ELMFIELD is one of Darlington’s great hidden mansions. Thousands of people drive past it each day on one of the town’s major arterial roads and yet they never notice it exists; hundreds must dine from the pizza parlours that now conceal its front and not realise they are stepping into a wealthy banker’s villa that is nearly 200 years old.

And barely anyone knows that if you move a pile of cardboard boxes in a storeroom at the rear of a sweetshop that protrudes from the mansion, you will find a classic piece of Victoriana: a cast iron range complete with the name of its maker or supplier: “Henry Foster & Sons, Darlington”.

The Northern Echo: The Elmfield range

Elmfield is on North Road. Its front is hidden by Papa Johns’ pizza emporium and the Sweet Escape shop; its gardens are now the oasis that is North Lodge Park.

It was built around 1830 by banker William Backhouse, whose elder brother, Jonathan, had played a crucial role in bankrolling the Stockton & Darlington Railway. It was set back from North Road so there was room for an arced carriageway to deliver guests to the front door.

William laid out its grounds so that there were extensive woodland walks and a large boating lake. There was even a mulberry tree – only the second in Darlington, although Mulberry Terrace is now on top of it.

The Northern Echo: north lodge park, dton views of the boating lake, for chris lloyd. pic sn

The grounds of Elmfield featured an ornamental boat house and a lake. That's North Lodge Terrace in the background

Indeed, with the railway causing Darlington to expand rapidly, the Elmfield estate was under threat from developers almost as soon as William had built the mansion.

He sold its southern portion to John Beaumont Pease who built the North Lodge mansion, and terraces began to be built on its other edges.

The Northern Echo: Echo memories - Skaters on North Lodge park in the 1870s when it was owned by the Pease family - D11/06/03SN

Skaters on the lake in the late 19th Century. The boat house was demolished in the 1950s

William died suddenly in 1844 – the Backhouses seem to have had a congenital heart problem that caused them to drop dead unexpectedly. William, aged 65, keeled over in the Friends Meeting House, and in 1855, Elmfield was sold to Alfred Kitching, who ran the railway foundry in Hopetown. We met Alfred a couple of weeks ago (Memories 592) as, in 1845, he built the engine Derwent to work on the S&DR. It is now the oldest surviving Darlington-built loco and is on display in the Head of Steam museum.

The Northern Echo: Alfred Kitching, grandfather of the brothers and founder of Whessoe and builder of the Derwent

Indeed, in 1857, Alfred Kitching (above) built the 118th engine for the S&DR and he called it Elm Field after his new mansion.

As the 19th Century wore on, the Kitchings sold off more land for development and most of the terrace names have some connection to the family: they owned Branksome Hall in Cockerton so there’s Branksome Terrace; they had country houses in Surrey and Essex so there’s Kingston Street, Oakland Street and Chelmsford Street, and, of course, there’s Derwent Street, after the engine.

At the southern end of the estate, Gladstone Street and North Lodge Terrace were built around 1900.

The Northern Echo: Echo memories - Elmfield taken in 1921 from the park. The house can still be seen today although its glass conservatory has gone

Elmfield taken in 1921 from the park. Below: A similar view today

The Northern Echo: The rear of Elmfield

In fact, there were fears that all the parkland would be covered by dense terraces, so The Northern Echo started a campaign to save it and in 1902, the council bought it and created North Lodge Park.

Since then, Elmfield has been a spiritualist church and a dancing academy and has had various single storey retail extensions laid up against it so that its arcing carriageway is completely lost to pizza takeaways. It is so well concealed that you can barely see that this was once a posh mansion.

Recently, Memories was trying to explain this evolution to a camera crew for a Town’s Fund video when Ram, the current owner of Elmfield, invited us inside to see his treasured range.

What a surprise! It is in great condition and is in what appears to be in the service quarter of the original house.

The first cast iron ranges were patented in 1780 – before that, everyone cooked on open fires – so it is possible that it is from when the house was built in 1830, although our untutored eye thought it to be quite a bit later than that.

The Northern Echo: The plaque on the Elmfield range

The key to dating it could be in the name on it: “Hy Foster & Sons, Darlington.”

Henry Foster and Sons were builders merchants based in Crown Street, where one of the Sports Direct sister shops are today, from about 1885 until the First World War. It seems likely that they installed the range, having themselves bought it from a specialist range-maker, probably outside the town.

The Northern Echo: Brilliant detective work by the staff at the Darlington Centre for Local Studies has unearthed this picture of the Darlington Gas Company headquarters on the corner of Crown Street and Tubwell Row and, on the left, the wall of Henry Foster &

Brilliant detective work by the staff at the Darlington Centre for Local Studies has unearthed this picture of the Darlington Gas Company headquarters on the corner of Crown Street and Tubwell Row and, on the left, the wall of Henry Foster & Sons' builders' merchants advertising that the specialised in sanitaryware, plasterwork, bathrooms and, of course, fireplaces. It looks the gas headquarters are dressed up for the coronation in 1911 of George V

Are there any descendants of Fosters the builders still around; do you have an old range in your house?