19-569: Dorman Long & Co was a UK steel producer, later diversifying into bridge building. The company was once listed on the London Stock Exchange . The company was founded by Arthur Dorman and Albert de Lande Long when they acquired West Marsh Iron Works in 1875. In the 1920s Dorman Long took over the concerns of Bell Brothers and Bolckow and Vaughan and diversified into the construction of bridges. In 1938 Ellis Hunter took over as Managing Director and he continued to lead
38-498: A "recognised and celebrated example of early Brutalist architecture", a "nationally unique surviving structure from the twentieth-century coal, iron and steel industries" as well as "for its association with, and an advert for, Dorman Long which dominated the steel and heavy engineering industry of Teesside". In one of her first acts as Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries revoked the listing – amidst accusations of "cultural vandalism" – enabling demolition of
57-410: A short distance upriver. In recent years it was repainted in its original green and some minor maintenance took place on the wire ropes and counterbalances which still take the majority of the bridge load. In 1988 the bridge was given Grade II Listed Building status. In July 2014, work started to paint the bridge red and silver to mark its 80th anniversary. This was planned to take six weeks but
76-444: A winch mechanism. It was estimated in 1963 by Mr R. Batty, long time Bridge Master at Newport Bridge, that "it would take 12 men eight hours" to complete the movement by hand. The bridge was inaugurated by Prince Albert, Duke of York (later King George VI) and opened to traffic on 28 February 1934. Originally, 12 men would have been employed to man the bridge around the clock, usually requiring four to drive it at any one time. This
95-518: Is born. 1989: Company is privatised becoming British Steel plc . 1990: Merged with The Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company , Darlington. 1999: British Steel plc merges with the Dutch steel and aluminium company Koninklijke Hoogovens to become Corus Group . 2015: Former Dorman Long Steel plant on Teesside ceased production after SSI mothballed the Redcar works following a global downturn in
114-623: The Romans found iron slags in North Yorkshire , with small-scale iron-making known to have taken place at Rievaulx and Whitby Abbeys and at Gisborough Priory in the 17th century. Some of the key events connected with iron-making in Cleveland: 1837: The first Cleveland ironstone mine opens, at Grosmont, for the Losh, Wilson and Bell ironworks. 1841: Bolckow and Vaughan open
133-560: The borough of Stockton-on-Tees , Northern England . It no longer lifts, but still acts as a road bridge in its permanently down position. Designed by Mott, Hay and Anderson and built by local company Dorman Long , who have also been responsible for such structures as the Tyne Bridge and Sydney Harbour Bridge , it was the first large vertical-lift bridge in Britain. Constructed around twin 55 m (180 ft) lifting towers,
152-576: The 1928 Tyne Bridge , a construction regarded as the symbol of Tyneside's Geordie pride, but also a product of Dorman Long's Teesside workmanship. The greatest example of Dorman Long's work in Teesside itself is the single-span Newport Lifting Bridge (a Grade II Listed Building). Opened by the Duke of York in February 1934 it was England's first vertical lift bridge . The following is a list of some of
171-405: The 82 m (269 ft) bridge span, weighing 2,700 tonnes, could be lifted by the use of two 325 H.P. electric motors at 16 m (52 ft) per minute to a maximum height of 37 m (121 ft). In the event of motor failure a standby 450 H.P. petrol engine could be employed to move the bridge, but should both systems fail it was possible to raise or lower the span manually using
190-543: The Redcar and Cleveland Works to build the Lackenby development. 1955: The Dorman Long tower, a combined coal silo, firefighting water tower, and control room, was built on the Teesside steelworks site. 1967: Dorman Long, South Durham Steel Iron Co, and Stewarts and Lloyds come together to create British Steel and Tube Ltd. 1967: The steel industry is nationalised and the British Steel Corporation
209-533: The bridge for shipping traffic was removed in 1989 after the repeal of an act of Parliament. Before mechanical decommissioning Mr Ian MacDonald, who worked on the bridge from 1966, finally as Bridge Master, supervised the final lift on 18 November 1990. The Tees Newport Bridge still serves as a road bridge, carrying considerable traffic as a section of the A1032, despite the presence of the A19 Tees Viaduct
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#1732790171244228-584: The bridges built by the Dorman Long: it is not fully comprehensive. In 1904 Sir Arthur Dorman of Dorman Long gave the Dorman Museum to Middlesbrough in honour of his youngest son, George Lockwood Dorman, an avid collector who died in the Boer War. Amongst the museum's exhibits is a collection of ceramics from the local Linthorpe Pottery , which was known for its iridescent glazes which, at
247-556: The building to be scheduled. The tower was demolished between 00:00 and 00:20 on 19 September 2021 in a series of controlled explosions. UK">UK The requested page title contains unsupported characters : ">". Return to Main Page . Tees Newport Bridge The Tees Newport Bridge is a vertical-lift bridge spanning the River Tees a short distance upriver from Tees Transporter Bridge , linking Middlesbrough with
266-540: The business until 1961. In 1967 Dorman Long was nationalised , along with 13 other British steel-making firms, becoming subsumed into the government-owned British Steel Corporation . In 1982 Redpath Dorman Long, the engineering part of the business, was acquired by Trafalgar House who in 1990 merged it into Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company in Darlington . Iron-making has been known in Cleveland since
285-545: The first ironworks in Middlesbrough . 1850: 8 June – The Discovery of the Cleveland Main Seam of Ironstone at Eston by Ironmaster John Vaughan and mining engineer John Marley both of Bolckow & Vaughan. The Cleveland iron rush begins. 1865: 30 blast furnaces operate within six miles (10 km) of Middlesbrough and one million tonnes per annum (TPA) of iron are produced to make the area one of
304-399: The price of steel and later announced its UK arm had gone into liquidation. 2021: Cleveland Bridge goes into administration. 2021: The Dorman Long tower is demolished, despite its Grade II listed status. The most famous bridge ever constructed by a Teesside company was Dorman Long's Sydney Harbour Bridge of 1932, of similar construction to but, contrary to popular belief, not modelled on
323-481: The time, were not produced anywhere else in Europe . The Dorman Long tower was built from 1955 to 1956 as a coking plant for steel production. The tower was an early example of brutalist architecture . It was scheduled to be demolished in 2021 due its poor state of repair and granted Grade II listed status, in an emergency listing by Historic England on 10 September 2021. The emergency listing cited its significance as
342-498: The world's major centres of iron production. 1879: Sidney Gilchrist Thomas arrives in Cleveland and introduces the first commercial steel . 1903: Partial amalgamation of Bell companies with Dorman Long. 1917: The Redcar steel plant is opened, making steel in the open hearth process . 1928-9: Dorman Long takes over residues of Bell and Bolckow Vaughan. 1946: Dorman Long purchases 600 acres (2.4 km) of land between
361-441: Was accomplished from the oak-panelled winding house situated midway along the bridge span. During the 1940s and early 1950s this would occur up to twice a day with an average of 800 vessels per year passing under it, despite staffing difficulties during the 1940s when men were away fighting. However, as the number of ships needing to sail up to Stockton-on-Tees declined, so did the usage of the bridge. The legal requirement to lift
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