NEW council offices are to be named after an old villa which gave a town a reputation for its healthy air.

The new Social Services offices for Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, in Redcar, is to be called Seafield House, because the offices are built on the site of kitchen gardens belonging to a former old house of the same name.

Redcar historian Vera Robinson said that the house was called Seafields by Thomas Hudson Nelson, who was born in Bishop Auckland in 1856.

She said: "He intended to be a lawyer but a serious illness in his early twenties prevented this career and his doctor advised him to live on level ground with a more salubrious atmosphere - which is where Redcar gets its reputation from.

"His parents decided Redcar met the requirements and so built a villa on Coatham Road.

"He soon regained his health and took a keen interest in birds along the seashore and so the villa was called Seafields.

"The villa extended from Coatham Road to Kirkleatham Street and enclosed the house, an alleyway and an extensive garden. The new council offices are on the site of the garden."

Mrs Robinson said the villa later became the Mayor's Parlour and offices in the 1920s but was demolished to build Cherry Trees Home.

Mr Nelson went on to become a well-known ornithologist and a collection of his stuffed birds can be seen at the Dorman Museum, in Middlesbrough.

The new development department offices at Guisborough is to be called Belmont House as the name Belmont, and its alternative form of Belman, has a long association with the historic market town. Belmangate was recorded as a new name as early as the 12th Century.