“FOR most of the 1980s, I worked for Sanderson, Townend and Gilbert at 92 Bondgate in Darlington,” says Christopher Noble. “It was generally accepted that the place was haunted, but I was always sceptical.”
No 92, which is nearly 250-years-old, featured here a couple of weeks ago as it has recently gone on the market for £175,000. It was once an imposing townhouse and it had the entrance to one of the town centre’s healthiest yards, Potter’s Yard, running beneath it.
READ FIRST: 250 YEARS OF STORIES AT No 92
“I remember I returned to the office late one evening and was surprised to find the Potter's Yard entrance door wide open,” continues Christopher.
“As I entered the building and turned on the lights, I heard running footsteps at the first floor, so I immediately phoned 999 and the police arrived within minutes.
“After a thorough search, nothing and nobody was found.
“I was convinced that an intruder was still there, so the police sent in a dog.
“Within moments, the dog reached the top floor of the building and started barking at the roof-space trapdoor.
“A step-ladder and a torch was brought to the scene and the uninvited guest was found hiding under the loft insulation, covered in cobwebs and decades of dust!
“He looked like a ghost but he was well and truly caught!”
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POTTER’S YARD was one of the last of the town centre yards to lose its residents when, in the 1960s, the council moved them out to the new estates. It had 12 or 14 houses on the north side and workshops on the south. Most of these are now beneath the inner ring road.
“At the bottom left hand side was a locksmiths workshop named Veitch,” says Dave Downing, who remembers the yard when there were still people living there, “and directly opposite was a three storey building where Jack Stead, painter and decorator, had his premises.
“The top floor was used by the Darlington Pilgrim Players drama club to house their scenery and stage props.
“I remember just after the war as a teenager helping my father Wilf Downing to paint the flats (the scenery). To get them to the theatre we had to lower them down onto a flatback trailer that was drawn by a horse.”
READ MORE: HOW THE MINERS' STRIKE UNFOLDED IN DURHAM 40 YEARS AGO
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