Town in North Yorkshire, England
Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough made steel for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, gave the world the parmo and hosted North Korea's greatest World Cup win.
Key information
- County
- North Yorkshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- About 144,000 (2021 Census)
- Known for
- Steel and iron, the Transporter Bridge, the parmo, Boro
- What locals are called
- Teessiders; the nickname Smoggies is also used
- Famous people
- Captain James Cook, Brian Clough, Chris Rea, Wilf Mannion
- Football clubs
- Middlesbrough FC (Boro), who play at the Riverside Stadium
About Middlesbrough
From one farm to an 'Infant Hercules'
In 1801 Middlesbrough was a single farm with 25 people on it. Within a lifetime it was one of the fastest-growing towns in Britain. The spark came in 1829, when the Quaker banker Joseph Pease and a group of fellow investors bought the farmland beside the Tees for £30,000. They wanted a new port to ship coal from the Durham coalfield, reached by an extension of the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The first coal staiths opened in 1830, and a planned town grew up around them. Then came the lucky break. In 1850 ironstone was found in the nearby Cleveland Hills, and ironmasters such as Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan built blast furnaces on the riverbank. By the 1860s Middlesbrough was being called the 'Infant Hercules' for the sheer speed of its growth. By 1901 the population had passed 90,000.
The town that built the world's bridges
Middlesbrough's biggest names were industrial, and Dorman Long was the biggest of them. The firm built the Tyne Bridge in Newcastle and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, two of the world's best-known steel arches, and it also built the Tees Newport Bridge at home. The town's own bridges are just as striking. The Transporter Bridge opened in 1911 and carries a gondola that hangs from the high girder above the water. It is a rare surviving transporter bridge, though it has been closed to traffic since 2019. The Newport Bridge, opened in 1934, was Britain's first vertical-lift bridge. Its central span once rose between the towers to let ships through, but lifting stopped in 1990 and the span is now fixed in place.
Why Middlesbrough's most famous dish is a parmo
A parmo is a breaded chicken or pork escalope smothered in béchamel sauce and topped with melted cheese. It is the town's signature dish, and it is usually served with chips and salad. Its creation is generally credited to Nicos Harris, a Greek-American chef and former US Army cook who introduced it at Middlesbrough's American Grill in 1958. It has since become a Teesside obsession, sold at takeaways across the area and argued over with great seriousness. The name comes from 'parmigiana', though the Italian original has little in common with it. The local version is a whole meal that stretches well beyond the edge of a plate.
Boro, Ayresome Park and a World Cup shock
Middlesbrough Football Club, known to everyone as Boro, was founded in 1876. For nearly a century the team played at Ayresome Park, which was a World Cup venue in 1966. The matches there were played by North Korea, a team almost nobody expected to do anything. On 19 July 1966 they beat Italy 1-0 and knocked the Italians out of the tournament. Local fans adopted the visitors, and the two sides are still remembered fondly in the town. Boro moved to the Riverside Stadium in 1995. They won the League Cup in 2004, their first major trophy, and reached the UEFA Cup final in 2006, where they lost 4-0 to Sevilla in Eindhoven. Both runs are celebrated on Teesside. The town's football roots go beyond Boro. Brian Clough was born here in 1935, and Wilf Mannion, one of the great post-war English inside forwards, played for Boro.
Cook, culture and a very big sculpture
Captain James Cook, the navigator who charted Australia's east coast and the shores of New Zealand, was born in 1728 in the village of Marton, now part of Middlesbrough. A museum in Stewart Park marks his birthplace. Today's Middlesbrough has an art scene that surprises first-time visitors. MIMA, the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, opened in 2007 and has a strong collection of ceramics and contemporary work. Near the Middlehaven waterfront stands Temenos, a sculpture by Anish Kapoor and Cecil Balmond, which rises above the former dockland like a great steel hoop. The singer-songwriter Chris Rea, who was born in the town in 1951, wrote about it in songs such as 'Steel River'. And the nickname Smoggies? That is a nod to the days when furnace smoke hung over the town, and Teessiders now wear it with pride.