The Garden City of ‘Dormanton’ (Dormanstown)

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The plan below dates from 1917 and shows the proposed layout of the new garden city of Dormanton (known to us now as Dormanstown)

Although the basic layout of crescents around the green and shops around Ennis Square is correct, there are a lot of differences to how it actually turned out. A major one being at road to a proposed new railway station which was never built and direct footpaths across the marsh to Warrenby and the Redcar Ironworks. Also locations marked such as a hospital, chapel, library and technical school that I don’t think ever existed.

The first wave of building actually took place between 1917 and 1920, a light railway existed direct from the works to bring in materials, which can still be seen on earlier OS maps.

 

4 thoughts on “The Garden City of ‘Dormanton’ (Dormanstown)

  1. The Cleveland Archives at Marton Road have a comprehensive set of projected plans for Dormanstown if anyone wants a browse. They were drawn up by a team of young (and later famous) planners and architects, Patrick Abercombie, Stanley Ramsay and Stanley Adshead (all now have roads named after them on the estate). The new estate was a creation of Dorman Long, the Ministry of Munitions (this was at the end of WW1) and, later, the Ministry of Public Buildings and Works. One idea that caught my eye, but which never came to anything was to link the estate by a high speed tramway service with the various DL works, utilising a dedicated tram line along the middle of the projected Trunk Road.

  2. The first plan was scrapped although some parts used on later plans the second plan shows the original plan with 1930s proposal i.e. club house shops dormans crescent ,Broadway, Wilton ave and the schools on south avenue. The railway lines you can see belonged to the brickyard the kilns where in the large black building and the clay pits near by,the large building later became Robert Guy’s coach garage and Weller’s joiners shed.

    • Lots at the Teesside Archive.

      Ref NoBS.DL/9/2/1/4/1
      ‘Housing Scheme at Coatham; General Site Plan’
      Date May 1917
      Plan (on paper) of the proposed housing scheme at Coatham (later named Dormanstown).

      BS.DL/9/2/1/4/3
      ‘Scheme D 100 Houses Dormanstown, Redcar: Plan of Village’
      Date Oct 1920
      Original plan (paper) drawn by Adshead & Ramsey and Abercrombie, Architects, Liverpool and London. The plan details the proposed building of 100 further properties as outlined by ‘Scheme D’ of the Dormanstown project. The plan carries a legend with details of the type of houses to built and the widths of roads.

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