Middlesbrough grew from a farm with a few houses in 1830 into the iron and steel capital of the world within fifty years. Gladstone called it an "infant Hercules". The heavy industry has mostly gone, and it is not a pretty town, but it has a few things worth stopping for.
The Transporter Bridge of 1911, which carried a gondola for cars and people across the Tees, is the town's symbol. The Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art has a strong collection of twentieth-century and contemporary art. In Stewart Park on the southern edge of town, the Captain Cook Birthplace Museum marks the spot where James Cook was born in 1728. The local dish is the parmo, a breaded chicken escalope covered in béchamel and cheese.
