1857: Gunnergate Hall, a
house built in 1857 for Charles Leatham, a wealthy Quaker banker,
situated in grounds to the south west of the village of Marton.
This hall has gone now but two lodges still survive. Charles
Leatham and his family never lived there long. John Vaughan was
one of the two most important Ironmasters who started the
extraction of ironstone in the Eston Hills and started the whole
Iron and Steel industry. He took over Gunnergate Hall. When John
Vaughan died in 1868 the house passed to his son Thomas, who
spent lavishly on it. The hall was next sold to Carl Bolckow,
nephew of Henry Bolckow, the other important Ironmaster, who then
sold it to Raylton Dixon the Middlesbrough shipbuilder, in 1888.
After Raylton died the house was unoccupied and was taken over by
the army during the two world wars and rapidly fell into
disrepair. It was eventually demolished in 1946.
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