Big Cats on Teesside

By Chris Hall

I have been looking at the big cat phenomenon since I first discovered the now legendry beast of Exmoor incident in the daily papers of 1983. I followed the proceedings with interest, and kept many of the reports, which appeared in both the Daily Mail and the Daily Express. These have been copied and given to Mark Fraser for the groups archives.

In 1986, a now equally famous photograph appeared in the Northern Echo, a North East Local Paper, which showed a medium sized brown animal running across a field in County Durham, with what appeared to be a rabbit in its mouth. That was it I was hooked! I began to collect newspaper reports on any mystery cats, which appeared with particular regard to those from the North East of England, and specifically, those from Teesside.

Teesside, located in North East England, is a major industrial area, with massive petrochemical sites, other industries, and many urban centres, so it may seem, rather peculiar, if not downright strange that we should have any sightings of large out of place cats at all. The main activity in our part of the world is, concentrated on two hotspots, namely the Castle Eden walkway, and the village of Elswick, near Hartlepool. Other sightings form a rough triangle around this part of southeast Durham, and North Cleveland. The nearby villages of Sedgefield, Trimdon, Ferryhill, Wingate, Wynyard, Stillington, and Billingham, have all reported sightings over the last twenty years or so.

The main hotspot is the Castle Eden walkway, which used to be the Castle Eden branch of the North Eastern Railway; it was opened in 1877, and ran from Stockton on Tees, to Wellfield, near Wingate in County Durham. The line closed in 1968, and fell into disrepair until it was revitalised as the Castle Eden Walkway in 1981. Today the walkway sees about 170,000 visitors annually, several of whom report sightings of big cats from time to time. Many of these sightings can be found on Ian Bonds excellent website, Northumbria Big Cat diaries c/o www.bigcatsinbritain.org The other hotspot can be found to the east of the Castle Eden Walkway, near the village of Elswick near Hartlepool. Here in 2004, there was a spectacular sighting of two black animals, a mother and a juvenile, in a wooded area near a farm. The witness and his family had a good sighting of both animals, the details of which can again be found on Northumbria big cat diaries.

The most unusual sighting to my mind is the reported sighting in 2003, of a large black feline allegedly seen several times on the Newport Bridge, which crosses the river Tees near Middlesborough.

This is on one of the main routes in to the town, and even at night, it can be very busy. At first sight one wonders how anything could have gotten over this Bridge, however, Newport Bridge partly crosses the Tees marshalling yards here.

This former railway complex is these days greatly reduced, with much of the track work being taken up, and there are now plenty of unused brown field land, with lots of rabbits, and hiding places for anything to live in, or travel through almost unnoticed. There have even been occasional sightings of Deer in these Railway yards over the years, so a predator would have enough to sustain it.

The purpose of the project I am working on, is to show how an animal could move from one part of Cleveland to another, given that most of the area it would travel through, is either major urban, or industrial areas. This project will also be given as a presentation at the conference; and this article is a summary of it. I must state also that, I am no wildlife expert, nor am I a Naturalist, my main interest is in North East Transport History, however I find the idea of large cats existing in this part of the world absolutely fascinating, and deserves further research.

Whilst I am pleased to be involved with this group, my work commitments , and other things prevent me from going out to have a look for these animals, so I am at the moment confined to having a look at the Newspaper accounts, and plotting maps.

Sightings specifically on Cleveland, reports held by Cleveland Police, between 2001 and 2004.

To contact Chris with a sighting from the area or interested in helping out you can write to him at: 23 Old Road, Billingham,Teesside County of Cleveland, TS23 1DS, England Tel: 07824399043

1. 29/Sept/2000, Masefield Road Hartlepool. Big Black Cat, bigger than a Dog,observer was sure it wasn’t a Dog. The local Newspaper ‘Hartlepool Mail’ featured a similar sighting on the Hart by-pass several days previously.
2. 13/Aug/2001, Phoenix Park Hemlington, Middlesbrough . ‘Large Cat possibly a Lynx’.
3. 4th/Apr/2002, Danby Road Beck Norton, Stockton on Tees. ‘Black Panther, large black animal, with long tail, and orange or yellow eyes’.
4. 18th/Sept/2002, Lingdale Road Boosbeck. ‘Large Panther type cat’
5. 7th/Dec/2003, Stillington , Stockton on Tees. ‘Large black cat type animal, which the observer was not convinced that it was a domestic animal.’
6. 9th/ Dec/ 2004, Errington Wood New Marske, near Redcar. ‘ Black Panther, very large black cat, too big to be a domestic.