A TREASURE from a salvage yard is going to have pride of place at Thornaby show tomorrow (Sunday Sept 1).
It is a bench support with “Bon Lea Foundry Thornaby-on-Tees” cast into its elegantly curving top.
The Bon Lea was one of several foundries that were established in the Thornaby Ironmasters District, which is now known as the Bon Lea Industrial Estate.
It was a Scottish business, started in Maryhill, Glasgow, by Thomas Allan & Son, which expanded into the Thornaby ironopolis in 1848, in its earliest days.
The Bon Lea was soon joined by ironworks whose founders’ names became well known: Ashby, Head, Wright, Whitwell…
And Crosthwaite.
Richard Wilson Crosthwaite founded his business in Falkirk in 1849 and expanded into Thornaby in 1878. His family bought Thornaby Hall and his grandson, also RW Crosthwaite, was the town’s mayor in 1899.
“Memories 692 featured long since demolished urban halls, but didn’t mention Thornaby Hall although we have photos of it in the Thornaby archives,” says David Thompson, rushing off to find them.
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In 1929, the Air Ministry purchased some of Thornaby Hall’s land from the Crosthwaites and began constructing what would become RAF Thornaby.
During the war, the hall became the officers’ mess, with other ranks being billeted in the forest of wooden huts which grew up around it.
“After the war, the hall fell into disrepair, and the Crosthwaites had a country retreat near Great Ayton,” says David. “It was demolished in the 1950s and a small development of dormer bungalows is now in its place, but several of the hall’s large trees still stand as the only reminder of a local industrial family who have now all but disappeared but whose story, along with those of their other iron and steel making pioneers, are to be found in the town hall archives.”
Part of the Thornaby Town Hall Archives display tomorrow is about the ironmasters like the Crosthwaites and it features the Bon Lea bench, which is usually in the collection of Teesside Architectural Salvage in Robert Street in Thornaby - just a few hundred yards from the Bon Lea estate where it was made.
Thornaby Show, from 10am to 4pm, is on the Harold Wilson Recreation Ground.
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