IN a sleepy corner of south-west Durham, with its rolling hills of tilled soil and sheep pastures, the Industrial Revolution arrived early on the morning of Tuesday, September 27, 1825 – 199 years ago today.
Around 7am, the first rake of coal waggons left the estate of Witton Castle on a railway that was to take them to the port of Stockton-on-Tees, some 26 miles away.
Coal had long been sold in the local area, distributed by packhorse, but by the time it had reached the markets of such distant places as Barnard Castle or Darlington, the transport costs on the private roads had inflated its price.
READ MORE: DETAILS RELEASED OF HOW THE REGION WILL CELEBRATE NEXT YEAR'S 200TH ANNIVERSARY
Edward Pease, the owner of the largest woollen mill in Durham, complained of having to pay up six times the cost of coals to fire his boilers in Darlington when compared to his competitors in Leeds, who were buying cheap coals, transported on water, due the ‘canal mania’ of the day.
William Chaytor owned Witton Castle and the rights to the minerals buried beneath its fields; the Pease family in faraway Darlington had the contacts to sell coal in mind boggling amounts. How did the two come together?
To celebrate the 199th anniversary of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, an afternoon of talks and displays is being held at Toft Hill Community Centre, less than a mile from the railway’s starting point.
The afternoon runs from 1pm to 4.15pm. Entry is free and refreshments will be available.
At 1.55pm, Dr Tom Walker will present what is believed to be the world’s oldest working steam engine: a model of the apparatus at Etherley which once pulled the coal waggons up the incline. The amazing model was made in 1836 by Thomas Greener Jnr, the son of the incline keeper, who was only 16 and was engineering apprentice of Timothy Hackworth.
At 3.05pm, Bill Rammage will talk about his model of the Yarm depot where, in 1825, coal was delivered by the railway for sale to customers.
For further information about the afternoon, email jraw2883@aol.com. To reach the community centre, put DL14 0JB in a sat nav.
LAST week’s front page picture rather rudely peered into the living room of Christine Port’s grandfather’s apartment.
For 40 years, David Armstrong and his family occupied the property directly opposite the Lavericks balcony in Bondgate, Darlington.
David was a confectioner and tobacconist, specialising in boxes of chocolates and jars of sweets that were sold by weight.
Above his shop was the large living apartment, with David having the bay window on the right while the Zisslers had the matching window on the left which was above their butcher’s shop.
Opposite was the rather fine Arts and Crafts café that the Laverick brothers built sometime at the start of the 20th Century – if you look very carefully above the Nationwide shopfront, you can still see where various letters that spelled their name were stuck in the rendering.
“But I can’t remember Lavericks at all,” says Christine, “but I can remember that building being occupied by a rather posh dress shop called Goodsons. They are in there from the 1929 street directory to the 1968 directory, described as either “mantle makers” or a “costumier”.”
It looks as if Lavericks café closed in the early 1920s – they stopped advertising for waitresses in local papers around 1919.
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