Ted Winter in 2006 with his mass of legal correspondence related to his bankruptcy which began with the fire at the Queens Hotel in 1981Today, the triangular site of the Queens is a grassy area on Balaclava Street, although the buildings on the right that the Scouts are parading outside can still be seen.
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“WHILE still in short pants, I grew up behind the Queens Hotel,” says William Pearson. “It actually fronted onto the original Durham Road which the Victorians cut dead straight from Stockton nearly to Thorpe Thewles. As they built the road, properties on it were ruthlessly traversed, and the greatest victim was Stockton station, which was demolished and rebuilt a little further south.
“I can still recall hoicking myself up onto the footbridge over the tracks in order to see over the parapet to watch the Hush-Hush go through. It was a very short experience.”
The Hush-Hush, or LNER No 10000, was an experimental engine built with a high pressure boiler at Darlington’s North Road works in 1929.
“I can recall that we street urchins used to use the station forecourt as a place of adventure from where we would be chased by railway officials,” says William. “Fortunately there was a gap in the railing through which we could easily escape from our persecutors.”
Nolan Place with the Queens Hotel garages opening out onto it, and the shape of the hotel can be seen in the distanceThe terraces behind the Queens Hotel were named Balaclava, Inkerman, Alma and Malakoff, which were battles in the Crimean War of 1853 to 1856 fought between the British and the Russians.
Other terraces were named Cardigan and Lucan streets after the brothers-in-law who were British commanders in the war. Lord Cardigan, after whom the item of clothing is named, commanded the Light Brigade during the Battle of Balaclava while Lord Lucan was in charge of the Heavy Brigade. The two men despised each other, so it is a little ironic that their terraces lay peacefully beside each other behind the Queens Hotel.
The Queens’ garages at the rear opened out onto Nolan Place where William lived.
It was named after Captain Louis Nolan who gave the fateful order for the Light Brigade to charge into what Tennyson called “the valley of death”. Forty per cent of the brigade’s members were either killed, captured or wounded, including Nolan who died in the first minute of the assault.
“He must still have been regarded as a hero when these streets were named because later historical debate has led to him being blamed for giving the wrong order that led to the rash action,” says William.
Indeed, Nolan is today regarded as the principal villain in one of the British Army’s most infamous actions.
The houses in the terraces have been cleared, although the basic pattern of the streets can still be traced. For instance, Stockton Registry Office is in Nolan Place in a modern building that is called Nightingale House – not everything in the Crimean War was about incompetence.
Stockton station in its heyday with the Queens Hotel on the rightStockton station today. Picture: Google StreetViewREAD MORE: 12 KILLED, 100 INJURED IN AMMUNITION TRAIN EXPLOSION AT CATTERICK BRIDGE 80 YEARS AGO