Middlesbrough was historically part of North Riding of Yorkshire but the town became the center for the County Borough of Teeside in 1968, which in turn, in 1974, became the non-metropolitan county of Cleveland. Then in 1996 Cleveland was done away with and the unitary authority because it became Middlesbrough with in the North Yorkshire ceremonial county. Since Middlesbrough is just about completely urbanized, it is very different from other Teeside districts. It is the largest town when it comes to land and number of people but the smallest actual district.
Middlesbrough is located on the River Tees south bank just a few miles down form the North York Moors National Park edge. Three miles to the east is the United Kingdom's third largest port, Teesport and eight miles to the west, near Darlington, is the Durhan Tees Valley Airport. To Middlesbrough's north is the Tee Estuary that is the home of a colony of breeding seals that live on its sandy beaches. In 2000, over seven thousand salmon as well as thirteen thousand sea trout made there way through the estuary.
The St. Cuthbert Church consecrated a monastic cell in 686 after it was requested by St. Hilda Abbess of Whitby. Robert Bruce, in 1119, granted and confirmed the church of St. Hilda of Middleburg to Whitby. In 1537 Henry VIII dissolved all monasteries but up until this time the church was kept up by twelve Benedictine monks. By 1801 Middlesbrough was just a hamlet, with only twenty five residents who resided in four farm houses.
During the last part of the 19th Century it experienced a population growth larger than England had ever seen. It reached its peak population in the 1960s at around 165,000 and then saw a decline in the 1980s down to 134,000 only to see another rise from 2001 to 2004 to 142,000. Then in 2005 it was 147,000 and it jumped way up in 2006 to 190,000. During WWII it was the first major British town to be bomb as an industrial target in May of 1940. Then in 1942 a singe Dornier 217 dropped several bombs on the railway station.
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