Billingham is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, England. The town is on the north side of the River Tees and is governed by Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. The settlement had previously formed its own borough but was overshadowed by its neighbour. The town had a population of 35,165 at the 2011 Census. The town was founded circa. 650 by a group of Angles known as Billa's people, which is where the name Billingham is thought to have originated. In modern history, the chemical industry, and in particular the company ICI, has played an important role in the growth of Billingham. Today ICI no longer operates in Billingham, having been replaced by other companies. History Early centuries A clue to Billingham's early origins is seen in the prominent Anglo-Saxon tower of St Cuthbert's Parish Church. The tower was built c. AD 1000, but elements of a late-7th/early-8th-century nave also remain. There is also a 7th-century grave-marker from the church in the British Museum. Chemical industry and ICI With the declaration of the First World War, a high demand for explosives led to a massive expansion of Billingham. In 1917, the town was chosen to be the site of a new chemical works supplying ammonia for the war. However, the plant wasn't completed until 1920, after the war had ended. The Brunner Mond Company took over the site and converted it to manufacture fertilisers. In December 1926, Brunner Mond merged with three other chemical companies to form Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), who took control of the plant. ICI began to produce plastics at Billingham in 1966. Aldous Huxley visited the newly opened and technologically advanced Brunner and Mond plant at ICI and gave a detailed account of the processes he saw. The introduction to the most recent print of Brave New World states that Huxley was inspired to write the novel by this Billingham visit. Henry Thorold in the Shell Guide to County Durham states: From 1971 to 1988 ICI operated a small General Atomics TRIGA Mark I nuclear reactor at its Billingham factory to produce radio-isotopes for use in process instrumentation such as level measurement devices. In addition to its own on-site coal-fired power station, ICI also operated the coal-fired North Tees Power Station, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, on the banks of the Tees to provide electricity for its plants. The latter was eventually