CLEVELAND BRIDGE, the Darlington company of engineers that is so famous that it featured in a University Challenge question a fortnight ago, was formed in 1877 on a strawberry field.
And now, following the company’s sad liquidation in 2021, a little piece of it has quietly gone on display on the edge of the strawberry field.
READ MORE: WHY THIS DARLINGTON ROUNDABOUT WAS ON UNIVERSITY CHALLENGE
The company was formed by men from the Skerne Ironworks of Albert Hill, which in its short life built several railway bridges in India, went bust in the severe recession of the 1870s. Some of its former workers set up in business on their own on the strawberry field in Smithfield Road belonging to the extensive estate of Polam Hall.
In their first year, they made a paltry profit of £1 5s 9d but, in 1883, despite being in liquidation for the first time, they won their first overseas order: to build a bridge in New South Wales. This turned the company around, and it went on to build bridges around the world, moving in the 1980s from its Victorian factory on Smithfield and Neasham roads to Yarm Road.
The demolition of Cleveland Bridge on Neasham Road in 1986
There, in 1997, it built the Tsing Ma Bridge for Hong Kong which, as Jeremy Paxman said when he quizzed students from Aberdeen about it, was the second longest bridge in the world and it included the world’s longest rail bridge.
The model of the Tsing Ma Bridge at the centre of Darlington's entry in the 1998 Chelsea Flower Show
So famous was it in the late 1990s that, as we told last week, when Darlington was invited to enter the 1998 Chelsea Flower Show, apprentices from Cleveland Bridge knocked up a 15ft model of the Tsing Ma as the centrepiece of the Darlington garden.
The garden was a success, winning a rose bowl, which is today in the mayor’s parlour.
“Hundreds of visitors had their photographs taken with, or standing on, the bridge, especially a lot of Chinese visitors and even a Tina Turner lookalike,” says Alan Ellwood, who was the Cleveland Bridge training manager at the time.
After the show, the bridge returned to Darlington, was painted bright blue, and was placed on the inner ring road’s Freeman’s Place roundabout next to Halford’s.
The Freeman's Place roundabout with the model of the Tsing Ma Bridge on it. Picture: Google StreetView
“A month later, we received the news that Prince Philip would be visiting Cleveland Bridge and we were specifically asked if it would be possible for him to have a photograph taken with the model bridge,” says Alan.
However, security advisors decided shutting off the ring road traffic just for a selfie for the duke was not advisable.
“The most sensible solution was to make a second model bridge in just one week,” says Alan, “which was not a problem for some of the finest apprentices in the North East!
Prince Philip talks to apprentices at Cleveland Bridge in 1998 - a second model of the Tsing Ma Bridge was made for this visit
“When he arrived a week later, His Royal Highness was pleased to see the model of the bridge and the associated rail tunnels and ground works which surround the real bridge in Hong Kong, and he spent a long time speaking to myself, my staff and our apprentices.”
This second model was then presented to Darlington’s twin town of Amiens – it would be fascinating to know what they did with it.
The first model remained on its roundabout until 2016 when the age of austerity bit and it was deemed too expensive to look after a roundabout full of Chelsea Flower Show exhibits when a sprinkling of coloured stone was much cheaper.
The model was returned to Cleveland Bridge, painted red, and placed proudly outside the Yarm Road entrance (above).
Following liquidation in 2021, the model was placed outside the Cleveland Bridge Social Club in Neasham Road, which is on the very edge of what was the strawberry field where the story started 146 years ago.
The first model of the Tsing Ma Bridge outside the Cleveland Bridge Social Club in Neasham Road. Picture: Alan Ellwood
“Just as a matter of interest,” adds Alan, “in 1999, the following year, we made a life size model of a Chelsea pensioner for Darlington's second entry into Chelsea flower show, which won a silver medal.
“Now 23 years later, it still sits outside the guard house of Chelsea Royal Hospital, which is home to the Chelsea pensioners!”
The last load leaves Cleveland Bridge's Yarm Road factory in 2021, going past the model of the Tsing Ma Bridge on the left
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