please empty your brain below
The Middleton Grange shopping centre was, if I remember rightly, built on top of a fairly large part of what had been the southern town centre, with demolition of a lot of rather elegant Victoriana involved. The huge scale of that development maybe reflects the high ambition of the time it was built, when a lot more was going on here. But moving all the town's non-supermarket retail to a now somewhat dated American type mall has, I think, made it harder for Hartlepool to reinvent itself and find new opportunities, despite the best efforts of the Council.

David | Homepage | 25.02.25 - 7:57 a.m. | #

given the awkward journey between the marina and headland, Hartlepool is effectively still two towns. the industry and docks have their place, obviously, but it's such a shame the two aren't adjacent.

Peter T | 25.02.25 - 8:46 a.m. | #

Again, another place I've only been to because of footy.
Lost.

Chris | 25.02.25 - 8:47 a.m. | #

Place lost its mojo when the steelworks - through which the railway line used to run! - closed down in the '80s.
The same German flotilla shelled Scarborough Castle and Whitby Abbey on their way up to 'Pool.

David B | 25.02.25 - 9:01 a.m. | #

Thanks for this. Born and brought up in 'British' West Hartlepool, and surviving the not too harmonious amalgamation of the two administrations, it was good to read an outsiders view of the town as it now is. I moved away in 1972 - but visited mam and dad constantly until just two years ago so have seen the sad decline and may efforts to regain importance. The shopping mall was wonderful when first opened in the very early 70s, replacing the deteriorating shopping streets branching off Church Street. Regular buses brought shoppers from the nearby pit towns and villages to mingle with the well employed locals from the two steelworks and the shipyards and the docks - which took the coal away and brought in timber from scandinavia for pit props! All gone of course, and most shopping now replaced by the huge supermarkets with parking all placed just out of centre from where you explored, or on-line.

BillyG | 25.02.25 - 9:25 a.m. | #

You missed a treat with HMS Trincomalee.
Unlike HMS Victory there is no tour so you have time to get a good look. The surrounding workshops are also well done.

Colin Whiting | 25.02.25 - 9:25 a.m. | #

Well done for making the effort to Hartlepool a place that in everyway seems sadly neglected. I used to visit regularly during my sojourn in Middlesbrough in the 80s when it was taking a real hit.

The rugby club still call themselves the Monkey hangers and I was given a tie decorated with said monkeys by a mate of mine who was their tight head prop. Should you be silly enough to call someone from Hartlepool a Monkey Hanger they will immediately retort that they „still have enough rope for you too“. I saw it used several times and found it rather amusing.

The Hart in the name is the Stag type not the organ but as one of my friends from that time said everyone from the town as a heart as big as a frying pan. Having met a lot of ex-pats from the town I think I concur. a pretty awful town but lovely people which I think is what todays blog is telling us.

Keith the Kraut | 25.02.25 - 9:46 a.m. | #

If you did both Sunderland and Hartlepool in a single day, that's some fast and efficient exploring.

A third of a century ago, Church Street in Hartlepool had a cracking Quasar laser tag centre, so there's that.

Chris | 25.02.25 - 9:50 a.m. | #

I made a fleeting visit to Hartlepool in 2012. The Dock area gave a sense of abandonment, reminding me of early 1990s Cardiff Bay - before development kicked off in earnest. I didn't realise until today there is an "extremely old" part, so that's a definite for any future visit.

cau1khead | 25.02.25 - 10:02 a.m. | #

Has the Andy Capp statue been sanitised for these politically correct times? I spotted no cigarette dangling from his mouth.

dg writes: it’s from 2007

Ian Paton | 25.02.25 - 10:37 a.m. | #

A good idea to combine Hartlepool with Sunderland. Did you ever consider an overnight stay for this excursion, as it's a lot of travel time for one day?

Mikey C | 25.02.25 - 10:50 a.m. | #

If north-eastern folk singer (and, I believe, child of "British" West Hartlepool) Jez Lowe is to be believed, the industrial decline and the hanging of the monkey are not just linked, they are cause and effect.

Peewee | 25.02.25 - 11:32 a.m. | #

Agree with Colin: HMS Trincomalee and the surrounding workshops are excellent and were a fascinating couple of hours when I visited. It was probably why I enjoyed Hartlepool more than Sunderland, whose city centre was mostly a building site a few years ago.

Suffolker | Homepage | 25.02.25 - 11:41 a.m. | #

"the role was abolished"
Monkey Mascot, Mayor, or (unlikely) Monkey hanger?

MilesT | 25.02.25 - 12:24 p.m. | #

The parliamentary constituency was The Hartlepools from the Reform Act in 1867 to 1974 and the football team was Hartlepools United from 1908 to 1977, showing how long it took from seeing they should be joined to actually bringing the towns together and then recognising that they had done so.

Henry | 25.02.25 - 2:11 p.m. | #

So sad about Church Street.

Headland also known for murals.

Lorenzo | 25.02.25 - 3:04 p.m. | #

I don't think it is fair to say they like monkeys.

kev | 25.02.25 - 5:39 p.m. | #

Two quite contrasting places visited in just one day!

Cornish Cockney | 25.02.25 - 8:13 p.m. | #

A couple of bits of trivia:

1. The local BSL sign for Hartlepool is (or at least, was in the early 2000s) the same as that for Monkey
2. I think Hartlepool Marina's most famous resident is Timmy Mallet. I seem to remember he saved someone's life a while back and it was in the paper.

Al | 26.02.25 - 7:51 a.m. | #

And the Act defining the Teesport and Hartlepool Port is the Teesport and Hartlepools Port Authority Act 1966 it having got Royal Assent just before the two Hartlepools were merged.

Robert Butlin | 26.02.25 - 8:22 a.m. | #

The two Hartepools formerly had their own separate municipal bus companies, the one which registered its vehicles in Co Durham rather than the County Borough being obviously much smaller. Today, the unitary authority contains half of perhaps the the richest [i.e. most vulgar] settlement in the North, the so-called garden village of Wynyard. Gated, footballer mansions abound.

felix | 26.02.25 - 8:50 a.m. | #











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