Coulby Newham began as farmland and this is reflected in the names of some of the streets such as Lingfield, Manor Farm Way and Paddock Wood. 'Colebi' and 'Nieweham', were separate medieval hamlets when identified in the Domesday Book of 1086, formerly covered this site. The agricultural legacy of the area, reminiscent indeed of that of the entire wider Middlesbrough area, is still touched on today by the working Newham Grange Leisure farm, itself harking as far back to life in this particular spot of rural North Yorkshire as the 17th century. Only as the 1970s dawned, in the shadow of the rest of modern Middlesbrough's continual southerly urban expansion, did this change. Coulby Newham developed after the building of the A174 Parkway.
Education
The first major building in Coulby Newham was Coulby Newham Secondary School. Coulby Newham Secondary opened with Year 7-10 in the late 1970s, receiving many students that had been excluded from Acklam schools Hustler and Boynton. The school began with many young teachers and in its formative years was a successful school which was at the centre of the growing community of Coulby Newham. There are now three primary schools; Sunnyside Primary School, Rose Wood Academy and St Augustine's RC School. The suburb also contains two churches, Coulby Newham Baptist Church and a Roman Catholic cathedral.
Food chains
Coulby Newham remains a rapidly developing suburb of Middlesbrough, Tesco choosing to locate a new £2m store in the area in 2005. There are many new private housing developments in the suburbs, making Coulby Newham spread in the direction of Great Ayton and other villages close to the hills. Other large chain stores developed in Coulby Newham include Pets at Home, Halfords, Boyes, Home Bargains, Burger King, McDonald's, KFC, Poundland, Greggs, Cooplands, Specsavers, Costa and Subway.
Farm fire (2017)
In July 2017, a series of arson attacks took place at Newham Hall Farm; a 12-year-old boy was found responsible for one of the blazes, and two other boys of the same age were interviewed in connection with the fires.
