CALIFORNIA DREAMING

This is the site of 'California' - two or three rows of 19th century slum cottages housing some of the navvies who excavated the docks here in Hartlepool, the spoil from which was used to create the long high ridge in the cemetery from where I took this. It was also the site of a terrible outbreak of cholera in Victorian times, due to the lack of sanitation and overcrowded conditions. I think those old walls are original, and possibly one or two of those cottages, but I'm not sure.

There are two "Californias" in Hartlepool, and lots of others in industrial towns and farming communities all over England, as well as "Philadelphia" and similar names that can be found on the OS maps. I read somewhere that agents back in the olden days would advertise  job opportunities with housing and fortunes to be made in California and other wonderful-sounding faraway places, and poor labourers would be tricked into paying a fee to come to places like this, and would find themselves in debt to the agents or the employer and unlikely ever to free themselves. People trafficking is not a new phenomenon. Or perhaps that explanation is all wrong. I'm sure there are blippers who know.

Also, you'd be able to see my house beyond those trees, if it wasn't for the 'ouses in between.