Around Loftus: Archive Photographs

This collection of over 200 old photographs depicts Loftus and the surround villages of Carlin How, Easington, Skinningrove and Liverton Mines and recalls some of the places, personalities and events of Loftus and its district over the past hundred years. We see people at work and play, in shops, industry and church. We also take a trip long the coast, see Loftus in wartime and meet a publican and local councillor who invented a miners’ alarm clock. The photographs have been collected by the author from the albums and collections of local people, sometimes from former residents who have moved away but have not forgotten Loftus. The photographs show people sharing experiences and caring for one another. In the nineteenth century many came from all around Great Britain to settle in East Cleveland and work in the mines and ironworks. They lived and often died ‘winning the stone’ but the people united in times of hardship and formed a close knit community which is still thriving today and it is to them that this book is dedicated.