I won't start the thread 'cause I don't live up there any more. Interested to see your choices.

The Warrior

Catcote, had my first six pints of strongarm aged 15

The North Eastern.

Volunteers , the original version , not the 90s one.

A great pub. Where else would have let their resident jazz band, led by Alex Hand, have the town's early punk bands on as support acts?

For related reasons The Birds Nest gets my vote though.

The McOrville Inn, Elwick when it was a tenant house. The pub continued as a managed house, but only the exterior remained intact.

Has to be excluded on a technicality - how can an Elwick pub be your favourite Hartlepool pub? Unless you're counting in pubs that could be reached by the TMS...

At the time it was Hartlepool rather than Elwick that I reached by TMS. But we did have taxis back then and non-drinker rotas and stuff. And we could hear the stock cars from our garden.
Objection overruled.

The stock car defence is bogus - you could hear them for about thirty miles.

same with me. took in by my uncle and old man. was grown up compared to you, i was 16.

Smith's Arms Greatham when Joe Brown had it

Was that Joe Brown from Joe Brown and The Bruvvers band?

If I can't have the McOrville you can't have the Smiths Arms so there!

Greatham in in the Hartlepool boundary in all aspects include being covered by a Stagecoach Hartlepool day or weekly ticket. In fact Greatham parish council includes a huge chunk of the South Fens.

Isn't that just to encourage breeding patterns that might help with Greatham's limited gene pool?

Hartlepool has an Elwick Road that eventually leads to Elwick and is full of posh houses.
Hartlepool has a Hart Lane that eventually leads to Hart and is full of, well, houses.
It has a Greatham street that is an industrial wilderness and leads nowhere.
Therefore Hartlepool appreciates and recognises Elwick above Hart and is embarassed by Greatham.

The Catcote in the late fifties early sixties was the place to go for entertainment. The resident group was The Catpots a trio of George Nelson (piano) Les Loynes (drums) and Gordon Abbott (double base). Singers from all over the town used to congregate at the bar waiting to get called up to give a couple of numbers. I suppose it was like a forerunner for karioky only difference they were all decent singers not some drunken lasses singing I will survive. Some nights it was groups like The Ravons and Stan Laundens group which I’m ashamed i can’t remember the name as I know Stan so well. I first saw my wife in there before catching up with her at The Rink.
The boss at that time was a bloke called Mathews who you didn’t argue with he didn’t need bouncers.
By the way nowt wrong with Greatham Street!

This was easily Greatham Street's best feature but I don't remember any pubs on it.

That’s the. Steelworks bridge which was at the end of Greatham St. There was in fact a few houses in Greatham St sadly no pubs

I used to hate the warrior - although I enjoyed quiz nights.
But I miss it now ...

That bridge made me shit meself when I was a little lad. One day a gurt big electromagnet dropped a 10 ton sheet of steel and nearly blew me eardrums out. I was scared stiff of the thing for ages ... but it was the quickest way to Seaton Baths. I used to run across it shouting ...

if i remember rightly there was a knacker's yard in Greatham Street. Just on the right as you came down ofl the bridge.
We always used to cross the bridge on the way home from the baths even though it took us about a mile out of our way. We all lived near the Odeon!

Me too scary!

The knackers yard was actually in lower Oxford St.

The Woodcutter.

bluestreak and charco are the same as me. never liked the bloody bridge but my insisted on going over it to seaton. too tight to pay the few coppers from brenda road to seaton.

That'll be the one! We zigzagged a bit after reaching terra firma.
I loved that bridge, me. You could see right into the Bessemer furnaces.
Intimidating industry and Hartlepool grime at its finest. Like in that famous photo of the bloke going to work.

Gaps in the wooden planks seemed incredibly large at that age and occasionally broken.

I remember me gran taking me over it when I was about 5 and there was loads of planks missing. I was cacking it as I was lunging over the gaps..

