Stockton-on-Tees / Stockton on Tees / Stocton / Stoketon

The Victoria County History (Durham, vol. 3, 1928) notes: "In the ordination of the chapel of Stockton made before 1237 it was agreed that the vicar of Norton should find the chaplain and that his parishioners in Stockton, Preston and Hartburn should have right of baptism and burial at Stockton [...] Stockton chapel, which may have been of much earlier origin, thus became a parochial chapelry practically independent of the parish church. Later it was described as the free chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr. [...] The church of St. Thomas is a building of red brick with stone dressings erected in 1710–12 [...] slightly to the north of the old chapel which was pulled down at the time of its erection. No record of the appearance of the old chapel has been preserved, but it was pronounced 'ruinous and too little' in 1705. [...] The font also is original [i.e., early-18th century], with an octagonal fluted bowl of Frosterley marble." [NB: we have no information on the medieval font of the old chapel -- all the other churches of Stockton (Holy Trinity, St, James, St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, and St. Paul are modern, of the 19th century, as is the church of All Saints at Preston-upon-Tees].