Stockton Manor was granted to the see of Durham after the Conquest. A fortress was built, as was so necessary in those days, and the place was visited in 1214 by King John. In the sixteenth century Stockton was a town to which a Bishop of Durham might retreat from the Plague. The castle was taken by the Parliamentarians in 1644, and destroyed, the only stone houses in Stockton a few years ago being such as were built from the castle walls. There is one fine street and a Borough Hall, but every other part of Stockton bears witness to the fact that a town which is engaged in growing and prospering has neither time nor inclination to attend to its looks. As to the growth of the last half century, there is only one town--the neighbouring Middlesbrough--by which it has been excelled. At the beginning of the century Stockton had already a shipping trade, but one that could seem important only in the eyes of its 11,000 inhabitants. At that time the river kept a tortuous, shallow course until it arrived at the wide, sandy flats which stretched far eastward to the sea. The first improvement was a straightening of its course, which dates back to the year 1810. The effect was a heightening of the tide from eight to ten feet at Stockton Quay, and little short of a doubling of the shipping trade. The construction of the first public railway came just in time to encourage the town in its efforts at development. A Tees Conservancy was formed, with the consequence that the river was so dredged, banked up, and reformed generally, that Stockton is now not only a considerable port and an important manufacturing town, but a centre of shipbuilding, the vessels built here being as large as many of those which are constructed on the Tyne. Wealth and population have increased enormously, and there seems no necessary limit to further industrial development.