EXACTLY 178 years ago, a large crowd gathered at Fighting Cocks corner. It was a rural location in those days, because the village we now call Middleton St George did not exist.

The corner was the middle of nowhere. It was where Rykeneild Street, the old Roman road running south to north from the fashionable spa resort of Middleton One Row to the ancient capital of Sadberge, met the old Darlington to Yarm road running east to west.

Naturally enough, a public house had grown up on the corner as a travellers' place of rest. It was called the Fighting Cocks.

Fanciful myth alleges that because the corner was far enough beyond the reach of the authorities in Darlington who might want to stop bloody and barbaric entertainments, it was a safe venue for cockfights.

The truth of the name is more likely that the Cocks family were lords of the manor from 1801 to 1894, and their badge showed three fighting cocks.

The large crowd gathered on the Fighting Cocks corner 178 years ago - September 27, 1825, to be precise - to see something that would change their district forever.

They had been waiting for the day for generations. In 1767, when someone first dreamt up the idea of connecting the south Durham coalfield with the sea, a canal was planned to flow through Fighting Cocks, past the brewery at Oak Tree and sweep on through the farm at Goosepool.

Opening day arrived a mere 58 years later. It was not a canal that had been built, however, but a railway, and in the early afternoon of September 27, 1825, Locomotion No 1, driven by George Stephenson, came to a halt before the admiring crowd at Fighting Cocks.

Joseph Pease (whose statue still stands in Darlington's High Row) remembered the moment for years as one of the funniest of the whole day.

He watched an old farmer eyeing up the steam-powered engine "with as much curiosity as if it had been a new threshing-machine".

But, after minutes of frantic inspection, the old boy could not work out what made the engine move.

Very bothered by the mystery, he approached Mr Pease, who was on the footplate with his hand gently resting on one of the levers, and asked "if you pull the engine by them things".

Mr Pease had to explain that the fire burned coal, which then heated water, which in turn produced steam to push the pistons, when then turned the wheels, and that the levers only regulated how fast the engine went.

Hopefully, the old farmer went home satisfied. Other farmers made their way homewards happily because they saw that the engine would soon be bringing cheap lime and manure for their fields, and cheap coal for their fires.

The owners of the hotels, guest houses and tourist shops in Middleton One Row must have gone south down Rykeneild Street whooping with delight at the thought of the new clients the engine would bring for the spa.

By 1838, the spa's omnibus was meeting all first class trains at Fighting Cocks to collect visitors.

The publican at Fighting Cocks seems to have welcomed anything that would bring him more trade, and from that first day he was selling railway tickets. Arguably, then, the pub is the world's first railway ticket office.

The railway company built a proper station at Fighting Cocks in about 1830, and for most of the 19th Century, 30,000 passengers a year were booked through it.

On July 1, 1887, Darlington opened Bank Top as its premier station, replacing North Road. That meant trains coming from Saltburn and Middlesbrough and going through Fighting Cocks could not approach the new station from the south.

To remedy this, a section of track was built for £80,000 (about £4m in today's prices) connecting Bank Top with Oak Tree Junction. It opened on the same day as Bank Top, relegating the original Stockton and Darlington Railway line, and Fighting Cocks station, to goods only.

The line and the station, closed on March 9, 1964. You can still walk along the trackbed, and the station has been converted into a house.

From July 1, 1887, passengers used the new station of Dinsdale on the new section of track.

Dinsdale was a distinctive design with the booking hall on a bridge over the tracks. It was a well cared for station, winning numerous awards for its floral displays which started in the platform greenhouse.

The booking hall was demolished in 1972 and since then Dinsdale has been an unmanned halt.

All around it is the village of Middleton St George, which has grown up because when the railway came to Fighting Cocks 178 years ago, it brought with it to this rural corner a very heavy industry, as Echo Memories will tell in future weeks

Published: ??/??/2003

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