Thornaby-on-Tees

Thornaby-on-Tees, commonly referred to as Thornaby, is a town and civil parish on the River Tees's southern bank. It is in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, North Yorkshire, England. The parish had a population of 24,741 at the 2011 census, in the Teesside built-up area. The town had a royal charter enacted to form a municipal borough in 1892, during the Victorian era, before merging into the County Borough of Teesside in 1968. A borough no longer defines a specific settlement's status as a town in England since the Local Government Act 1972 reforms. The modern centre was built on the north eastern part of Thornaby airfield and lies south-west of Stockton-on-Tees and south-west of Middlesbrough. There are other signs of Thornaby being a much older settlement. Traces of prehistoric man have been found, the earliest being a stone axe, 8 inches long, dating back to the Mesolithic Period (about 3000 BC). In 1926, a dugout canoe said to date from about 1600 – 1400 BC was found in the mud under of water opposite Thornaby High Wood. An arrowhead of the Neolithic Period (about 3000 BC) was found in a garden on Thornaby Village Green. Tormod and Thormanby The name Thornaby came into existence about AD 800 when the land was given by Halfdene (Halfdan Ragnarsson), King of the Danes, to Thormod, one of his noblemen, hence "Thormods-by" – Thormod's farmstead. Although the -by suffix originally meant a farmstead, many of these grew into villages, taking the -by suffix with them in their names as with other villages in the area, such as Danby, Faceby, Ingleby, Maltby and Ormesby. During the Battle of Hastings (1066), one of William the Conqueror's noblemen, Robert I de Brus, marched north with a garrison of men and occupied the area of Cleveland. William gave him those lands to control including Thornaby and Middlesbrough. King Sweyn II of Denmark, on 9 September 1069, defeated the Normans at York by killing the entire garrison of 3,000 men.