THE Victorians were a daring lot. We have images of them concealing the ankles of their piano legs because they feared some would find them too sexy. We have photographs of them concealing their faces, and their expressions, behind frighteningly austere flourishes of facial hair.

But look at what they did to Darlington town centre. It had barely changed for a millennium or two. A High Row of posh houses sitting proudly above a gentle cobbled slope rolling down to the River Skerne.

Then along came the Victorians. They slashed a wall through the middle of the slope, divided it into three levels, and sprinkled some granite steps and some flowery urns about. And called it progress.

Two thousand years of history ripped apart to create some beardy fellow's Gothic playground.

Of course, there was opposition to this progress. The wall would be "inconvenient and objectionable", according to a local newspaper.

It pleaded: "Before throwing away a good old servant, would it not be wise to try the experiment of widening the footpath, which is much needed, and relaying the stones in a decent workmanlike way?"

There are always people who want to stand in the way of progress.

That was at the end of the 19th century. Now at the beginning of the 21st century, the council is proposing to rip out the Victorian street furniture and "remove clutter and congestion to create a simple, spacious feel".

Conservationists, naturally, are up in arms about the loss of the town's heritage - what their Victorian counterparts described as "inconvenient and objectionable".

And the conservationists echo that the "good old servant" which is already there only needs a lick of paint and a re-laying of tarmac.

Why are we so obsessed by conserving everything old? Why are we so scared of our own present that we want to live in the past (with the opening of the new museum at Shildon, there must now be more old trains to look at in the region than there are new ones to ride on).

Why can't we be daring - just like the Victorians - and rip out what is already there? Why can't we - just like the Victorians - stamp our own modern ideas upon our landscape?

And if our ideas turn out to be tosh, the next generation can be as brave as us and the Victorians. They can obliterate the past and start again.

I fail to answer my own questions because every time some poor old building is threatened with demolition, I instinctively want to save it. I find the ideas for the High Row execrable. Vandalism. Desecration. Destruction of Darlo's face.

If a delinquent 14-year-old from a council estate started ripping out the Victorian bric-a-brac, he wouldn't be able to say "progress" before the council leader was plastering details of his Anti-Social Behaviour Order all over the local lamp-posts.

It would be nice to redesign High Row, to see what it looks like, to feel what it feels like - but only if, once the fascination is fulfilled, we can put the familiar stuff back again.

It is always exciting to travel somewhere new, but the best bit of a holiday is always the return to your own comfy bed.