Iron-making has been known in Cleveland since the Romans found iron slags in North Yorkshire, with small-scale iron-making known to have taken place at Rievaulx, Whitby and Guisborough Abbeys in the 17th Century.

Here are some of the more recent key events connected with iron-making in Cleveland.

1837: The first Cleveland ironstone mine opens, at Grosmont.

1841: Bolckow and Vaughan open the first ironworks in Middlesbrough.

1855: 30 blast furnaces operate within six miles of Middlesbrough.

1865: One million tonnes per annum (TPA) of iron are produced to make the area one of the world's major centres of iron production.

1875: Number of blast furnaces increases to 100, producing two million TPA.

1879: Sydney Gilchrist arrives in Cleveland and introduces the first commercial steel.

1902: The first integrated steelworks, involving conversion of iron ore to finished rolled steel shapes, is built at Cargo Fleet.

1917: The Redcar steel plant is opened, making steel in the 'open hearth' process.

1918: Cleveland Works opens.

1924: Dorman Long and Co wins the contract to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

1946: Dorman Long and Co purchase 600 acres of land between the Redcar and Cleveland Works to build the Lackenby development.

1967: Dorman Long, South Durham Steel Iron Co, and Stewart and Lloyds come to-gether to create British Steel and Tube Ltd.

1967: The steel industry is nationalised and the British Steel Corporation is born.

1973: The existing Redcar Ironworks site development begins.

1979: The number of blast furnaces drops to one - producing 3.3 million TPA.

1989: Company is privatised becoming British Steel plc.

1999: British Steel merges with the Dutch steel and aluminium company Hoogovens to become Corus

Associated with the making of steel on Teesside is the construction of bridges, one of the industries for which the area has achieved international recognition. Chief among the bridge building firms was Dorman Long, a firm which began as an iron and steel works in 1875 manufacturing bars and angles for ships. A natural progression from this was to become involved in the construction of bridges particularly when Dorman Long took over the concerns of Bell Brothers and Bolckow and Vaughan in the late 1920s.

Bridge BuildingThe most famous bridge ever constructed on Teesside was Dorman Long's Sydney Harbour Bridge of 1932. This was partly modelled on the 1929 Tyne Bridge, a construction regarded as the symbol of Tyneside's Geordie pride, but also a product of Dorman Long's Teesside workmanship. The great example of Dorman Long's work on Teesside itself is of course the single span Newport Lifting Bridge. Opened by the Duke of York in February 1934 it was England's first vertical lifting bridge. With a lifting span of 270 feet and 66 feet in length it is constructed from 8000 tons of Teesside steel and 28,000 tons of concrete with towers 170 feet high. The electrically operated lifting mechanism allowed the road to be lifted 100 feet in one and a half minutes by means of ropes passing through sheaves in the four corner towers.

Bridges of the world built in the Teesside and Darlington area

New Lambeth Bridge London, England (Road) Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 776 ft 5 spans Engineer to London County Council was Sir George Humphreys and the architects Sir Reginald Blomfield and Mr G Topham Forest 4,620 tons

Tyne Bridge Newcastle, England (Road) Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 1,254 feet Messrs Mott, Hay & Anderson, associated with Messrs. Coode, Wilson, Mitchell & Vaughan-Lee 8,000 tons ?

Bangkok Memorial Bridge Bangkok, Thailand (Road) Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 755 feet 1,100 tons

Menai Suspension Bridge Menai Strait, Wales (Road) Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 1,265 feet Consulting Engineers to Ministry of Transport Sir Alexander Gibb & Partners 100 feet above water replaced Telford's bridge of 1826 3,200 tons

Strostrom Bridge, Denmark (Railways) Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 10,535 feet 21,000 tons

Chien Tang River Bridge, China (Railway and Road) Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 3,840 feet 16 equal spans 4,135 tons

Otto Biet Bridge over the Zambesi river, Zimbabwe Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 1,210 feet 1,242 tons

Khedive Ismail Bridge Cairo, Egypt Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 1,250 feet 3,000 tons

Dessouk Bridge, Lower Nile, Egypt Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 2.010 feet 10 spans including 194 feet swing span 3,800 tons

Limpopo Bridge, South Africa Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 1,515 feet 1,876 tons

Omdurman Bridge, White Nile, Sudan Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 2,012 feet 7 fixed spans, one swing span 3,700 tons

Tsing Ma Bridge, Hong Kong Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1994 Bosporus Bridge, Turkey Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1973Total length 1560 metres

Sydney Harbour Bridge Sydney, Australia Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 3,770 feet Total weight of fabricated steelwork 51,000. Weight of steel in the arch 38,000 tons.

Newport Bridge Middlesbrough, England Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough Total length 4,920 feet 8,000 tons

Birchenough Bridge, Zimbabwe Built by Dorman Long, Middlesbrough 1,242 tons

Victoria Falls Bridge, Zimbabwe Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1905

King Edward VII Bridge Newcastle, England Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1908

Nile Bridge, Egypt Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1909

Second Nile Bridge, Egypt Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1911

Verugas Bridge, Peru Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1936

Howrah Bridge, India Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1942

Auckland Harbour Bridge Auckland, New Zealand Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1959

Tamar Bridge, England Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1959

Forth Road Bridge, Scotland Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington / ACD Consortium 1964

Severn Bridge, Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington /ABB Consortium 1966

Wye Bridge, Built by Cleveland Bridge and Engineering, Darlington 1968

In 1904 the Dorman museum was given to the Middlesbrough by industrialist Sir Arthur Dorman in honour of his collector youngest son, George Lockwood Dorman, who was killed in the 1st World War. Amongst the museum’s many exhibits, is a collection of ceramics from the local Linthorpe pottery (1879-1889), which was renown for it’s iridescent glazes that at the time were produced no where else in Europe. The museum has one of the largest collections of these highly distinctive ceramics, in the world.