TO Saltburn, the other weekend, to see the Charleston danced in the old Primitive Methodist church; to walk out along the newly re-opened pier into what its sponsors in 1869 were pleased to call the German Ocean ...

... to hear a swinging version of Pennies from Heaven played at the Ha'penny Bridge bandstand; to comment that its rivals for Britain in Bloom honours will have to go some if they are to out-blosson this resurgent Victorian resort ...

... to marvel that a seafront close to one of Britain's major centres of population could enter the 21st century so unspoiled; to note that Teddy's Nook, an alleged 1880s' love nest of the Prince of Wales and Lily Langtry, is having a major facelift ...

... to worry that the sorry state of the network of paths and steps which go down to the beach from the upper promenade, good though that is for the prosperity of the antique vertical tramway, may be an expensive repair too far for the district council; to wonder whether there has yet been invented a machine that could cope with the dauntingly overgrown tangle on the steep cliffside ...

... and to recall that, driving through industrial Teesside en route to this charming seaside, we had seen - here on the rusting side of an old steel mill, there on a sign announcing a modern trading estate - names of other Victorian entrepreneurs to rank with Sir Henry Pease, the man who more than anyone was responsible for the enlightened development of the once-tiny fishing village of Saltburn.

The Dormans, the Bolckows and other ironmasters were, with the Peases, the men who turned "Port Darlington" - itself non-existent much before the 1830s when it was still little more than a railhead for the onward shipment of coal from the pits of south-west Durham - into prosperous, densely-populated Middlesbrough.

From Mr Eric Bailey, a stalwart of Nunthorpe parish church, I have received a reminder of how closely involved succeeding generations of the ironmasters continued to be in local life. He was prompted by my piece about J J Burton, the man whose ironstone mine near Great Ayton collapsed in 1914 and so gave the summit of Roseberry Topping its distinctive profile, to send a copy of a letter Burton wrote to a Dorman in 1924.

Then, as now, Nunthorpe was the attractive place where people spent on fine houses the money they made in grubbier parts of Middlesbrough. Burton was chairman and Charles Dorman, eldest son of Sir Arthur Dorman, secretary of the fund set up in 1914 to build a new church in the village. The old chapel, next to Nunthorpe Hall, could seat only 50 and was too small for the needs of the increasing population in the new estates around Nunthorpe station.

Burton, then aged 72, wrote in 1924 from Rosecroft, his home in several acres of fine gardens, to his friend's office at the Dorman Long ironworks. that "in connection with the lightning (sic)," the architect for the new church had proposed oil lamps at a cost of £25. But, he went on, "I take it, now that the electric cables have been brought close," that there would be "electric lightning" instead.

"If we do this it will save money in the end if we arrange for the cable to be laid in the church before the surface concrete of the floor is put down ... Do you think it necessary to call a meeting of the committee, or will you take it upon yourself, along with me, to say that we will light the church electrically?"

I think we can assume that no Dorman worthy of the name would refuse a challenge to take something upon himself. Mr Bailey has fun with the mis-spelt word in the letter: it will have been the typist's error, he says, but might not Burton have been both pious and sharp enough to have had "lighten our darkness" in mind when he dictated the letter. The church was consecrated in July 1926 and a new C of E parish created by taking territory from three adjoining parishes.

VALENTINE Dixon was another name that caught Mr Bailey's name in reading that earlier article, which also mentioned the building in 1827 of the Captain Cook memorial high on Easby Moor outside Great Ayton.

Dixon, a stonemason from Stokesley, built the memorial but was ruined when the job went badly wrong, one suggestion being that he had to rebuild after the monument quickly blew down.

Nunthorpe church records include the £50 bill that Dixon and another Stokesley mason, Thomas Fawcett, submitted for their stonelaying when an earlier chapel in the village was rebuilt in 1823. If Dixon had been the victim of a fixed-price contract when he built the Cook memorial, he had learned his lesson when he estimated for the chapel, because his contract for that provided for the possibility of "extras".

His breakdown of the bill included 7s (35p) per rood to build most of the walls of "old stone 22-inch thick" and the west-end wall of "new stone 24-inch thick" at 18s (90p) per rood. Thomas Simpson, the chapel warden in 1813 who recommended acceptance of the estimate, will doubtless have been influenced by an item at "£0 0s 0d" - the partners' non-charge for demolition of the old chapel. Buttresses were £1 2s 6d (£1.12) and a belfry £2 10s (£2.50).

FLATTERY buys almost unlimited access to the Past Lives column. Mr Bailey says he was also much taken by the one about Fred May, the distinguished caricaturist who began his career on the North-Eastern Daily Gazette at Middlesbrough; especially he noted May's drawing of Lt Col T Gibson-Poole ... and thereby hangs a tale.

Poole hospital, which gave sterling service to the region until comparatively recently, was named after the old soldier - and for good reason. When Sir Arthur Dorman died in 1931, his mansion across the fields from pretty Stainton village, Grey Towers, was immediately bought by the colonel and presented to Middlesbrough for use as a TB sanatorium. Its conversion was carried out in time for Mrs Poole to declare it open in June 1932.

Darlington, Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland and West Hartlepool were all involved with Middlesbrough in "The Poole Joint Sanatorium Committee" which started to plan a purpose-built replacement for Grey Towers. Foundation stones were laid in October 1938 by Mrs Poole and Ald J Cohen and, after only short closure of the original sanatorium, the new hospital received its first patients in May 1942. Grey Towers itself became the offices.

Alas, says Mr Bailey, Grey Towers is now sadly dilapidated on a site empty of everything else except "grass and memories" since the bulldozing of Poole hospital. The area is, of course, no longer countryside: I remember in the 1960s writing about the campaign, organised like a military operation by another retired colonel, to prevent the building of hundreds of new homes just up the road from Stainton and his ivy-covered retreat. He lost the battle of Hemlington.

It moves me to realise that, just as with hospices today, 60 or 70 years ago a TB or "chest" hospital was the community effort no self-respecting town would be without. Most of those who now live on the largely very pleasant housing estates of Hemlington probably do not know of the act of generosity represented by the derelict site where they walk their dogs