How we celebrated Jubilee in years gone by

AYCLIFFE: Elsewhere in today’s paper, we tell of the double diamond jubilee in Aycliffe Village.

The Aycliffe Diamond Jubilee School officially opened on April 8, 1898, with its regal name in the brickwork staring down on travellers on the Great North Road.

It had cost £700 to build, it had required 80,000 bricks, it had 122 pupils on its first register, and it was the result of the most spectacular fall-out between the village vicar and the local schoolmaster (we last told of the Battle of Aycliffe in 2006 and you will find the story on the Echo Memories blog).

It ceased as a school in 1970, when a new primary was built nearby, and was turned into a village hall, where this weekend it will join with the Aycliffe villagers in celebrating its second diamond jubilee.

Crook: The Church of Our Lady Immaculate and St Cuthbert opened in 1854, one of 100 Catholic churches designed by Edward Welby Pugin, whose father, Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, designed the interior of the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben.

In 1897, the parishoners in Crook celebrated the jubilee by collecting money – some gave up a day’s pay – to complete their church and add their own Big Ben: a two-faced clock.

In 2012, parishoners have aptly celebrated the jubilee by raising £6,700 to restore their Victoria clock – its faces had to be removed after they were damaged by vandals with air rifles.

EGGLESCLIFFE: The Norman Church of St John the Baptist has “a peal of eight tubular bells” which commemorate Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

GAINFORD: A “centuriesold” cross has been a feature of Gainford green since time began. In 1790, it moved from the centre of the green to near the church, and then, to commemorate the 1897 jubilee, it was moved to the north-west side.

A public subscription raised enough money to place a new stone shaft and head on the cross and therefore the only part which is truly centuriesold is the well-worn top step.

Villagers had hoped to pipe water from the sweet well near the Tees into their homes, but after restoring the cross, their jubilee budget ran dry.

However, their diamond celebrations began earliest of all: at 6.30am, a bugler bugled in the churchtower. This was supposed to call the bellringers from their 7am peal, but most have awoken everyone.

Guisborough: The Silver Jubilee of 1935 is commemorated by the King George V Playing Fields, home of Guisborough Town FC.

MIDDLEHAM: Audrey Waudby reports that the jubilee memorial fountain in the centre of the North Yorkshire village’s upper square is being restored and, on Monday, the water should be turned on once again, allowing it to play continuously for the first time in living memory.

The fountain is one of the finest pieces of Victoriana in our area, although in its heyday, its spurting dolphins were known to drench passers-by. Its restoration is surely a fitting way to mark Elizabeth’s diamond jubilee.

The people of Middleham started collecting money for it in 1887 – Victoria’s golden jubilee – although it wasn’t until 1890 that they had enough to buy such a grand object – it cost £150, which is about £16,000 in today’s values.

The workmen recently discovered that just below ground level the fountain is inscribed “W HARTLEPOOL”, which must be where it came from.

The fountain has acanthus leaves, lions’ heads and entwined dolphins, plus a carving of a regal-looking queen.

Nearby is an iron ring in the paving where a bull was tied before it was baited with dogs, and close by is the Swine Cross – the remains of a 15th Century market cross, which has a weathered carving of a white boar on it. The boar was the emblem of Richard III, the most famous occupant of Middleham Castle, which overlooks the Victoria Jubilee Fountain.

ORMESBY: In 1897, local benefactor Miss Elizabeth Caroline Brown, of Ormesby House, paid for a jubilee lamp to be erected in the High Street of this village which has been consumed by Middlesbrough.

In 1967, in the process of the lamp being moved to its current location in Church Lane, it was “damaged beyond repair”, and so it is now a cross, left.

In 1935, Colonel Pennyman of Ormesby Hall built Jubilee Bank: 28 estate workers cottages dedicated to George V’s Silver Jubilee.

SEDGEFIELD: The 13th Century church dedicated to St Edmund also has clock that was installed to commemorate Victoria’s diamond jubilee.

West Auckland: A reservoir, built at the west end of West Auckland in the 1830s, pumped drinking water to the pant, which was erected in 1840.

The local reservoir and the pant became redundant in 1872 when Waskerley reservoir opened on the top of the Durham moors, but for the 1897 diamond jubilee, the pant was restored and connected to the reservoir supply.

On June 22, 1897, the West Auckland jubilee procession, comprising 800 schoolchildren, stopped at the pant at noon.

Everyone sang the National Anthem and Alderman House turned on the Waskerley water so that the pant became a drinking fountain and a cattle trough.

Now the pant is again dry, and a pretty memorial garden was built around it in 2009.

WHORLTON: An 1887 golden jubilee drinking fountain.