“I AM researching Bishopton, where I live,” says Terry Hughes. “Does The Northern Echo have any old pictures in its archive?”
Bishopton is as far east as you can go in the borough of Darlington without entering the territory of Stockton. It has a TS postcode as its postal address is Stockton-on-Tees, and its phone numbers have an 01740 Sedgefield dialling code, so it seems a little confused about which camp it is in.
It is not a village that Memories has often encountered, so here are some archive pictures and a sprinkling of historic facts. If you can add to any of them, please do – what was the Stillington Ox?
The main street in Bishopton in August 1966
BISHOPTON is the scene of the best preserved of the 600 motte-and-bailey castles in the country which survive from the 11th Century (above). It is a giant sandpie, and its heyday 1,000 years ago was probably twice as tall as it is now – it is now 38ft tall and was once at least 60ft.
It was built around 1143 by Roger Conyers who was in conflict with Bishop William Cumyn of Durham. Cumyn’s men came to attack the castle but found it was so high and surrounded by such a deep moat that they didn’t bother and went home.
The Conyers family were based at Sockburn, and when Cumyn ceased to be bishop, they allowed his successor to take ownership of the castle, and so the village became Bishopton.
THE CONYERS were related by marriage to Sir George Bowes of Streatlam Castle, near Barnard Castle, who led Queen Elizabeth’s forces against the Rising of the North in November 1569. Consequently, most men of Bishopton remained loyal to the Protestant queen as the northern earls tried to reintroduce Catholicism.
The queen crushed them, and of the 16 villagers who had joined the losing side “4 suffered death by being hung in chains on the castle hill overlooking the village and their homes”.
Bishopton church in October 1959
THE first vicar of St Peter’s Church was probably Adam de Yersey in 1290. The church was almost entirely rebuilt in 1846 by the Rev TB Holgate who, with his three sisters, paid nearly all the £1,200 cost of the project. Only a few medieval walls remain from the original and a couple of 13th Century chests. On the outside is a sundial dated 1776 with the legend “fugit hora” – “the hour flies” – and the latitude 54 degrees and 38 minutes. Modern computers reckon the latitude is actually 54 degrees and 58 minutes, so the sundial is pretty close.
THE remains of an ancient stone cross were removed from the village green into the churchyard in 1883 when the vicar, the Rev Charles Ford, gave a new cross. That cross was replaced in 1923 by the war memorial (above) which still stands on the triangle of grass outside the church. It bears the names of 14 men who died in the First World War and two who died in the Second.
George Craggs unveils The Northern Echo Tidy Village Trophy in the centre of Bishopton in September 1979
IN 1818, Christopher Tennant of Stockton promoted a plan to connect the south Durham coalfield with the port in his town. It was a rival to the Darlington plan of the Peases and Backhouses. Mr Tennant’s surveyor, George Leather, suggested a canal 48ft wide and 6ft deep from Stockton to Bishopton to Rushyford to Evenwood. The railway plan triumphed, and Bishopton remained an agricultural backwater.
Looking down Bishopton High Street in September 1965
ON August 26, 1916, Lt-Col FV Holt of the Home Defence Wing of the Royal Flying Corps wrote to the vicar of Bishopton asking for haystacks and other obstacles to be removed from two fields to the south of the village so 36 Squadron could use them as an emergency landing ground. 36Sqdrn, based at Cramlington in Northumberland, had been tasked with protecting the east coast from the Forth to the Tees from German airships. The squadron also had emergency landing grounds to the west of Spennymoor, beside the A19 at Easington, and at Catley Hill which is to the west of Trimdon Village.
ON August 27, 1940, a few high explosive bombs were dropped on Bishopton by a German plane, destroying a barn (above). The same plane dropped bombs on Little Burdon, near Haughton-le-Skerne.
The Talbot in Bishopton in September 1961 when it was a Cameron's Brewery establishment. There appears to be a man of the cloth at the door
BISHOPTON now has two pubs: the Talbot, which was a medieval hunting dog, and the Bluebell. It used to have a third: the Stillington Ox. What was so famous about the Stillington Ox?
Above: The Blue Bell at Bishopton was badly damaged by fire in October 1985
Below: The Blue Bell on a snowy day, November 22, 1969, when it was a Charrington's establishment
AT 10.20am on January 29, 1991, Bishopton Post Office (above) was the scene of an armed robbery which shocked the community. The 64-year-old postmaster, John Hughes, was hit about the head by a tree branch by masked intruders who made off with £415 in cash. They dumped their stolen Mitsubishi in nearby Stillington and were spotted catching the bus to Stockton. Two raiders from Darlington were sentenced to four years in a Youth Offenders Institution.
Looking up Bishopton High Street in September 1962
IN 1801, Bishopton’s population was 349. In 2011, it was 366.
If you can tell us any more stories about Bishopton, we’d love to hear from you. Please email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk
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