DOWN a side street just off the town centre beat.

Through a blank door with a picture of a key in the glass above it. Into a hallway with the key emblazoned on the floor in a black-and-white mosaic that has been gently shaped by generations of passing feet. And then up a steep flight of stairs, pausing halfway for breath on a landing concealed from the street by frosted glass, before finally reaching one of Darlington’s best kept secrets.

A secret that is 100 years old today.

It is the New Club, and it is in Quebec Street, although not many people have heard of either.

Those who have often refer to it as the Key Club, because its 120 all-male members need a key to unlock the blank front door opposite Wilkinson’s store to gain access.

Once at the top of the stairs, the £90-a-year club reveals that it has secretly amassed everything any selfrespecting man could wish for: a bar for beer, some barstools for company, a Northern Echo for the crossword, a television for the football and three large snooker tables for the fun of it.

Shining in pride of place on the far wall is a large shield that shows the competitive element at the heart of the New Club.

Members have been playing snooker and billiards every year since before the First World War, each generation adding a new outer ring on which to inscribe in silver the names of the latest champions.

But, in time-honoured English fashion, it is a club that likes to keep itself to itself. It is a private club that keeps itself private.

For instance, none of its founders merited an obituary in the local press, and none of the club’s major landmarks have gained any column inches.

Fortunately, its books of minutes have recorded its story.

On the first page of the first volume, GF Pearce’s tidy hand noted how, at 8pm on May 13, 1909, a group of acquaintances met in his town centre rooms “to discuss the desirability of forming a social club”.

They appear to have been working men who were doing all right for themselves, running their own small businesses, such as printing, painting and decorating, building or motoring. They were men who wanted to be free from the baggage of politics, religion or any form of affiliation. They were men who just wanted to be men.

Within four days, they’d formed a committee and found premises in Russell Street “admirably fitted for our purpose”.

They came up with a name – “The Darlington Private Club” at first – and set annual subscription at one pound and one shilling.

They worked quickly, inspecting samples – “the 10/6 armchair be ordered in place of the one at 7/11”, says a minute – and appointing a steward. They formally adopted the name “The New Club” and were ready for opening – without any recorded ceremony – on Saturday, October 2, 1909.

On February 26, 1915, again without any recorded ceremony, they moved to nearby premises in Russell Street – on the junction with Northgate, directly under today’s inner ring-road roundabout beside Marks & Spencer.

The lease there was due to run out in the late Twenties, so in good time the committee started casting around for another home.

Their eyes alighted on a vacant building on the corner of Crown Street and Quebec Street.

This had been the home of the North Star newspaper, the Conservative rival of the Liberal Northern Echo.

The Star had published its first edition on January 6, 1881. Its driving force was William Alexander Wooler, of Sadberge Hall, and it counted among its early supporters Henry Surtees, of Redworth Hall, WH Todd- Wilson, of Halnaby Hall, Lord Londonderry, of Wynyard Hall, and Viscount Castlereagh, who undoubtedly lived in another hall somewhere.

The Star had started in Priestgate, only 20 yards from the Echo and, on August 13, 1883, it opened its new purpose-built premises only 100 yards from its bitter rival.

Its printing press – bought new from Paris and fired by an eight horsepower gas engine – was on the ground floor. The reporters’ rooms, editor’s office and the composing room were above it. It was a grand building, designed by Darlington’s greatest architect, GG Hoskins, best known for the fire-ravaged King’s Hotel and Middlesbrough Town Hall.

He designed it to complement the library diagonally opposite, which was on his drawing board at the same time.

The North Star felt he succeeded. It said:

“The harmonious whole and excellence of design, from the pallisading kerbstone to the most retiring of the chiminies, which characterise the entire structure are results only to be attained by the most skilled and painstaking of architects.”The office opened with great fanfare and aristocratic feasting, but the Tory rag lasted only until January 1924, when it disappeared into the Newcastle Journal.

In 1926, the small businessmen of the New Club saw an opportunity.

Despite great legal difficulty, the members found a way of lending their own club enough money to match the £5,200 asking price, and then they raised a further £2,450 to turn the ground floor press hall into shops.

On the first floor, they converted the journalists’ offices into private rooms in which card and board games were played and beer was drunk – the rooms were connected to the bar by a bell which summoned the steward when a glass was in danger of being emptied.

The composing room was turned into a comfortable snooker hall.

It opened, unsurprisingly without any recorded ceremony, on November 7, 1927.

And it is still there today, one of the few remaining places where men can be men without the presence of women.

It is a secret oasis that privately hides its light behind a blank front door.

But at last let it be recorded that tonight there will be a centenary celebration for honorary members (those aged 65 or over with 25 years or more membership), and on May 23, there will be a centenary ball in the Freemasons Hall.

Yet, for all this anniversary blaze of publicity, it is still very much a private club: membership is by introduction only.