A solitary colonnade

This lonely colonnade is all that remains of Marton Hall in Stewart Park Middlesbrough.

Once standing as the architectural centrepiece of the park, Marton Hall was an imposing building.
It was originally erected in 1853 as a palatial home for Henry Bolckow, the industrialist and the town’s first mayor.

The grand old building was in ruins and was due to be demolished by the council in 1960 when it burned to the ground in a mysterious blaze, leaving just this colonnade standing which has been preserved.

Interestingly, the mystery of the blaze was uncovered as recently as 2012. Pat Wilmot has told how her “full of mischief” late brother George Dinsdale, then just 13, was responsible. George took her aunty’s pet jackdaw into the park and it flew off into the bushes. Young George tried to smoke it out using lighted paper. The bushes, full of discarded ice cream papers, set alight and the fire burned the nearby hall down.
Ironically this saved the council the £25,000 bill for demolition.