The first Bank Holiday in Barnard Castle 150 years ago

Well, if you were a Teesside ironworker forever shrouded in smog, a day spent in the clean mountain air of Teesdale might seem very appealing.

And so, 150 years ago this week, the employees of Thomas Vaughan & Company of Middlesbrough set off at 6am for a Bank Holiday outing of “shower and sunshine by Greta and Tees”.

The company was then the largest manufacturer of pig iron in the world with 16 blast furnaces at South Bank, plus 30 puddling furnaces in Darlington and 36 in Bishop Auckland, but two years earlier, it had sacked 700 of its workers who had dared to go on strike for higher wages.

READ MORE: WHEN A 50-BED HOTEL AND A PIANO EMPORIUM WERE THE STARS OF A BUSTLING BISHOP AUCKLAND

In 1871, the first Monday in August had been declared the first Bank Holiday, so the outing in 1873 was such a novelty that a writer who signed himself “a very obscure scribe” penned a very long article of their experiences that The Northern Echo’s sister paper, the Darlington & Stockton Times, published 150 years ago this week.

The relaxing day’s excursion began at the crack of dawn at Middlesbrough station, which the 6am train left in “a drenching rain, steady, obstinate, remorseless” – a typical August Bank Holiday.

At Darlington, everyone jumped out to buy the morning’s papers which were full of the previous day’s rail accident at Wigan in which 13 passengers had died when a derailed train collided with a station building.

“Of all the exciting narratives which can enliven a journey by rail, commend me to a good penny-a-liner’s description of a collision,” said Obscure Scribe drily. “If you can’t be mutilated in a collision, the next best thing is to read about one. It makes one so happy to think that a smash may occur any moment, and our relatives be enabled to retire on the proceeds of an action for compensation. However, Barnard Castle was reached on time.”

A 1940s postcard showing on the right the King's Head, where the Obscure Scribe, breakfasted and waited for the rain to stop while looking at the Market Cross

But grey clouds shrouded the hills as everyone hurried beneath their umbrellas “down the long monotonous streets” of Barney to the King’s Head for breakfast. But the rain didn’t relent so everyone was stuck inside looking out of the windows…

“It was my misfortune to spend a considerable time waiting for the rain to cease, and this I occupied chiefly in staring at and being disgusted with the monument of Thomas Breaks Esq’s munificence,” he wrote, referring to the Market Cross, or Butter Market, which Mr Breaks had built in 1747. “Considering that this worthy was a native of the town, he might have put his hand a little deeper into his breeches pocket…”

Today the Market Cross (above) is the icon of Barney, but Obscure Scribe said it “looks very much like the dustpan and lumber house of the place, and if an earthquake were to swallow it up, the circumstance would scarcely deserve a paragraph in the local prints”.

“Lumber” was unwanted pieces of furniture and odds and ends which had to be stored somewhere to get them out of the way.

Obscure Scribe was also dismissive of the church, where the tower was being rebuilt and so it was surrounded by rubble and the doors were locked, and he was dismayed by his visit to the castle where his female guide “takes your gratuity under pretence of having shown you round”.

The Morritt Arms at Greta Bridge, where the Obscure Scribe enjoyed refreshments before and after his visit to nearby Rokeby

But at midday, the rain stopped and the ironworkers took their carriages to the Morritt Arms at Greta Bridge for refreshment before being allowed into Rokeby Park, the object of the day.

A 1919 postcard showing Rokeby Hall, where the grounds impressed Obscure Scribe 150 years ago

At last, Obscure Scribe was impressed. “Majestic trees, steep overhanging rocks, shady nooks, the Greta tumbling over its rocky bed, verdure-clad heights, these and a thousand other features of wild beauty invest the park with a romantic grandeur,” he wrote.

Then it was back to the Morritt for more refreshments, and into Barney for 5.30pm when an “excellent dinner” was served at the King’s Head “after which harmony and champagne became the order of the day”.

Finally, after an extremely long day, the ironworkers caught the 8.30pm train home.

He concluded: “Messrs Vaughan & Co will not be out of pocket by the liberality with which the arrangements of Monday were carried out and the good feeling is worth purchasing at any price.”

Unfortunately, Thomas Vaughan went into administration three years after the outing owing £1m. Thomas himself was dismissed, but his father’s company of Bolckow, Vaughan bought many of Thomas’s blast furnaces.

READ MORE: THE TREASURES OF A DARLINGTON CHURCH THAT HAS CLOSED AFTER 173 YEARS OF WORSHIP