MIDDLETON St George was like a Wild West goldrush town 150 years ago. People knew that there was iron in them thar Cleveland Hills, and they came from miles around to seek their fortune, to drink their ale and then to fight and brawl.

Middleton Ironworks was formed in 1864. It was next to the Stockton and Darlington Railway and in the middle of nowhere, between the villages of Middleton One Row and Sadberge.

There was very little local working population, so itinerant, immigrant men were required to fire the blast furnaces.

"There was a considerable colony of Irish workmen," said the Darlington and Stockton Times in 1962, "who had all their race's propensity for quarrelling."

Irish wakes were a common feature of early Middleton St George life. The dead person would be propped up in a bar, and their friends and relations would happily drink and dance around them for three days until it was time for their burial.

The behaviour of these Irish itinerants was regularly commented upon. Enid Pease Steavenson's husband was the local doctor, who moved into the village in 1911, and she remembered her early days.

"Dr Steavenson and I never retired before midnight, for we waited until all the fights were over."

The best example of the lawless nature of these people is a 7ft-long petition delivered to Darlington magistrates in 1877, demanding that the village be equipped with its own prison.

"This district has within the last six or eight years largely increased in population and in consequence of the establishment of the large ironworks, a considerable portion of this additional population is of a very mixed and floating description, needing for the prevention of crime and preservation of the peace the application of every provision the Law has wisely supplied," wrote the petitioners.

They had their own constable, but the poor chap could not cope with the workload.

"In order to convey a disorderly person to the Lockup in Darlington, the policeman is frequently compelled to leave the locality when his presence is most needed, and it is well known that, in his absence, deplorable scenes are but too common," wrote the petitioners.

They got their wish. A surprisingly large police station, with cells, was built at one end of The Square. It was between the two pubs, the Killinghall Hotel and the General Havelock Hotel, where most of the drinking took place, and it dominated the open space in the centre of the village, where most of the fighting occurred.

As Middleton St George lost its Wild West feel after the First World War, so the village prison fell out of use, although it was revived during the Second World War as a cooling off place for airmen who had over-imbibed.

The ironworkers lived in the terraces of houses that were built in the shadow of the blast furnaces. Most of the terraces ran off The Square (which is actually more triangular), and still stand.

Pemberton and Killinghall Terraces were named after the old family connections of the squire of the manor, Andrew Cocks, who was joint owner of the ironworks.

Harts Buildings, Browns Buildings, Hansons Buildings and Temple Buildings appear to have taken their names from the men who built them and rented them out. For example, a William Temple seems to have prospered and ended his days living in the large Victorian villa called Thorntree House.

These terraces also housed people trying to earn a living supplying the needs of the ironworkers. In 1887 in this area there were four grocers (George Carter, William Hunt, James Smith, Miss Sarah Jane Dobbing), three butchers (Frank Hart, John Herring, Jane Pickering), two shoemakers (Thomas Garrett, John Husband), a dressmaker (Margaret Brown), a draper (Charles Wilson) and two sub-postmasters (Mr Wilson's drapery doubled as a Post Office and Matthew Brough ran another one in Middleton Lane).

Of course, there were also some people who wanted to save the souls of the drunken, brawling ironworkers.

With an immigrant Irish population, you might expect to find a Roman Catholic church in Middleton St George. The foundations for one were laid out on land in Chapel Street, but then the ironworks fell on hard times. The workers were laid off. Many of them moved away, the church never rose above its foundations and Chapel Street never got a chapel.

Instead, the Catholics had to make do with Rakes Hall - a large meeting place built in the 1870s which, in 1936, was converted into the Lyric cinema.

That left the Protestants versus the Methodists. The Methodists got in first, their Wesleyan chapel opening in 1869.

The Anglicans were at a disadvantage. Their church of St George was miles away. It had been built at Low Middleton in the 13th Century, when there was a village down there. By the time Middleton St George had sprung up it was "falling into such decay as to render it very damp and uncomfortable".

Although St George's did have a future - Squire Cocks added a spire in 1884 and services are still held there once a month - it was decided to build a new church.

The Reverend LB Towne was the driving force, and WRI Hopkins, of Grey Towers, Middlesbrough, presented a gift of an acre of land.

James Pigott Pritchett (1830 to 1911), the North-East's leading ecclesiastical architect, did the drawings. It was one of 25 Anglican churches he built (regular readers will know that he also designed the Arthur Pease School and the Arts Centre in Darlington).

The cost was £1,800, although Jonathan Westgarth Wooler, of Almora Hall, had to weigh in with a couple of hundred quid to add the slender spire.

The Church of St Laurence was consecrated by the Bishop of Durham on April 13, 1871. All present felt that it formed "a striking ornament to Middleton One Row".

"The sacred edifice is also placed most conveniently for the dwellers at Fighting Cocks who have emigrated into the neighbourhood consequent on the establishment of the ironworks in the locality," noted the Darlington & Stockton Times.

After consecration, everyone adjourned to the Devonport Hotel for a "capital luncheon" where, doubtless, they were on their best behaviour.

Yet, history leaves us with tantalising stories of the Anglicans squabbling with the non-conformists. In 1872, the Anglicans were upset when they went on an eight-day recruitment drive, only for the Methodists to try "to reap some of the fruits of the mission".

The Anglicans got their own back, however, holding a procession to St Laurence's Church that accidentally-on-purpose walked through an open-air non-conformist meeting, causing their religious rivals to flee in "embarrassed confusion".

But then, Middleton St George was a wild kind of a place, where even the churches tried to push back the frontiers of acceptable behaviour.

Published: 03/12/2003

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