Thinking of this further I think the Northeastern would be the deserved winner. Some rooms I heard were panelled with wood from a cruise ship and gents toilets had an aroma of sea water when you had particularly high tides. The last landlord went to Dyke House as I remember. When he left the brewery Whitbread did a very shabby job of boarding it up .......on purpose I believe as it was in a derelict area and they wanted shot. Enter the scallies to burn it down and then demolition.

Depending if we were doing our Friday and Saturday pub crawls clockwise or anticlockwise, then after leaving my favourite pub - the aforementioned North Eastern - it would be The Square Ring or The Market next.

I also have fond memories of those two long-gone establishments.

The Square Ring was the regular haunt of Stewy Lithgo back then, and anyone who mentioned Frank Bruno within his ear-shot would quickly get chinned. Fortunately I was warned about this the first time I went in, and for once in my life I didn't put my big foot in my even bigger mouth.

The Market was another proper pub, and my overriding memory of it was that the Gents' bogs were in the back-yard - and were the host to the most foul-smelling urinal I think I have ever had the "pleasure" of taking a slash in. It absolutely fucking reeked.

After breathing in many lung-fulls of the fetid atmosphere of extremely concentrated stale piss, mixed with the stench of decomposing pigeon corpses, I can guarantee that my immune system is more than capable of dealing with that Corona virus shite...

Think most people would agree. According to my dad who drank in there during its heyday, The North Eastern and The Shades were the two most palatial pubs in what was then the town centre , many actors would stay in the North Eastern when appearing at the nearby theatre.

Yes Mr Horden hence the Shades must be preserved at all costs.
Also a hidden gem is the atheneum club which is just over the road of the entry to Lynn Street. When inside it gives you the impression of what hartlepool was like in it pomp.

Horden mate you are homing in to a solution to the years-old debate about the exact location of that first photo. The prefab is clearly the same as those in the photo of Langdale Grove.

I remember Scawfell Grove, full of prefabs also, but I can't pinpoint Langdale Grove. The angle of the first photo puts the street just South of Langdale Grove.

some actually think hartlepool is still like that. thing is at the time you were brought up to see this as an everyday scene, but i found that when moving to a yorkshire mill town i found things there far worse than the steel works.

I've been a member of the Athenaeum for 45 years; great place to go play snooker - when you walk up steps and enter the club it's like stepping back in time, tastefully preserved and decorated, officially opened in September 1852.

I sometimes went to the chess club there in the 1960s. Yes it was certainly other-worldish.

There was a West Hartlepool Gentlemen's club in either Tower or more probably Scarborough street. I never knew anyone who went there. I was just a bairn like.

Yes i went in a few months ago....perhaps the best place in Hartlepool now.

As far as I am aware, those prefabs were built on the spot or damn near to it , that previously housed the 3 streets that was the original Wagga.

Someone was telling me the other week about a Gentlemens club in Scarborough St, still going today, I'd never heard of it.

Think the Gentlemans club in Scarborough Street has closed and now business units. There is a Gentlemens club that now meets for talks weekly on a Thursday at the Mason lodge in Raby Road next to the old Cop shop.

Clearly the lad who told me hadn't been in for awhile. I did take a look after he told me and I couldn't see any clues of a gentlemens club in Scarborough Street. I did notice a planning application for a new micro pub in the street though

Beautiful places now, in fact my favourite area of England, Calderdale etc. You can imagine though when mills and canals started to close etc that places like Hebden, Todmorden, Sowerby ,Keighley, Bingley must've been right shitholes during the late 60s and 70s, like bomb sites. Same for the bigger towns like Bolton , Huddersfield , Burnley , Blackburn ,though the latter still is.

Yes the gentleman's club went to the wall 30 + years ago; Retired Men's Forum meet weekly masons lodge.

It was on the left as you entered Scarborough Street from Church Street. Had railings and a bit of a wall in front as i remember.

Thanks. I know where you mean.

http://www.hhtandn.org/bundles/home/upl ... _large.jpg
On the right towards end of street with flagpole.
This picture is looking north towards Church Street.