Today we decided to try and track down the Davis family home, or where it had been in 1861. That is, in fact, why we came to the Middlesbrough area in the first place. Naturally, I had visions of being able to walk right up to the door and look in the window. After all, 147 years is not THAT long ago. And even if the house was a little run down, I thought, I still wanted to savor the craftsmanship of the wonderful brick and stonework, marvel at he intricacies of the wrought iron fencing that surely would still front the sidewalk, and run my fingers over the ancient woodwork of the front door seeking to form a bond with my family long gone. 
With those thoughts in mind, we set off after breakfast to find #7 Station Street, Middlesbrough. We’re staying in Hartlepool(see photo 1), of course, which is the closest I could find a suitable B&B back in March, so we had about a thirty-minute drive to reach our sought-after address. I had been smart this morning and looked up the actual postal code for #7 Station Street, so we didn't think a thing about it as the little GPS machine took us up and down and around the industrial section of the city. Finally, we turned onto Station Street and I strained my eyes ahead to try and see the sturdy old residences of all those long-ago iron workers. But only modern buildings met my gaze. Then, as we passed a dilapidated steel warehouse displaying the sign, “Car Washing and Detailing from 3 pounds,” the GPS suddenly announced, “now arriving at (postal code) TS11SR on left.”
Naturally I jerked to a stop and looked with dismay at the garish steel warehouse only a dozen feet from my driver-side window. Oh, no, I thought. This can’t be. I scanned the building for an actual address, but found none. “Okay,” I said to Concetta, “I have to go inside and find out what the address is here just to be sure. I got out, took a couple of pictures of the structure, then went in search of an employee of the business who might provide me with the desired information."“Naw, this is number 29, I think,” the car wash jockey said. I breathed a sigh of relief. I turned to leave, but then turned back. “How soon could you do a wash,” I asked.
“Now,” the jockey said. “Just pull it in.”
Our Mini Cooper had suffered much in the last three weeks. For the first ten days of our trip, we had nothing but rain, mud puddles, and flooded highways to contend with. The poor little car looked like it had competed in a south American road rally and lost. “I’ll be right back,” I told him.Back at the car, I told Concetta we were going to set off on foot to locate number 7 as I was leaving the car for a bath, which is what we did – for about three minutes. That’s how long it took to get to the end of the block, which turned out to be occupied by a couple of other warehouses. They were a bit more upscale than the car wash, but warehouses nonetheless. I stopped a delivery chap about to carry a package into the endmost warehouse, an auto parts store. “You don’t happen to know the address here, do you?” I asked.
“Number one, I believe,” he said. He looked at the package he was holding. “Yes, that’s it. Number one.”I turned and looked back at the row of warehouses. “But,” I said, “I was expecting to see houses here.”
“Oh, there were houses here some time back. They’ve been gone a while, though.”
“Did the iron workers live here?” I asked him.
“Yes, that’s it. Iron workers. This was all iron workers in here.”
So, there you have it. The houses are gone. And there must have been a bunch of them if you figure that between the car wash at #29 and the auto parts store at #1 there couldn’t have been more than two hundred lineal feet of frontage, those houses must have been small and crammed in together like so many proverbial sardines in a can.
Thus thwarted, it was on to the next adventure. I have furnished the photo of the warehouses just in case you’re longing to see what I saw (see photo 2) but they’re a far cry from the Victorian row houses I hoped for.
Our next stop was what was billed as a hands-on museum in the community of Stockton-on-Tee (see photo 3). Concetta and I love those types of museums where docents are actually performing the tasks in the fashion of our ancestors. This museum turned out to be wonderful in many, many respects, but the highlight of our trip there involved the blacksmithing demonstration and the woodworking demonstration. When we reached the blacksmithing operation we were astounded to see how very, very realistic the old blacksmith shop looked. There were just thousands of smithing tools hanging from every rafter, piled on every workbench, and standing in every corner. Across the shop, a cheery fire glowed in the hearth. Underfoot, a dirt floor.
Then, while we watched, a worker grabbed a red-hot piece of iron out of the forge and put it on the stand where the power hammer commenced to deal it one blow after another, only pausing when the smithy took his foot off the pedal. A power hammer is set up to deliver blows to the iron automatically so the smithy doesn’t have to do it by hand. In the early days of blacksmithing, power hammers were operated by water power and later by steam. I didn’t ask what his more modern hammer was using for power, but it was probably electric or something. Once the pounding ceased, both smithys came over and explained the process to us and told us a little about their lives and about how they came to be blacksmiths. It was just fascinating. I found it especially interesting because one of my Welsh ancestors, great great grandfather, Thomas Rhydderch, was a master blacksmith in Wales in the 1840s or so.
The other demonstration that captured our imagination was the wood shop where they turned out hand-made rocking horses (see photos 5 & 6). Now THIS required some real talent. As you can see by the intermediate horse construction and the finished product, these craftsmen are serious artists. While I spent a good half hour talking to Robert (see photo 7), the wood shop mentor and instructor, about horse construction woods and techniques, Concetta and an even more informative talk with the student holding the unfinished horse. This woman is only one of three women making horses. They got started because the woman’s niece was originally making a rocking horse for her grandmother who had told the niece that she had always wanted one and had never been able to have one. Touched by the grandmother’s talk of the longed-for horse, the niece began taking classes from this same Robert, the wood shop teacher, and actually began constructing a horse for the grandmother. Unfortunately, the grandmother didn’t live to see the horse completed. But ever since these three women, the two sisters and the niece, have been perfecting their rocking horse skills. 
And here’s the really interesting part: all three women intend to use their rocking horses, once completed, as time capsules. Into these horses they intend to put copies of the family genealogy, and other family records, photographs, and stories for some future descendant to discover. Now that’s a story!After the museum experience, we wandered down to the sea in search of the “Smuggler’s Museum” which sounded interesting in the guidebook. However, once there, we discovered that the museum was “closed for the foreseeable future.” No doubt the proprietors of the museum had been putting too much of their smuggling expertise into actual practice. But to reward ourselves for finding the location on the beach in Saltburn (see photo 8), we went into the pub next door and had a bite to eat and a flaggon of ale, as it were. Yes, I’m really getting to like that John Smith ale. I’m just going to track that brew down when I get back home.
After our lunch break, thinking me might be able to cram just one more activity into our day, we next headed for the harbor back in Hartlepool where I had earlier seen a stately three-masted sailing vessel gracing the quay (see photo 9 - sort of). Once there, they told us we’d be better off coming back tomorrow as we only had an hour to partake of the nautical diversions available on and around the sailing vessel and it actually took more like three hours. That sounded good to us. We spent a few minutes in the Hartlepool museum located nearby and then came back for a cup of tea, a biscuit, and tales of the Hartlepool area courtesy of our host, Steven. All in all, a very interesting and rewarding day. And that’s about it. So for now, I’ll say,ciao, tutti.
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