Cleveland Ironstone Formation

The Cleveland Ironstone Formation is a sequence of marine ironstone seams interbedded with shale and siltstone units which collectively form a part of the Lower Jurassic System of rocks underlying Cleveland and North Yorkshire. Exploitation of the ironstone seams became a major driving force behind the industrialisation of the Teesside district during the mid- to late-1800s.

Based on the stratigraphy of the formation, the Cleveland Ironstone was found to belong within the Upper Pliensbachian (Domerian) universal stage. Ironstone seams and accompanying shales may be highly fossiliferous with remains so abundant in parts as to form well-developed shell-beds. Analysis reveals a wealth of shallow-water marine species, some in life position, along with trace fossils including Rhizocorallium burrows well exposed at Old Nab, east of Staithes.

Economically, the Cleveland Ironstone proved to be a crucial catalyst with the power to reinvigorate the flagging commercial fortunes of the River Tees and surrounding district. The occurrence of ironstone in Cleveland has been known about for many centuries with evidence of small scale working predating the occupation of Roman Britain. Despite much early attention, the true extent of the Cleveland ore-field remained a mystery until the late-1840s, when ironmaster John Vaughan (1799–1868) and mining engineer John Marley (1823–1891), both of the Bolckow Vaughan company, traced seams of ironstone along the coast between Staithes and their northerly outcrop on the escarpment of the Eston Hills overlooking the River Tees.

Vaughan and Marley's evidence of a large scale body of workable iron ore in close proximity to both coal and limestone from County Durham, together with the district's developing communications network by rail and sea, proved a heady concoction. Combine with this an insatiable appetite for manufactured goods driven by the Industrial Revolution and a cohort of shrewd opportunist business speculators, and it may come as no surprise that Middlesbrough developed rapidly, led by Bolckow Vaughan, which mined and refined iron, and manufactured goods from it. The town grew from a mere idea in the late-1820s, to become the commercial centre of one of the world's greatest iron and steel producing regions in little over two generations. By 1881, the year of Middlesbrough's Golden Jubilee, output of ironstone drawn from the Cleveland ore-field exceeded 6,000,000 tons (6,096,360 tonnes).

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