Gunnergate Hall was a mansion house with grounds in the south of

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by national parks, including most of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. It is one of four cou ...

, England.

History

Gunnergate Hall was built in 1857 for Charles Albert Leatham, a wealthy

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

banker. Albert Leatham died in 1858 and in 1860 his widow sold Gunnergate Hall to

ironmaster An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain. The ironmaster was usually a larg ...

John Vaughan who used it as his residence. John Vaughan died in 1868 and his second son Thomas Vaughan inherited the hall and lived there. Thomas Vaughan spent extensively improving the hall, however his business failed and the hall was sold in 1881 to Carl Bolckow, nephew of

Henry Bolckow Henry William Ferdinand Bolckow, originally Heinrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Bölckow, (8 December 1806 – 18 June 1878) was a Victorian industrialist and Member of Parliament, acknowledged as being one of the founders of modern Middlesbrough. In a ...

. Carl Bolckow sold the hall to mayor and shipbuilder

Sir Raylton Dixon Sir Raylton Dixon (8 July 1838 – 28 July 1901), was a shipbuilding magnate from Middlesbrough on the River Tees who served as Mayor of Middlesbrough. Background and early life Dixon was one of the seven children of Jeremiah II Dixon (1804� ...

in 1888. Sir Raylton Dixon died in 1901 and thereafter the hall was left unoccupied, and fell into disrepair. The hall was used as an army base in both world wars but was demolished in 1946 shortly after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and the land acquired by Middlesbrough Council.

Description

Gunnergate Hall was located off Tollesby Lane and there is a plaque in the grounds that shows the former location of the hall. The main entrance drive was from Stokesley Road in Marton. Gunnergate Hall had three lodges but only two survive, Hunter’s Lodge on Gunnergate Lane and High Lodge on Tollesby Lane. The hall had a banqueting hall, ballroom and billiard room and the grounds had a rockery, tennis courts, greenhouses, waterfall, lake, fountain, and boat house. A water tower in the grounds may have supplied the lake fountain or else provided water pressure for the house.

Fairy Dell Park

Fairy Dell is a local nature reserve, and the former gardens and grounds of Gunnergate Hall. Fairy Dell is a laid out parkland and natural wooded beck valley with an ornamental lake and flood defence lakes that is part of the Marton West Beck wildlife corridor. The site was redeveloped as a flood defence in the late 1970s by

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and Middlesbrough Council. Access to the park can be gained from nearby Newham Grange Country Farm. Wildlife to be found include

watervole The European water vole or northern water vole (''Arvicola amphibius''), is a semi-aquatic rodent. It is often informally called the water rat, though it only superficially resembles a true rat. Water voles have rounder noses than rats, deep brow ...

heron The herons are long-legged, long-necked, freshwater and coastal birds in the family Ardeidae, with 72 recognised species, some of which are referred to as egrets or bitterns rather than herons. Members of the genera ''Botaurus'' and ''Ixobrychu ...

kingfisher Kingfishers are a family, the Alcedinidae, of small to medium-sized, brightly colored birds in the order Coraciiformes. They have a cosmopolitan distribution, with most species found in the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Oceania ...

moorhen Moorhens—sometimes called marsh hens—are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family (Rallidae). Most species are placed in the genus ''Gallinula'', Latin for "little hen". They are close relatives of coots. They are o ...

s, and

mallard The mallard () or wild duck (''Anas platyrhynchos'') is a dabbling duck that breeds throughout the temperate and subtropical Americas, Eurasia, and North Africa, and has been introduced to New Zealand, Australia, Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, Arge ...

s. Numerous chainsaw sculptures have been created in the woodlands by Steve Iredale. Activities undertaken by the Friends of Fairy Dell interest group include path clearing, strimming, and planting. The park was given a

Green Flag Award The Green Flag Award is an international accreditation given to publicly accessible parks and open spaces, managed under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, a UK Government department, by Keep Britain Tidy ...

by the Civic Trust. Discoveries in the area have included animal bones and a sunken path. An archaeological dig is planned for 2014 led by Tees Archaeology. A £38,000 grant has been obtained from the Community Spaces Programme of the

Heritage Lottery Fund The National Lottery Heritage Fund, formerly the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), distributes a share of National Lottery funding, supporting a wide range of heritage projects across the United Kingdom. History The fund's predecessor bodies were ...

for improving footpaths and natural woodland, flower planting, extra seating and the archaeological dig.

References

External links

Friends of Fairy Dell
* Gunnergate Hall images
Hidden TeessideChris Scott Wilson
* Walks
Middlesbrough Council
{{Navboxes , list1= {{Teesside Mansions {{Middlesbrough Houses completed in 1857 Places in the Tees Valley 1857 establishments in England Demolished buildings and structures in England Buildings and structures demolished in 1946