MUCH is being planned in Saltburn this year to commemorate its 150th anniversary. Most of it, I imagine, will be around August 17, when the first train pulled into the new station.

It is much warmer in Saltburn in August than it is in January, but on January 23, 1861, an event took place that was every bit as important as the arrival of the first train. Henry Pease, of Darlington, laid the foundation stone of Alpha Place: the first buildings to go up.

Alpha Place was demolished in 1908, but I believe Henry's foundation stone has been re-used in flats on Marine Parade (I'll have to get a photo before this goes for publication).

Saltburn is a very special place, a real favourite, and I feel quite fortunate that the anniversary gives me an opportunity to write about it. As a first installment, below is an article I have just looked out from the Darlington and Stockton Times of January 23, 1861, reporting on Henry's stone laying and the town's birth. It is a single paragraph, but very long.

If anyone can explain why Mr Pease has to pay for his 'footing', I'd be grateful. Also the engine in the picture appears to be No 1240 - does anyone have any info on that?

SALTBURN

Saltburn at no very remote period will doubtless be a fashionable watering place. Perhaps we should be charged with stretching were we to express our conviction that some day or other it will be little inferior to Scarborough. Should our anticipations never be realised, we shall blame the want of speculation. We would advise any one who laughs at our large idea to make a practical survey of the coast line north-eastward from Huntcliffe point, and if he fails to notice the majesty of the immense cliffs, or the beauty of the woodland scenery on either bank of the gills, or the excellence of the sands firm and level, long and broad; or the variety of climate, in the glens mild and warm, or the table-land cold and bracing if he fails to perceive these and a hundred other natural advantages, then we shall say hes blind – blind as a bat. But we shall refer to the subject more fully some other time. Our only object in introducing it now is merely to chronicle an event, small in itself, but pregnant with great results, which took place on Wednesday last the laying of a foundation stone, by H. Pease Esq MP. The railway extension from Redcar to Saltburn, for the construction of which Parliamentary powers were obtained in the Session of 1858, is rapidly progressing, and the permanent way will soon be complete. A few houses – about half a dozen – are being built at the terminus, within a score yards of where the station will be erected, they are the first buildings commenced to be erected. Mr Pease not despising the day of small things, went down on Wednesday afternoon to lay the foundation stone of these houses in reality, but of a large busy place in imagination. There were not more than a dozen persons present, including our reporter and the bricklayers and bricklayers "paddies". Mr John Ross (Richardson and Ross, builders, of this town) attended to witness the ceremony, so did Mr Peachey, of the engineer's department of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Besides these there were Mr Chapman of Middlesbrough, and Mr Pearson, of Coatham, builders, and a young man with whose name or calling we were unacquainted. After spreading the mortar which Mr Pease did in a real workmanlike manner – none of your silver-trowel style – he lowered the stone, from eight to ten stones in weight, by his own muscular strength, without any mechanical assistance in the shape of rope and pulley. The work of adjusting the stone with plumb-line or square was not performed – perhaps it was overlooked. Mr Pease merely remarked after the ceremony that this was only the commencement of what would probably hereafter be the resort of those persons who were in the happy position that they could spend the summer months at the sea-side, to inhale the sea-air or enjoy themselves in rational amusements. Although the beginning was only on a moderate scale, he had little doubt but that some who were present, who were younger than himself, would live to see things on a much larger scale. He did not come there to make a long speech, but just to evince by his presence his belief that the peculiar attractions of the place would ensure its future prosperity. Three cheers were raised in order to dispel the tameness of the proceedings, which terminated by Mr Pease paying his footing.