Our Village
Margrove Park commonly referred to as ‘Maggra Park’ or ‘Maggra’, takes its name from a nearby farm and from the deer park that was in the vicinity in years gone by. A hunt called the Warren Hunt operated in the area from Skelton Castle until the mid 1950s. It is situated about ten miles southeast of Middlesbrough off the A171.
The houses were built in a square in the 1850s to house miners. Stanghow (Margrove Park) mine still has a tall air shaft making it a landmark. Thomas Ward dismantled the mine in 1930. A bystander at the time remembers that they couldn’t make the mine shaft fall so they loaded a truck of stone on a train, fastened it to the shaft and with a steady pull it fell. Sleepers were sold from there for sixpence, some still evident in gardens. The row of shops which formed the bottom of the square – grocer’s, cobbler’s and shoe shop, fish shop and a big dancing pavilion, were pulled down because of lack of use or mining subsidence in the 1930s. There are no shops in the village now. The village used to be served by the Charltonian bus but there is now a half hourly service from Guisborough.
In 1940 the houses were sold to the occupiers for ?160, a mortgage being available from Guisborough Provident society (Co-operative). It was paid back at ten shillings per week with the grocery bill.
In 1932 when the mines closed and unemployment was rife, Major James Beaumont Pennyman had the idea of making allotments on Heartbreak Hill just outside Margrove Park. It was a rocky place. The men started to work and were helped by university students who slept in the old mine offices. Any vegetable produce grown was sold and then seeds bought to be put back into the land. The men earned a halfpenny an hour but no money was given, wages were in kind. It cost one shilling and three pence to mend ladies shoes so a man worked 30 hours in order to have them repaired. A man’s shoes cost one shilling and nine pence.
Prince George came to visit the Heartbreak Hill project in the 1930s, at the same time planting a tree at Guisborough grammar school and giving the boys a half day’s holiday. The scheme went on for some years.
Opposite the bottom side of the square of Margrove Park is the bird-watching area of the Carrs, with Canada Geese and many other migrating birds. The area around ‘Maggra’ is most attractive, with trees, fields, bushes and hills and rusty soil which reveals the iron ore which used to abound. There were two large shale heaps in the area but they have been removed and used for the foundations of buildings in the Guisborough area.
A large caravan site houses the many holidaymakers who come to the beautiful nearby coastal area, increasingly many German and Dutch visitors. The old school on the main road has been made into a Heritage Centre. Here one can see models of Iron Age man with his artefacts and the abundant flora and fauna of the area. There is also a good space for the display of exhibitions and crafts.
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The village information above is taken from The Cleveland Village Book, written by members of the Cleveland Federation of Women’s Institutes and published by Countryside Books
