The story of Stanhope Dene that was created by the unemployed

“We made dens, climbed trees, explored caves and canyons, abseiled across the burn on primitive zip wires, collected wild fruits and nuts in season and loaded our bogeys with fallen branches for firewood at home.

“It was a place of beauty, freedom and safety.”

Richmond Bridge in Stanhope Dene on opening day, July 2, 1892

With the help of photos belonging to the Weardale Museum, and with more pictures brought in during a museum open day in 2019, David has been compiling a history of his childhood playground which was created in 1892 as a fascinating attempt to make work for the idle hands of quarrymen who had been thrown out of work by a strike in the Durham coalmines.

Although, of course, long before unemployed quarrymen came along to build their footpaths and rustic bridges, the dene was carved out by nature…

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“Stanhope Dene is one of the most romantic, picturesque, and pretty spots of nature to be found anywhere in the north,” said the Durham County Advertiser on July 8, 1892, following the opening of the quarrymen-made walkway. “Its sylvan scenery is pronounced, by very high authority, to be second to none. The scenic beauty of Stanhope Burn Wood is of the grandest character imaginable, and almost beggars description. From its confluence with the Wear to the high side of the old lead works, Stanhope Burn runs through the most enchanting scenery imaginable.

“Nature has been lavish in her gifts here in beautifying the place.”

The Widley Waterfall near Daniel's Well in Stanhope Dene on an Edwardian postcard

The dene begins at the eastern side of Stanhope near the 800-year-old Stanhope Hall, and heads northwards up the steep-sided valley of Stanhope Burn, which collects water from the high lands of Crawleyside and Stanhope Common on either side of it.

Man has known about the minerals to be found in its rocky sides for centuries. About a mile up the dene, Charles Attwood’s Weardale Iron Company in 1845 built a blast furnace to create metal out of the ironstone. The furnace stood until June 1915 when it was sold for First World War scrap.

The blast furnace in the dene was built by the Weardale Iron Company in 1845, but its operational life was short as the company soon afterwards built four bigger furnaces at Tow Law. It was sold for scrap in 1915

A mile or so further up, there was a smelt mill from at least 1677 to get lead out of the ore which was mined in the dene. It was replaced by the largest smelt mill in Weardale in 1809 by the London Lead Company, and although leadmining had faded away by the 1870s, fluorspar was still mined here into the 1970s.

But even further back, about 4,000 years ago in the late Bronze Age, humans were living in Heatheryburn Cave at the north end of the dene. Their presence was discovered by quarrymen in 1843 along with their treasures: swords, knives, razors, rings, pins, spearheads, axes, a bucket, chisels, tongs and fittings for horses, wagons and the earliest known in Britain for chariots. These ancient remains became a tourist attraction and some went missing, although there are still many examples in museums across the country, including 231 in the British Museum (above).

The quarrymen then destroyed the cave in their search for limestone.

When the railway reached Stanhope from Bishop Auckland in 1862, it began bringing tourists. With all the dales of Yorkshire and Durham seeking to attract day-trippers, Stanhope needed to polish its offer, and in 1890 the Stanhope Health Resort Association was formed with a view to making the wild dene, then only accessible to sturdy leadminers and quarrymen, a suitable place for visitors to enjoy a healthy walk.

But where to find a workforce?

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Then, on March 12, 1892, Durham coalminers went out on strike. Without coal, all industry seized up. In Weardale, the quarrymen provided limestone for the Teesside blast furnaces that couldn’t fire without Durham coal, so the quarrymen were laid off. There were no benefits in those days, so these were desperate times for families caught up in someone else’s dispute – in Cleveland, 28,000 people who relied on the ironstone mines that also fed the blast furnaces suddenly found themselves destitute.

The Health Resort Association – chaired by the Bishop of Richmond as the church owned the dene –moved quickly. It held a meeting on April 7 which launched an appeal for money to pay the quarrymen’s wages to beautify the dene.

With donations of £320 coming in, they started on April 11. In 65 days, they built 3,237 yards of roads and footpaths, 50 rustic seats, four bridges, and a rustic summerhouse and a bandstand.

In total, the quarrymen worked 1,950 days between them, which means at least 30 of them must have been hard at work in the dene, which was opened amid great ceremony on July 2.

The "monster procession" of several thousand people on the opening day of the dene, July 2, 1892

Thousands of people in a “monster procession” wound their way up the dene to the first bridge, which the Bishop of Richmond, John Pulleine, stepped forward to name Richmond Bridge.

On they went to a new clearing beneath Widley Craggs where the bishop took a drink of the “clear, cool, crystal, sparkling water” gushing from a spring. Daniel McCallum, a Quarrymen’s Union official, stepped forward. He had worked 64 of the 65 available days and organised the men, and so he named the spring Daniel’s Well.

Daniel's Well, named after Daniel McCallum, on the opening day of the dene

Further on they went to Roddam Bridge, named in honour of JW Roddam, who was vice-president of the association, and then up to Arnison Bridge in a pretty clearing with the summerhouse and bandstand nearby. Dr Charles Arnison was described as “one of the most respected men in Stanhope” and he spoke of his enthusiasm for the health-giving aspects of the dene.

Two men and their dalmatian dog enjoying the rustic summerhouse in the dene

Then Stanhope band struck up some martial music and the militia engaged in a mock battle “amid thundering fire”. When things had calmed down a little, the monster procession moved to the top of the dene where, near the old smelt mill, Ambrose Mason, secretary of the fund, stepped forward to name the fourth footbridge in his own honour.

The Mason Bridge at the northerly end of the dene, named after Ambrose Mason

In reporting the opening, the Durham Advertiser is overwhelmed with enthusiasm for the dene. “There is a rich co-mingling of wood and water, of rugged rocks and beautiful waterfalls, while tall towering trees spread their strong boughs and luxuriant foliage to form canopied avenues in all directions,” it said.

“On the moss and lichen-covered rocks may be seen numbers of beautiful ferns luxuriating in the cool, shady recesses of the wood, and amid its leafy groves and craggy rocks may be seen peeping out of the interstices and the crevices, and hanging in their dishevelled beauty, nature planted, nature reared, and nature tended.”

It concluded: “The place is a terrestrial paradise.”

A fortnight after the dene opened, the Durham miners went back to work and the quarrymen, recovered from their exertions in the dene, followed them.

Today, their rustic bridges have been replaced by concrete, but still a footpath winds its way up the dene, and pictures taken by members of The Northern Echo Camera Club still make it look like a piece of paradise.

• Weardale Museum at Ireshopeburn, a little east of Stanhope on the A689, is open seven days a week until October 1 from 1pm to 4.30pm. For further information, call 07990 786220.
• With many thanks to Les Blackett and David Heatherington, and to Anne Abbott who brought an album of opening day pictures to a museum open day

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