Fighting Cocks: village battle to save its pub steeped in railway history – and the legacy of the saucy squire

Yet he left many illegitimate lines, thanks to his two mistresses whom he set up in identical homes on either side of a Methodist chapel, and he left his name on a pub: Fighting Cocks.

Squire Henry Andrew William Cocks, of Low Middleton Hall, who developed the pub, the ironworks and his friendships with several ladies

But villagers now fear that the pub is reaching the end of the line. It has just been designated as an Asset of Community Value, and the Middleton St George parish council has now launched a consultation exercise to see if it could be taken over by local residents.

Beyond its community value, Fighting Cocks – which has recently been going by the name of Platform 1 – also has historic value.

An Edwardian view of the Fighting Cocks pub, although its original frontage was on the side, facing the Roman road to Sadberge. Picture courtesy of Beamish The Living Museum of the North

It stands beside the trackbed of the Stockton & Darlington Railway (S&DR) at a road junction where a track west to Darlington branched off the Roman road which ran from York in the south over the Tees at Middleton One Row and onto Chester-le-Street.

When Locomotion No 1 first came rattling across the south Durham countryside 195 years ago, it was a lonely junction in the middle of very little, but that quickly changed.

At first, the railway dropped its coal in a siding beside the junction so that people could cart it off to their homes.

To make the job of delivering the coal more efficient, in May 1827, the siding was replaced by a coal drop. The track was raised so that wagons could be shunted over six coal cells. The bottoms of the wagons were opened and the coal cascaded into the cells from where it could easily be shovelled into waiting carts.

By 1829, 1,000 tons of coal a year were being delivered at Fighting Cocks along with 1,000 tons of lime and coal.

Delivering Beer to the Fighting Cocks Hotel by TW Baharie in 1901. This delightful image shows that the landlord was C Merrells, and the beer is coming from the Haughton Road Brewery in Darlington, which was behind the Havelock Arms on Albert Hill

The junction took its name from the emblem of the Cocks family whose descendants, the Killinghalls and the Pembertons, had owned the area for 600 years.

The hard-working shovellers at Fighting Cocks needed refreshments and so an enterprising farmer, William Woodhouse of Palm Tree House, began providing the required liquor.

Such was the initial success of the railway, in 1830-31, a “cottage for the accommodation of passengers and parcels and the sale of coals, lime etc” was built at the Fighting Cocks junction. The cottage was called Railway Lodge, but we today would understand it as “a railway station”.

Squire Henry Andrew William Cocks must have seen the economic potential of shovellers, railwaymen and passengers all hanging around thirstily at the “station”, and so shortly after 1832, he built an inn next to the coal depot. Mary Woodhouse, the wife of the Palm Tree farmer, was its earliest licensee.

The Fighting Cocks road junction: the Roman road goes north to Sadberge on the right, and the lane to Darlington goes left. The S&DR trackbed is behind the pub

It isn’t known precisely when the inn opened, although there are newspaper reports from May and June 1834 telling how “some daring thieves” had broken into the barn beside the Fighting Cocks inn and stolen “6 pokes, containing 12 bushels of red wheat”. The man found guilty of the crime had two previous convictions and so was transported to Australia for seven years.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the S&DR is watching how life evolves around it. The coal depot was enlarged to 12 cells; in the 1860s, Railway Lodge was rebuilt as a proper station, called Fighting Cocks; over the course of the 19th Century, the inn itself was extended and enlarged while clay pits and brickworks opened around it and a windmill sprung up nearby.

Then, in 1864, Squire Cocks had another brainwave: he realised that his inn was midway between the coalpits of south Durham and the iron ore mines of the Cleveland Hills. So he split the distance and opened his own blast furnace in the middle at Middleton St George.

Fighting Cocks station is now a private house, and the chimney and windmill have both gone

Within two decades, there were six blast furnaces burning night and day in his ironworks. It employed 300 men, largely Irish immigrants, and a village of 1,100 inhabitants had sprung up around it.

Further industry arrived in 1883, then the Dinsdale Steel and Wire Works opened near the Fighting Cocks. It used steel brought by the railway from Sheffield to make rods for telephones.

But as soon as the industrial flower of Fighting Cocks had bloomed, so it began to wither.

In 1887, a new loop line was opened into Bank Top station running through the new Dinsdale station, less than a mile south of Fighting Cocks. The old line, depot and station had their status downgraded and they now handled only goods.

Fighting Cocks station in use, with an ironworks chimney behind it and the stump of the cornmill

The ironworks also became outdated: the ironstone in the Cleveland Hills was all but exhausted as the 19th Century came to an end, and steel overtook iron. The works limped on until 1931, and today the new estates of Heathfield Park, Woolsington Drive and Woodlands Green occupy its site.

Then, in 1894, Squire Cocks died. He was unmarried and had no heir, and so his estate – including the Fighting Cocks pub – was split up to be sold off.

But he had plenty of children. In his will, he left £1,000 each to his “reputed sons” Henry Graham, Charles Robinson and Arthur Robinson, who were all established as farmers. He left another £1,000 to his “reputed son” Henry Wilkinson, the Middleton One Row postmaster, and a further £1,000 to the wife of his “reputed son”, Frederick Robinson – the squire had a low opinion of Frederick and expected him to be declared bankrupt so he put his inheritance beyond his reach.

Fighting Cocks station in its heyday, with the windmill in full sail

Then the squire left £2,000 each to “my reputed daughters”, Harietta, Louisa and Patience Graham, “children of my friend, the late Margaret Ann Graham of Middleton One Row”.

If the squire had been generous with his affections in life, he was generous with his donations in death. He left money to build the HAW Cocks Memorial Homes, which are still home to elderly people, and he left money to the Middleton One Row Methodist church which he had built in 1872.

The church dominates the one row, and it has identical houses on either side of it with splendid views over the Tees into Yorkshire.

The chapel at Middleton One Row. Squire Cocks is said to have built the identical houses on either side for two of his favourite mistresses

It is said that the houses were for Squire Cocks’ mistresses to live in: mistress Graham on one side and Mistress Robinson on the other.

Squire Cocks’ pub at Fighting Cocks was sold to Warwick’s Brewery of Rise Carr in Darlington, and eventually became part of Vaux. Even after the railway lined beside it was lifted in the 1970s, the pub retained its railway link – an old railway carriage was pressed into service as its restaurant.

A railway carriage used to be a restaurant at the Fighting Cocks pub

Now, though, the village fears the pub is “at risk”. Having got it listed as an Asset of Community Value in May, the parish council, with the help of the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, is asking people what they would like from the building and how they might be able to help. All residents should have received a paper copy of the survey, which should have been, and other interested parties – people who love their history or indeed their cycling and walking along the old railway line – can find it on the council’s website, middleton-st-george.org.uk

• With many thanks to Caroline Hardie of the Friends of the Stockton & Darlington Railway