Teesside In 1974 the County Borough of Teesside was absorbed into the larger non-metropolitan county of Cleveland along with the towns of Hartlepool and Guisborough. The Teesside area was partitioned between the boroughs of Stockton-on-Tees, Middlesbrough and Langbaurgh, with the wards of Billingham East & West, Grangefield, Hartburn, Mile House, North End, Norton, Stockton South, Thornaby East & West going to Stockton; the wards of Coatham, Eston Grange, Kirkleatham, Ormesby, Redcar and South Bank going to Langbaurgh; and the rest going to Middlesbrough. Local government reorganisation in 1996, recommended by the Banham Review, saw the county of Cleveland broken up into
English of Northumbria (spoken in mining towns such as Ashington), Mackem (spoken in Wearside) and arguably Smoggie (Teesside). It is spoken mainly if not exclusively in the modern day counties of Northumberland, Tyne and Wear and Durham. The Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria was much more extensive than this, covering most parts of Yorkshire, and some parts of Cumbria, Lancashire and Scotland. The major Northumbrian dialects today are Geordie, Northern Northumbrian, Western Northumbrian, Southern Northumbrian or Pitmatic, Mackem, and arguably Smoggie, which is transitional between Northumbrian and Yorkshire English. To an outsider's ear the similarities between the dialects far outweigh the differences between the