STOCKTON UPON TEES, a market and borougli town of England in the county of Durham, is situated on the north bank of the Tees, which is crossed by a handsome bridge of five elliptical arches, that cost 8000i., and was built between 1764 and 1771.
The centre arch is 72 feet span and 23 high. It is neat and clean, and is reckoned the most handsome town in the north of England, both for the breadth of its principal street, and the general elegance of its buildings. This street, which is formed by the road to Durham and Sunderland, is about half a mile long, and sixty yards broad, with the market place in its centre, continuing nearly as broad to both ends. Several smaller streets branch off in different di rections, and there is a spacious square at the north east side of the town, which contains some good houses, and has been recently enclosed and planted by subscription. The houses are in general built of brick and covered with tiles, and the streets are well paved, flagged, and lighted. One of the principal public buildings is the church. It is a handsome brick building, with the doors and windows faced with stone; its length is 150 feet, and the tower eighty feet high. There is a theological subscription library kept in the vestry. There are also meeting houses for Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Quakers and Methodists. The town-hall, which stands in the middle of the principal street, is a large square structure, with a lofty cupola and spire. It is partly used for a tavern, and comprehends an elegant suite of assembly rooms, a court room, a coffee room, and other public apartments, with warehouses, shops, and a piazza underneath. In its vicinity in the market place is a handsome Doric column, thirty-three feet high. The custom-house is a commodious building.
Stockton has a neat theatre and several libraries. The charitable institutions are a charity school for twenty boys and twenty girls, to which has been added a national school with about 350 children, a school of industry for girls, two Sunday schools, a dispensary, and almshouses for thirteen poor families. The almshouses occupy an elegant Gothic building, in which is a committee-room, where the affairs of the poor, and those of a savings bank are transacted.
Stockton, from its convenient situation, enjoys a great trade, which has been much facilitated by a na vigable cut made in 1810 for shortening the naviga tion of the river. The export trade consists of lead, hams, butter, pork, cheese, leather, grain, flour, sail cloths, huckabucks, tammies, and plain linen. The imports, which arc chiefly from the Baltic, Hamburg, Norway, and Holland, consist of hemp, flax, iron, timber, linen, yarn, sheetings, hides, bark, seeds, Geneva, f.z.c. In 1705 the number of vessels belong ing to the port was 47, carrying 5733 tons.
The principal manufactures of Stockton, are two of sail-cloth, two breweries, two rope-walks, two ship yards, two iron founderies, a soap house, also manu factories for damask, diaper, and huekaback, towell ing and check linens. There is also here a large dry dock.
The town is divided into two parts, one called the borough, and the other the town. The civil govern ment is vested in a mayor, alderman, and recorder, besides inferior officers. Stockton had once a castle, but the moat is the only remaining vestige of it.
The population of the township in 1821 was