The ironworks of Witton Park were the unlikely backdrop for an impoverished labourer who rose to become one of the country's top academics.

THE extraordinary story of the ironworks labourer who became one of Britain's foremost academics - yet who so greatly valued his Co Durham roots that he changed his name to accommodate them - was recalled, affectionately, at the weekend.

Thomas Witton Davies was professor of Semitic languages at the University of North Wales in Bangor; his son Carlyle Witton-Davies - having gained a hyphen along life's road - was himself a celebrated Hebrew scholar and Archdeacon of Oxford for 26 years.

The archdeacon's son and daughter visited Witton Park at the weekend - back, incredulously, to where it all began...

Edmund and Elisabeth Davis had moved their family from Nantyglo in Glamorganshire to the village near Bishop Auckland in the early 1850s. It was where the work was.

The 1861 census duly and dutifully records all seven of them - two-up, two-down at 44 Low King Street.

Edmund, then 43, was described as "heater of an iron forge" and could neither read nor write. Elisabeth, a year older, had learned to read at Sunday School but had never mastered writing.

Their humble dwelling was home to just two books, the Bible and Pilgrim's Progress - in Welsh.

William, 22, was a puddler - converting pig iron into wrought iron - 12-year-old Edward a "catcher of iron rolls". Thomas, aged ten, and his younger brothers George and Joseph were still at school.

Ten years later, the family surname had somehow gained an "e" and Thomas was himself listed on the census return as an ironworks labourer though his "delicate" health meant he often missed a shift. His life, in any case, was about to change dramatically.

"Probably no living professor of Baptist or University College had up to his 22nd year so poor a start as I," he wrote in 1911. "Midway between my 21st and 22nd year I had practically all my educational work to do."

Baptised in the River Wear in August, 1863, young Thomas had attended Sunday School, Band of Hope and Mutual Improvement Society, borrowed books from the Mechanics' Institute library, sat "with breathless interest" around the Saturday night fire as his mother - "her influence upon me great and good" - read from The Christian World and The British Worker.

He also borrowed from the Mechanics Institute a book called "Smiles' Self Help".

"When I had set down the book I felt I had no need to spend the rest of my life in the ironworks," he wrote. "Others had risen from positions as low as mine. Why not I?"

At 21 he returned to the land of his father's, enrolled at a Baptist college in Haverfordwest, gained a London BA and a Leipzig PhD and subsequently became the first non-Anglican to be awarded a doctorate in divinity from Durham University.

When he joined the staff of the South Wales Baptist College, however, he discovered that the principal was also Dr Thomas Davies - a lot of them about in those parts - and assumed the name Thomas Witton Davies instead.

Subsequently the eminent professor wrote nostalgically of his "industrious and frugal" parents and of growing up in a poor and often troubled village. His personal library had grown to 17,000 books; Witton Park Mechanics Institute had 400.

Following the death of his wife, Witton Davies was married for the second time at 60 to a bride precisely half his age.

Their son Carlyle, doubtless named after the philosopher Thomas Carlyle whom so greatly he admired, was born in 1913 and worked extensively in Wales and in the Holy Land before becoming Oxford's archdeacon in 1956.

Carlyle Witton-Davies was one of the Church of England's best known and most respected figures. "A bit eccentric, flamboyant perhaps, but in the very best way," recalls the Ven Granville Gibson, retired Archdeacon of Auckland.

Archdeacon Witton-Davies wrote "at least" 37 books, appeared in a film (as a priest), died in 1994 but is survived by his widow.

His daughter Bridget Rees, a Durham University theology graduate, was joined in Witton Park on Saturday by her brother, David Witton-Davies.

"I'm cursing because I never came here when I was at Durham and missed the chance to see where my grandfather lived," she says.

"The day was very, very moving, particularly around the ironworks site where so many worked. Grandfather must have been a pretty amazing man; his achievement was simply stunning."

THE trail of the iron-willed professor was begun, perhaps inevitably, by Dale Daniel - officially Witton Park's webmaster, more accurately the assiduous keeper of its historic treasures.

A few weeks ago he discovered a letter written by Carlyle Witton-Davies in 1979 to the fabled Clarrie Simon, the local papers' penny-a-line correspondent in those parts.

Though reprieved from Category D, Witton Park had never recovered from it. It was a "desolate village", said Clarrie. The archdeacon sympathised, but admitted he'd never been.

After his father's death, his mother had inserted the hyphen - "there being a lot of Mrs Davieses in Bangor."

Bridget Rees considers Canon Gibson's description to be fair. "He was very old school and held strong views, especially on the ordination of women, which he opposed completely, and - like his father - on things like drinking, smoking and playing cards."

Dale Daniel doesn't hold it against him. "It's often supposed that people have the name of their home town written right through them," he says. "In Witton Park they simply change their names. The village is very proud of them."

Where have all the gaiters gone?

GRANVILLE Gibson had immediately recalled Carlyle Witton-Davies. "Didn't he wear gaiters?" he said, and so - quite famously - he did.

Appointed Archdeacon of Auckland in 1993, Canon Gibson never cut so venerable a dash, though he did once wear purple Lycra tights in the annual pantomime at St Clare's, Newton Aycliffe.

"I asked about gaiters at the clerical outfitters in Newcastle," he recalls. "They said they could certainly measure me for gaiters, apron and frock coat at a cost of £1,390. I politely declined."

Gaiters date from the time of horse travel, of course, the "apron" simply a short cassock. Once uniform for all senior clergy - remember All Gas and Gaiters, with Derek Nimmo and William Mervyn? - they have now gone almost completely out of fashion.

"I can only think of two or three archdeacons who still wear them," says Canon Gibson.

Probably the last Bishop of Durham so splendidly to be attired was the late Ian Ramsey in the 1960s, still remembered for dancing the Gay Gordons in gaiters at the Bishop Auckland press ball.

Michael Perry, Archdeacon of Durham from 1970-93, was also given to an occasional flash of gaitered calf - most famously, perhaps, on the sign of the Arcdeacon pub on Darlington's north-west frontier.

For his retirement party three years ago, Canon Gibson scoured theatrical costumiers in the hope, at last, of being formally clad.

"I wanted the folks to see what I'd look like just once," he says. "Sadly, I drew a blank."

MUCH of today's column has been written in the Tuesday sunshine at North Lodge Park in Darlington, much improved by Lottery money, closed circuit television, imagination and vandal proof paint.

There's even been a writer in residence, though for a couple of hours on Tuesday he was temporarily unseated.

The half term bairns played happily, dogs chased footballs as dogs should, all seemed right with the world.

Had it been raining, it would probably have been the pub. Thomas Witton Davies, who laboured not in vain, would doubtless have approved.