PLAQUES commemorating Redcar's claims to fame have been unveiled across the town.

They range from the world's oldest lifeboat to the first aged persons bungalows built in England.

The inspiration came from Redcar's historian, Vera Robinson MBE, now 95, who officially unveiled the first of the plaques at the Zetland Lifeboat Museum on the Esplanade with Redcar and Cleveland Council's Mayor Councillor Brian Briggs.

She said: "It has taken over two years to bring this idea to fulfilment and it has been well worthwhile.

"My aim has been to enhance Redcar's image, and to bring the attention of residents and visitors to a part of Redcar's history which is often overlooked. In due course a guided tour will be available to tell the story of each plaque."

She has worked with Redcar and Cleveland Council to devise the twin themes of People and the Seaside, telling eight individual stories now featured on the blue plaques.

The roll of honour includes: Samuel Plimsoll, the man who invented the Plimsoll Line on the side of ships, showing the limit of legal submersion; Dormans Crescent in Dormanstown was the first local authority aged persons cottages in England; Redcar's two lost Victorian Pleasure Piers, destroyed by storms and shipwrecks; Redcar's first Railway Station, now Craigton House in Queen Street; The New Inn, Coatham's very first hotel at 149 High Street West; Sir William Turner's Grammar School stood on the site of Redcar Library.