Remembering the days when you could travel to anywhere in the world from Bishop Auckland station

Stephen Hood, in Darlington, gave fabulous chapter and verse: “It was the co-op bakery, at the top of Grey Street, behind Hutchinson Street. The smell of newly baked bread was always something to behold for us youngsters on our way to the recreation ground (the “rec” as it was always known).

“The arched entrance was where the horse drawn delivery vans used to be loaded up and then set off on their rounds around the town and surrounding villages.

“When the deliveries were over and the empty vans were on their way back, the drivers used to give the horses their heads at the Princes Street end of Grey Street and the horses used to set off at a gallop home, knowing that they would get a feed when they got back to base.

“The horses which pulled the milk carts were also stabled on the site. They knew the rounds as well as the milkmen and used to stop at each house they were delivering to without any prompting from the milkman.

“The whole site between the rec and the path to Johnnie Wright’s bridge over the railway line was owned by the co-op and also housed the funeral department before it moved to Tindale Crescent. There was also the dairy, the stables and an enclosure where cattle used to be kept awaiting milking.

“It was quite an attraction for us local kids, who used to look through the dairy windows and watch the bottles being filled with milk on the production line.

“We also were fascinated by the coffins stacked up in the funeral department, with the cabinet makers making them.”

READ MORE: 12 GREAT PICS OF BISHOP AUCKLAND STATION IN ITS HEYDAY

A great pic from John Askwith of Bishop Auckland station staff in the 1930s

So it's a bakery on the top left hand side of our picture

THE Bishop Auckland Industrial Co-operative Flour and Provision Society was formed in 1860, and it grew to become the biggest co-op in south Durham.

In 1875, it bought land in Durham Street, off Grey Street, for stables, and alongside them in 1888, it built its first eight houses for its employees.

In 1895, after great debate about whether it would put small village butchers out of business, it decided to go into butchery, and it took over the ailing Old and New Shildon Industrial Co-operative Butchers Society.

This was the Old and New Shildon Industrial Co-operative's butchers' department, which the datestone says was built in 1874, but taken over by the Bishop Auckland co-op in 1895. It was a splendid building. Can anyone tell us where it was?

The Bishop co-op immediately transformed the business – in its first six months, it made £1,395 profit and shifted 21,000 stone of beef, mutton and pork – and so built a £4,500 slaughterhouse and stables block in Grey Street beside Bishop Auckland station. This was complete in 1898.

The stables and slaughterhouse at the end of Grey Street were built in 1898

Its next expansion was into baking. As many of its members were miners who got free coals from their wives to bake with, it hadn’t felt there was much need for it to have a bakery.

However, in 1909, it built the bakery that is so dominant – it was 46ft tall – in our picture at the end of Grey Street. It was next to the stables and slaughterhouse, and it included two drawplate ovens from Messrs Werner, Pfleiderer & Perkins of Peterborough that could bake 52,000 loaves per week.

The bakery, overlooking Bishop Auckland station, was built in 1909 and could produce 52,000 loaves a week

The co-op’s next advance was in 1903 when it built Hutchinson Street, May Street and Garden Terrace on land next to the bakery. It rented these houses for 4s 3d a week and it named the streets “after great co-operators of either general or local fame”.

PETER GALLAGHER, in Norton, said: “The archway was the entrance to the abattoir. As kids, we would watch the cattle being driven from the cattle mart in South Church, over Newgate Street and on up to the abattoir. All the traffic was held up – what a sight!”

TONY LARKINGS, in Bishop, remembered that in the 1950s, the building was taken over by Ferens Bros, the well known miller: “I worked there from 1962 to 1964 when Ferens Bros made animal feed called Nitrovit there. I was a wagon driver’s mate and we went all over the North East delivering Nitrovit.”

Ferens closed in the late 1960s and the area was cleared in the 1970s. Now the houses of Wesley Grove stand on this site – it is quite a jolt when you travel along Grey Street past the traditional terraced houses that the co-op built and then come to the more modern ideals for living.

JOHN ASKWITH, the archivist of the Weardale Railway, draws us back to railways, and says: “The picture shows a Class G5 arriving from Durham. It may be terminating at Bishop Auckland or carrying on to Barnard Castle and Middleton-in Teasdale.

“This is quite a distance for a small engine, which might have started its journey from Sunderland, but quite within the range of this versatile locomotive.”

John points out that the Class G5 Locomotive Company is a group of enthusiasts who are building a Class G5 in Shildon to run on heritage lines and that, by coincidence, today is their open day. It runs from 10am to 1pm, and you’ll find them in Unit 8S at Hackworth Industrial Park, DL14 1HF.

TOM HUTCHINSON explained how Bishop Auckland, which was famously, and unusually, a triangular station, could have a Platform 4, as the sign in the picture shows. “Platform 4 was the open platform running along the third side of the triangular station,” he says. “It was used for excursions and the daily mail train.”

And he was among several people to pick up on one of our many inaccuracies when we referred to “Princess Street”. “It is Prince's Street or locally Princes Street, although in 1897 Ordnance Survey map shows it as Princess Street,” he says. “In the 1915 edition, it is shown as Prince's Street, which is how it has remained.”

This has always intrigued: does the Prince refer to the Prince Bishops, or was there a Mr Prince? Grey Street was presumably named after the great Liberal politician from Newcastle, Lord Grey, but who were Hutchinson, May and Johnnie Wright who had his own bridge?

JOHN HESLOP in Durham City said: “Your wonderful spread of photos of Bishop Auckland station stirred many memories of railway travel:

• As a toddler, living in Frosterley, travelling by train for my first holiday at Ireshopeburn.

• As a three-year-old, travelling to London for a family holiday with my mother’s sister.

• As a child, travelling from Bishop to Crook on regular occasions, to visit my mother’s favourite aunt.

• Travelling by train on school trips to Penrith (for Lakes tour), Chesterfield (for Derbyshire tour), Coventry (for the Cathedral and Warwick Castle) and twice to catch the overnight sleeper to King’s Cross, as the start of trips to France and Switzerland.

• A family trip to Sunderland, via Durham, for a pantomime.

• As a teenager, train-spotting Sunday mainline diversions from the Station bridge.

• As a college student, commuting from Bishop to North Road, for industrial training at British Railways Stooperdale Offices.

John finished by saying: “You could travel by rail to anywhere in the world from Bishop Auckland.”

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HUGE thanks to everyone who responded. Other respondees included Colin Hurworth, Peter Hall and many others, and there will be more matters arising from the station in future weeks. Several correspondents mentioned that Lingford’s had a presence near the co-op bakery and today there is a Lingford Court off Hutchinson Street. Can anyone tell us more about that? Any further station stories, please email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk