Echo Memories explores the history of one of the outstanding curios of the Tees Valley – Middlesbrough Dock clock

IT looks like an alien rocketship which has just touched down from outer space. Its little green men have clambered out for a peek at the natives, but they've left their rocket poised for blastoff, its sharp nose pointing straight at the skies out of which it has come.

Since the Eighties, Middlesbrough Dock clock has looked like an alien invader in the post-industrial wasteland of Middlehaven, near Middlesbrough FC's Riverside stadium.

When 150 years of dock paraphernalia was cleared, it was left all alone - quite literally outstanding.

It is, though, alone no more, because all around are growing 15 futuristic buildings. Its nearest neighbour is now a rounded, glassed, yellow-flecked college - "unlovely and garish", according to one Memories reader this week.

He was responding to the snippet in brackets here a fortnight ago which mentioned the Middlesbrough Dock clock.

The first clock tower, you may recall, was built by architect John Middleton in 1847, although Middlesbrough began shipping coal in 1830 - only it wasn't called Middlesbrough then.

On December 27, 1830, the locomotive Globe - just built by Timothy Hackworth - brought coal from south Durham down the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

Only Globe didn't stop at Stockton. The railway pioneers had decided that Stockton was too far from the sea to be any use and, controversially, abandoned it.

Globe continued east, crossing the Tees on the world's first railway suspension bridge - a bridge which even on opening day was already cracking up - and on to the new staiths on the banks of the river.

Coal was dropped into a waiting vessel called Sunniside and then 600 people sat down on the staiths for a celebratory buffet (they must have been a hardy lot because the sea wind would have whistled across the empty plains that December day) and speeches.

One of the speeches was by Joseph Pease who officially named the staiths "Port Darlington" - which must have annoyed the bypassed Stocktonians.

But Port Darlington soon proved to be too exposed to the weather and the tide.

Boats waiting to be filled bashed into one another as the sea swelled and the river rose.

In 1838, the railway pioneers started work on a proper dock protected from the tide by a lock.

At a cost of £122,558 (about £6m), it opened on May 12, 1842, the Peace from Whitby being the first vessel allowed in.

In 1847, Middleton built his clocktower. It was a landmark for approaching ships and just beneath the clockfaces there was a little balcony for a look-out.

Although the tower had four sides, there were only three clockfaces. The clock was paid for by public subscription.

Either an ironworks or a shipyard refused to contribute because it didn't want its workers clockwatching.

The trouble with Middlesbrough Dock was that it was never big enough.

Technology bounded ahead.

Ships ballooned. The docks had to be rebuilt.

During one of the rebuilds - some sources say during the 1870s, others say as late as 1903 - Middleton's tower was toppled.

Its replacement doubled as a clocktower and a watertower to provide the hydraulic power to operate the dock gates and cranes.

This dual use created its stand-out shape: a bulky bottom to house the water, and a slender top for the clock.

The last ship to use the dock was the Evpo Wave which, on July 24, 1980, unloaded 5,000 tons of bauxite. Then the area was cleared, leaving the clocktower outstanding.

The tower was restored in 2005 as part of the Middlehaven development.

Although that development means it is losing its isolation as the award winning futuristic buildings grow around it, the contrast in styles means that it remains an outstanding curio: an alien invader from a different era.