EPW049489 ENGLAND (1935). The South Durham Iron and Steel Works and environs, Hartlepool, 1935

Hartlepool had lost most of its heavy industrial heritage by the 1970s and the areas previously occupied by the South Durham Iron & Steel works became covered in a mixture of light industrial estates, some of which were in place during the immediate postwar years.

This view, taken looking north-west towards Hartlepool Bay, with the plumes from the smoking chimneys being carried out to sea on a brisk westerly wind. This large-scale manufacturing industry developed in the second half of the 19th century and was partially responsible for the rapid growth of West Hartlepool, from a population of 14,515 in 1861 to 68,135 70 years later. The merger of the Cargo Fleet Iron Company with the West Hartlepool Steel & Iron Co. created the South Durham Steel & Iron Co. in 1898. The whole area suffered during the Depression of the 1930s, but there was a brief period of recovery in the post-war years, until British Steel closed the plant in 1977 with the loss of 1,500 jobs. The Tubes Division remains extant (Tata Steel Europe).

An image which reflects the industrial legacy of West Hartlepool and North East England, which lasted little more than a century, from modest beginnings in the 1860s, through mergers in late-Victorian times to create the South Durham Steel & Iron Company, to recession in the 1930s and a brief recovery in post-war Britain, before closure in 1977. This scene is very different at the present time!