A1-The Great North Road
A grand old church and a high stone bridge.
Darnton has a bonny, bonny church
With a broach upon the steeple
But Darnton is a mucky, mucky town
And mair sham on the people.
This little ditty might have been composed by King James in 1603, but probably wasn't. Whether or no, most folk pass Darlington by on the by-pass that was one of the early motorway sections of the A1, opening in 1963, the others being round Stevenage and west of Doncaster. But lets take a closer look at this fine town.
Defoe did not seem over-impressed with Darlington: "Darlington, a post town, has nothing remarkable but dirt, and a high stone bridge over little or no water, the town is eminent for good bleaching of linen, so that I have known cloth brought from Scotland to be bleached here."
Three decades later Bishop Richard Pococke is writing to his sister of his English journey north from Catterick Bridge in May of 1760: "I went 5 miles in the road towards Peircebridge, (his spelling) and turning to the north came in three miles to the Tees, which we forded into the Bishoprick of Durham, and came in two miles to Darlington, situated on a rivulet (the Skerne) which is famous for bleaching. The copper and lead mines here destroyed most of the fish in the Tees in these parts, and they have had a sute to hinder the water running into the Tees that comes from the washing of the ore, but have been cast.
So industrial pollution was a live issue in the mid 18th century. The Tees is evidently much cleaner these days (unless the anglers are just enjoying the views).
Darlington did not impress Harper either, though he waxed pretty lyrical over an old rock: "Beyond its grand old church, Darlington has nothing of great antiquity to show the stranger, save one object of very great antiquitity indeed, before whose hoary age even Norman and Early English architecture is comparitively a thing of yesterday. This is the Bulmer Stone, a huge boulder of granite, brought by glacial action in some far-away ice-age from the heigfhts of Shap Fell indistant Westmoreland to the spot on which it has ever since rested. Darlington has meanwhile risen out of the void and lonely countryside; history has passed by, from the remote times of the blue-stained Britons, down to the present era of the blue-habited police; and that old stone remains beside the road to the North. Modern pavements encircle it, and gas-lamps shame with their modernity its inconceivable age, but not with too illuminating a ray, and the stranger roaming Darlington after nightfall has barked his shins against the unexpected bulk of the Bulmer stone, just as effectually as countless generations before him have done."
On the other hand, according Francis Whellan, in 1894: "It is a prosperous and increasing town on the great North Road, 18 miles south of Durham, 11 west-south-west of Stockton, 16 east-south-east of Richmond, and 237 north-north-west of London. It possesses many attractive surroundings, especially on the south and west, where the aspect of the country is picturesque and well-wooded, and adorned by many fine mansions, the residences of the principal gentry of this part of the county. The town is well laid out, and is considered one of the cleanest towns in the North." And I would concur. Today Darlington is a busy market town, even when it isn't market day. Several of the little lanes, known here as Yards or Wynds, still exist, lined with small shops; the indoor covered market thrives and, of course, there's a new shopping mall. Best of all is the library. Not only does it include an art gallery and all the latest computer stuff, it actually has books. Lots of them. In fact there are probably more books on Yorkshire in the local studies section than there are in York library. And this is County Durham.
Recently the River Skerne has been the subject of a wonderful River Restoration Project
As Temple relates, the first turnpike through Darlington was "...the High Road leading from Borough Bridge in the County of York, through Northalerton in the same county, to Croft Bridge on the River Teeas, and from thence through Darlington, in the County of Durham, to the City of Durham;" to quote from the 1745 Act. There were three toll bars in the Darlington area, at Croft Bridge to the south, Harrowgate, just north of the town and at Sunderland Bridge further up the road.
Aycliffe was the place where Robert Stephenson's Locomotion started the transport revolution that ended the coaching era but, oh the irony, the steam engine's first journey was by road, by the Great North Road, from Stephenson's works in Newcastle to Aycliffe on September 16, 1825.
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Sketch by Charles Harper |
Harper, in 1901, described Rushyford Bridge as "...a pretty scene, where a little tributary of the Skerne prattles over its stony bed and disappears under the road beside that old-time posting-house and inn, the 'Wheatsheaf'. The old house still stands and faces down the road; but it has long since ceased to be an inn, and , remodelled in recent taste, is now a private residence." |
The old Wheatsheaf has reopened as the Eden Hotel, part of the Swallow Hotels chain, though it is house martins rather than swallows that nest under the eaves. |
Lincolnshire
©Biff Vernon 2001, 2002
