Poetic inspiration and confrontation

With the birds in Blackwell Grange's tall avenue of trees cawing at his back, he described the sylvan scene that spread out before him across the Skerne.

"We'll take a stand near to the stile, not far from the rookery, and bursting on our vision is one of the most lovely, picturesque and interesting of bird's eye views," he hymned.

"Behold the glassy stream glittering in the sunlight like sheeted silver, the Park Bridge, spanning its diameter, is seen to perfection in full relief amid the verdant slopes and meadows running along the valley of the Skerne - the entire sweep dotted on one side and bounded on the other by trees and shrubs, and embowering foliage leading to a pleasing and extremely interesting view of St John's Church, and completing as lovely and enchanting a picture as the eye of the poet or painter can desire to gaze upon."

This wonderful scene was what we know today as South Park. Back then, it was either Bellasses Park - after the benefactor James Bellasses, who had bequeathed four undulating fields to the town in 1636 - or the People's Park.

It was new because the Darlington Board of Health had only opened the fields to public perambulation in November 1851.

But there was a major problem: the only access to them was along a track, which we now know as Park Lane, and down a little lane that led to Polam Hill Farm. Then it was a quick hop over a hedge and into Bellasses Park.

Polam Hill Farm was owned by Robert Allan, of Blackwell, who did not like the idea of the hoi polloi traipsing across his territory. Immediately, he fired off a furious letter to the board.

He complained of "a very sinister looking stile, which has with much rustic irregularity" been "improperly inserted in the boundary hedge".

"No public road of any description whatever leads through Polam Hill Farm, which has been in my family for almost 200 years," he thundered.

"I shall content myself with the expression of my reprobation of the mischievous and dangerous practice of heedlessly and gratuitously impugning and interfering with the rights of others."

With a cruel swipe at the Quakers (members of the Society of Friends) who were leading the park project, Mr Allan continued: "I wish it to be distinctly understood that no one - no, not even a 'friend' - shall ride rampant and roughshod through my lands without my free will and permission."

Unless the stile was removed forthwith, he said, he would take the matter to the highest court, and in the meantime "I shall repel the invasion by such means as the law shall direct".

The stile was immediately removed, and the board sought a new entry to the park.

Unfortunately, Mr Allan also owned the field that separated the park from Grange Road. So another entrance had to be found: a pathway was suggested down the side of South Villa on Grange Road, and then over a bridge into the park.

Fortunately, South Villa was owned by Margaretta Pease, a distant relative of the town's ruling Pease family, who were keen on the park project.

But unfortunately, the teetotal Peases had kicked Margaretta's father out of the family and out of the Society of Friends when he had decided to become a wine merchant.

Margaretta's father had died in the villa in 1848, however, and, four years on, she was willing to let bygones be bygones and to allow the peasantry to walk by her house.

Having built the bridge - on the site of today's footbridge over the Skerne - thoughts turned to laying out the park. A competition was held to find the most suitable design, but because no entrant was acceptable, the borough surveyor, George Mason, was instructed to do the job.

He, in turn, appointed John Morrison as the first park superintendent to do the planting. Mr Morrison was a skilled arboriculturalist, and had planted West Cemetery, which opened in 1857, as an arboretum.

It would be wrong to say that Messrs Mason and Morrison did not receive much financial help when it came to turning the four fields into a municipal park. The sum of £100 was spent draining the land, and Joseph Pease, of Southend, donated 100 tons of slag from one of his blast furnaces to make the path that wound around the edge of the park. Money was also found to build Park House, and private gardeners were encouraged to donate spare plants.

But, although the board saved by not having to pay out to a winner of the design competition, there were quibbles over the fees due to Mr Mason for doing all the work. In later life, Mr Morrison reminisced how he had been "unable to persuade the board to spend money on the coniferous beautifying of the land".

John Pease did say at a board meeting in December 1852: "Expensive shrubberies are altogether undesirable but a few trees here and there to break up the bareness of the aspect will suffice."

In September 1853, Mr Mason was instructed that "wire fencing (should) be placed in the park to protect the shrubs and trees from the sheep which the tenant is wishing to put in". From this we learn that the board had rented the park to a farmer. We can only guess whether this was a cynical money-making exercise or whether, in those pre-lawnmower days, it was an attempt to stop the park becoming overgrown.

By July 27, 1854, the park was considered complete enough for the Darlington Recreation Society to hold its first event.

"The opening entertainment of this Society was given in the Public Park on Wednesday evening," reported the Darlington and Stockton Times, "and was attended by nearly 500 persons, who appeared to enjoy the amusements heartily.

"The music, conducted by Mr Woodhams, was excellent and gave great satisfaction to the numerous visitors.

"Leaping, quoits, foot-ball etc were joined in by a goodly number, whilst others chose to 'trip the light fantastic toe'.

"We were pleased to see the good humour which prevailed throughout the entire proceedings and trust that, under good management, this excellent society may prove a benefit to the town. We understand these entertainments are to be held every Wednesday evening when the weather will permit."

Because townspeople had been unofficially clambering over Mr Allan's stile to visit the park ever since the board of health had taken control of the land in late 1851, that evening in 1854 was as close as South Park ever came to an official opening.

Indeed, the poetic writer who strolled down Grange Road that summer was rather taken by the way the park was progressing.

"On the opposite side of the water appears the Peoples' Park," he wrote, "gradually assuming scientific ornamental characteristics and embellishments; here a terraced lawn of considerable extent above the hill overlooks the steep ascent from the valley where the lands skirts the river, in certain parts embanked, and forming a neat gravelled promenade; avenues of various young trees, with, here and there, an enclosed shrubbery ornament the entire range of carriage and footpaths.

"A circular shrubbery stands near the refreshment establishment, which commands an extensive range of country on all sides."

The park started to fill up quite quickly. The Sebastopol gun arrived, controversially, from the Crimean War within a few years.

In November 1859, the old Butter Market was transferred from the Market Square. It was described as an "open shed" which was given by Edward 'Father of the Railways' Pease "for the protection of the market women", but it had fallen redundant when a new Covered Butter Market was built (today's Covered Market replaced the Covered Butter Market in 1863).

We are told that the old Butter Market became a veranda for East Lodge, the gardener's cottage that was built about 1860. The lodge still stands near Clifton Road, but looking around it there is no veranda and no sign on its white Pease brick of there ever having been a veranda.

But, about 1860, we know that Park House was extended with the addition of a south-facing veranda. Is it too fanciful to think that veranda might, more than 150 years ago, have sheltered the butter women in the Market Square?

On March 10, 1863, the park performed its first ceremonial function, when a young pair of evergreen trees was planted to mark the wedding of His Royal Highness Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), and Alexandra, Princess of Denmark.

With magnificent sweeping boughs, those sequoia wellingtonia still stand beside Park House and, 140 years later, have grown to be one of the main focal points of the park.

Yet Bellasses Park was still a narrow strip of land. The seeds that enabled it to grow to its current size were planted in the 1870s, with a financial calamity that swept away the fortunes of a pair of brothers.

That, though, is a story for another week

Published: ??/??/2003

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.