Riotous assembly

The market - the buying and selling, the rhythm of trade - has been the heartbeat of Darlington for amillennium ormore.TheBishop of Durham, the most powerful man in the county, was in charge of themarket and, being a good holyman, he attempted to make as much money out of it as he could.

He charged the stallholders rent, and he levied taxes on everything that was bought and sold.

To ensure he didn't miss out on a farthing that was due to him, he employed a platoon of people to collect his tolls, to check people's baskets, to weigh and measure all the goods using his own weights and measures, which he could alter at will.

His men even rang the bell that signalled trading when could start and when it must end.

However, regulating a market is not as simple as it sounds, and very soon the bishop's platoon of people had grown into an army of bureaucrats - a similar sort of expansion has been witnessed in our lifetimes with the growth of the bureaucrats overseeing the European Common Market.

The bishop didn't have straight cucumber counters or bendy banana checkers, but in the 17th Century he employed in Darlington two constables "for the searching and weighing of bread", two searchers of black leather, two searchers of red leather, two searchers of weights, plus tasters of ale, bread and butter, and four afferors, who went round collecting fines.

It was a tricky business doing business: in 1621, the bishop ordered that his ale tasters must do their job more diligently or be fined 3s 4d; in 1756, he ordered his constables to prosecute all "monopolists, profiteers, engrossers and regraters" on Darlington market.

All of which required a mountain of paperwork, so a town clerk was employed.

All of which required someone to be in charge in the bishop's absence, so a borough bailiff was employed.

And all of these officials needed some office space. So at the top end of the market, where the Covered Market is today, a tollbooth was built - there is a reference to it being repaired as early as 1293.

Gradually the tollbooth grew: a large barn-like extension doubled as a public meeting room and a courthouse.

Justice was dispensed on the upper floor, which was reached by a frightening flight of exterior steps without any handrail.

At the dawn of the 19th Century, leading Darlingtonians decided that the "unsightly mass of rubbish" that was the ancient tollbooth needed to be replaced.

The night before it was demolished, hundreds if not thousands of rats made their way from the doomed building down to the Skerne.

The townsmen had borrowed £2,000 (worth about £150,000 today) from some old ladies and had an Italianate plan drawn by Samuel Wilkinson, of the King's Head hotel.

They started work on April 13, 1808, when the foundation stone was laid by George Allan of Blackwell Grange.

Churchbells rang and people cheered, either because they were very impressed by the thought of a new Italianate town hall or because they had been given a day's public holiday.

The new town hall was where the clocktower is today at the top of Tubwell Row, with Dame Dorothy Browne's Market Cross (see Memories 127) beside it.

In 1815, a shambles - a meat market and slaughterhouse - was added. Although shambles were usually shambolic, the only existing drawing of Darlington's shambles makes it look rather elegant.

Goings-on at the town hall were a shambles, though.

For a start, the magistrates - those upholders of justice who used the upstairs hall for their courtroom - were tardy at paying their annual rent of ten guineas.

In 1828, the bailiff admonished them for late payment, and in 1842, the clerk ordered that the courtroom door be locked against them until they had paid up.

The police had their first cell in the town hall, but in 1839 the bishop's men admonished them for its "filthy condition".

In 1841, the police were at the centre of two riots (see panel), during which all the windows in the building were broken, so the bishop's people were probably relieved when in1846, the police moved out to Grange Road.

Increasingly, though, the bishop was a spent force. In 1850, a Local Government Board of Health was set up to bring an element of democracy to the town's governance, and in 1856 it agreed to buy the bishop out of the market - to buy the town hall, the shambles and all of his rights to taxes and tolls - for £7,885 (about £750,000 today).

The board, dominated by the Quaker Pease and Backhouse families, then decided to knock down the small town hall and cover much of the Market Place with a Covered Market and a plush new town hall that befitted their important status.

The townspeople were aghast. Their 40-year-old town hall didn't need replacing; they didn't want their rates to be wastedmaking councillors comfy; they didn't want their broad and wide Market Place built upon.

A poet protested: "Of all the towns in England, old Darlington for me, It has the finest Market Place that ever my eyes did see: It stands upon a gentle slope from the High Row to the brook, On such a spacious Market Place with delight the people look.

"It's the heart and life of Darlington, the breathing place for all Each freehold has its common right, thereon to place a stall, A right which in long ages past was granted by the Crown.

"Watch! Freemen! Or the Board of Health will foully crush it down.

"Arouse my townsmen! Meet the foe, and beard him face to face.

"Resolve that bricks and mortar shall not block your Market Place.

"Up and be doing! Guard your rights, though recreant souls may frown, And our Grand Old Healthy Market Place for aye shall bless the Town."

However, as we shall see next week in a special market Memories, the controversy was only the beginning.