A £1.8m estate in the middle of the gorgeous Teesdale countryside has recently been put on the market for the first time in a century, and it comes with plenty of railwayana.
There's the trackbed of the old railway that ran from Barnard Castle over the heights of Stainmore; there's a rare iron aqueduct that once decapitated an unlucky engine driver, and there's a derelict signalbox (below) that once controlled traffic over the amazing Deepdale viaduct and into the nearby Cat Castle Quarry.
READ MORE: THE £1.8m ESTATE FOR SALE WITH LOADS OF ADDED RAILWAY HISTORY
The name of that quarry is very intriguing, but we've never heard an explanation. In fact, Fletcher's Picturesque Yorkshire, a guidebook published in 1903, says: "Some distance along Deepdale, the traveller will find a pile of frowning rocks rising high above the surrounding foliage. This is known as Catcastle, but there is no local information as to the meaning or derivation of the name."
“The first time I visited Deepdale was during the 1980s on a guided walk organised by Durham County Council, and the leader of the walk said there was a theory that it was a place where wildcats had once lived,” says Ian Race. “Hundred of years ago, wildcats were present in northern England, not just the Highlands of Scotland, as they are today.
“Certainly, at the top of Deepdale, the landscape is very rugged, with exposed rocks, looking like a "castle".”
A Scottish wildcat - the last of Britain's wildcats
The European Wildcat crossed into Great Britain at the end of the last Ice Age about 9,000 years ago, about 7,000 years before the Romans introduced the domesticated cat. In comparison to their domesticated cousins, wildcats are larger with pointed ears and spherical skulls.
Wildcats were once common in England but by Victorian times had been driven back to the Cairngorms where the Saving Wildcats project is today trying to help them cling on.
So was Cat Castle one of their last strongholds in the dales?
We’ve also heard a story that the distinctive hillock in the valley at Saltburn, known as Cat Nab, was their last stronghold in Cleveland.
Catnab at Saltburn, the distinctive conical hillock, is said to get its name from one of the last colonies of Cleveland wildcats
A COUPLE of weeks ago, we were salivating at the amazing banquet served on October 25, 1888, in the Exchange Hall, Middlesbrough, by the finest firm of caterers outside London, Ferguson & Forrester, to mark the opening of South Gare – the two-and-a-half mile long finger of manmade land which creates the mouth of the River Tees and so allowed much of the Teesworks site to be claimed.
READ MORE: THE OPENING OF THE LIGHTHOUSE AT THE END OF THE WORLD
READ MORE: THE FABULOUS FRENCH FARE AT THE OPENING OF SOUTH GARE
The banquet concluded with Poudin a la Nesselrode, the most fashionable pudding of the 1880s, a bit like our era’s Sticky Toffee Pudding only much fancier, and served frozen from a bombe mould.
It was named after Count Karl von Nesselrode (above), who was hugely influential across all Europe as the Russian foreign minister between 1816 to 1856. He loved chestnuts and so his personal chef, Jean Mouy, created a couple of chestnut-based desserts for him.
“I was a catering student at Darlington college from 1975 to 1977, where the training was in French classic cuisine,” says Alison Cocking. “During my training, I made the majority of the items on that menu including the Nesselrode pudding.
“It is indeed a frozen custard based dessert with mixed peel, sultanas, currants and chestnut puree. Whipped cream is folded into the mixture, and after freezing, it is served with glacé chestnuts.”
Often there is also Maraschino cherry liquor drizzled into the poudin.
“I have only made it once since I was a student, when I was teaching hospitality and catering at Middlesbrough College, which was originally Kirby College, and I made it with a class of level 3 Patisserie students,” she says.
“The taste depends if you like chestnuts. I found it quite palatable. The level 3 Patisserie students weren't so impressed.”
READ MORE: THE IRISH DOCTOR WHO TREATED THE DURHAM COALFIELD FROM THEB START OF THE NHS
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