Middlesbrough? Only if you must

What words do you live by which define your travel style? Cheap and cheerful, or five stars all the way? Any which way but loose? If it's not Boeing, you're not going? For us, it's 'better bring the Good Beer Guide' because if a pub is not recommended by the Campaign for Real Ale, then we're not likely to darken the hostelry's doors.

So we were flummoxed as to why our reliable Good Beer Guide had no listings for Middlesbrough. Not a jot, which for a city of about 140,000 people was worrisome. The original idea behind our camping trip (before the flat pillows, rain, claustrophobia and fatigue forced us to spend four nights in a B and B) was that a room booked at the Middlesbrough Travelodge would be a luxurious treat after several days of sleeping under canvas. Realising there wasn't a decent pub in town put a damper on things.

First impressions however were surprisingly positive. After a leisurely journey away from Whitby and through the Yorkshire moors, our train pulled into town past a massive Anish Kapoor sculpture and a multi-coloured metallic building. Middlesbrough at first glance felt cutting edge.

Then we stepped out of the station and into the empty streets. The shopping district was a ghost town, as if a bomb had been dropped. There were at least a few signs of life at the Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), another new addition to the city skyline.

The building was sleek and striking, with wonderfully lit galleries for rubbish contemporary art. We traipsed through an entire floor of ugly jewellery, then sped through several enormous rooms of...nothing, really. Maybe five photos and a video playing in a darkened room, nothing to stir the soul or leave any lasting impression. On the top floor an outdoor platform opened out onto a miniature version of Manchester's town hall, hemmed in by an ugly tower block.

It's a shame, because at one point Middlesbrough was clearly a beautiful and thriving city with relatively recent beginnings which mean the heart of town is laid out in a tidy grid, a rarity for England. It is a product of the Industrial Revolution, when Quaker industrialists in 1829 started to transform a hamlet of four farmhouses into a port and rail hub for the transport of coal, then later a centre for iron and steel production. In its heyday the city was called 'Ironopolis'. Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge has MADE IN MIDDLESBROUGH stamped into its girders.

There is still street after street of fine Victorian architecture, but much of it appeared vacant.

 

 

In Manchester these buildings would be reclaimed as flats, offices, restaurants and shops.

 

It is a vicious circle. Without local residents, few developers are going to take the risk and transform old buildings into space for living, working or leisure. But without decent housing and jobs, you can't attract people to live in a particular area, so the cycle of decay continues.

Middlesbrough still has some relics of its Ironopolis days and could make a decent stab at attracting visitors interested in its industrial heritage. For instance, its famous transporter bridge still trundles cars and passengers across the River Tees. At the time this was a busy shipping route and a bridge would have interrupted navigation, so engineers in 1911 built a set of steel towers 225 feet in the air so a gondola can be pulled across the river, carrying up to 200 people or 9 cars each way.

The waiting room for foot passengers on the Middlesbrough bank of the river is an interpretive centre. There are plans to replace the gondola and to install lifts inside at least one of the towers so tourists can admire the views from the top. We would have made the trip ourselves, but I didn't have enough cash for a return trip and didn't fancy a swim.

Not far from the transporter bridge is the assemblage of buildings and sculpture ('Tememos') that caught our eye when we arrived in town. The combination of contemporary architecture, open water and a football stadium (but little else) reminded me of Salford Quays in Manchester, back when it was cleared ground and not a cluster of museums, TV studios, shops and flats.

So maybe in another 10 or 15 years this will be a thriving destination. The college is enormous and very impressive, I first assumed it was a research laboratory or other high-tech facility, but instead it's where the local teens train to be hairdressers and call centre operatives.

A sign pointing to 'the old town' led us past a half boarded-up council estate and up to the completely-boarded up former town hall.

 This is where Prime Minister Gladstone in 1846 hailed Middlesbrough as 'an infant Hercules.'

Back in the centre of town and the shops had all shut by half 5. In Manchester this is when the streets become their busiest, as office workers stream out for an evening of shopping, drinking, eating and the theatre. We had to settle for a microwave meal and indifferent pint at the local Wetherspoons and spent the rest of our evening in our airless hotel room, sprawled on our saggy mattress flipping between the two channels on the telly. Middlesbrough? Only if you must!

One last entry and that will be the end of our Yorkshire trip, so click back soon to for a look around sunny York and a behind-the-scenes tour of the Minster!