Fairytale of mansion's links to silver screen

BLACKWELL Hill was not the only large lost mansion that once stood on the south-eastern edge of Darlington. It had a companion: Blackwell Hall.

"The views from the hall over the Neville Manor of Blackwell, through which the silvery Tees winds in a radiant line of light or dashes down in darkness and in thunder, are extensive, rich and exceedingly beautiful," wrote a mid-Victorian historian.

"The varied grounds of the Hall contain fine specimens of cypresses, cedar of Lebanon (one of the finest examples in the north) and the singular tulip-tree."

In this history of halls, we will start with the earliest: Blackwell Manor. Once-upon-a-time, the settlement of Blackwell was much bigger than it is today and there was quite a little village of mud houses close to the river.

Blackwell Manor was built in the dim and distant past, probably by the Neville family, on top of the river's high banks, overlooking both the poor people in their mud huts and the river's highest level in flood.

As history ebbed and flowed, Blackwell Manor fell derelict and tumble-down by about 1850. In the early 1870s, as Echo Memories told a fortnight ago, Eliza Barclay built Blackwell Hill roughly on its site.

Which brings us to Blackwell Hill's neighbour: Blackwell Hall. Built by persons unknown in the late-18th Century, at the start of the 19th Century it became a possession of the Allan family of Blackwell Grange. About 1810, John Allan began enlarging the hall to make it the truly sumptuous residence, with a dining room for 200 people, that our mid-Victorian historian described.

Indeed, the Allans rather liked the hall. Several family members collected a museumful of old documents which they housed there, and Robert Allan - "the last of the Allans" - lived in the hall because he felt the grange was too big.

When Robert died in 1879, the Blackwell estate was inherited by his cousin, Sir Henry Havelock, on the condition that Sir Henry tagged Allan on to his surname.

Sir Henry Havelock-Allan's sons - Allan and another Sir Henry - gradually sold off the family's possessions in Blackwell as they relocated to London.

Blackwell Hall was one of the first to go, sold in 1930 to local auctioneer Stanley Robinson. He wanted to build a £40,000, 40-bedroom mock-Georgian hotel in its grounds. A decade of wrangling and opposition put paid to this idea, and it was the hall that was converted into a hotel.

For a couple of decades, Blackwell Hall Hotel was regarded as one of Darlington's most salubrious hostelries, run by Mr and Mrs ACB Dickson.

But the 18th Century building was showing its age. It needed money - or it needed converting. It was put up for sale, with planning permission to turn it into six flats and to build 15 houses in its grounds.

After 22 years, the Dicksons closed their hotel on August 24, 1963, as the old mansion plus 3,178 acres passed to the Raine brothers, John and Reuben, for £20,100.

The Raines were builders, and what happened next can probably be guessed at. In 1965 it was agreed that the hall was in such poor condition that it had to be demolished. The Ministry of Housing said it was regrettable, but ordered the builders not to touch the fir and copper beech trees in the grounds.

The hall came down and the homes of Blackwell Grove and Briar Close and Briar Walk were built around the trees.

INCIDENTALLY, a tulip tree is a kind of poplar - a yellow poplar. It grows tall and straight like a tulip, and has attractive greenish-yellow flowers.

It is one of the most popular trees in the eastern US, and is the state tree of Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.

JEANETTE White has good reason to remember Blackwell Hall Hotel - her wedding reception was held there.

She was married on August 7, 1956, at Cockerton Methodist Church, and she remembers that her parents booked the hall "because it was one of the most elegant places in Darlington".

The postcard confirming her father's booking contains perhaps the only photograph that has a good, complete view of the rear of the hall.

She remembers: "It was very old-fashioned, with very old-fashioned people waiting on us, dressed in Victorian clothes."

THE reason for this article is that the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (Bafta) is planning to honour renowned film producer Sir Anthony Havelock-Allan, who died in January, weeks before his 99th birthday.

Sir Anthony was born in Blackwell and would probably have followed his generations of family footsteps into the Army.

At the age of four he went to see the pantomime at the Civic Theatre (then called the Hippodrome) and then the famous Edwardian actress Gertie Millar there in The Quaker Girl. He was suddenly hooked on showbusiness.

He started his unlikely career in music, and helped Ravel and Stravinsky make records.He also drew up the first recording contract for Gracie Fields.

About 1933, he moved into films. He was an associate producer and scriptwriter, working with David Lean on propaganda titles including In Which We Serve (1942) and This Happy Breed (1944).

The pair worked with Noel Coward on the best-loved British film of its era, Brief Encounter (1945), before turning to Charles Dickens with Great Expectations (1946) and Oliver Twist (1948).

It was in Havelock-Allan films that Vivien Leigh, Rex Harrison, Margaret Rutherford, Wendy Hiller and George Sanders made their debuts,.He married the film star Valerie Hobson.

His final film was Ryan's Daughter (1970), which starred Robert Mitchum.

For its exhibition, Bafta would like a picture of the house in which Sir Anthony was born in 1904. Sir Anthony called that place Blackwell Manor.

This request has proved very taxing, because the ancient Blackwell Manor tumbled down at least 50 years before Sir Anthony was born.

But there is a throwaway line in the Darlington and Stockton Times of August 21, 1880, which refers to Sir Anthony's grandfather's plans: "The lone uninhabited house opposite (Blackwell) Hall, which Sir Henry intends to occupy, is undergoing considerable alterations."

A quick consultation of an old map reveals that the only building that could possibly be construed as being opposite Blackwell Hall was called Blackwell Cottage.

A rifle through some old street directories revealed that after Sir Henry's death in 1897, his son, another Sir Henry, took up residence at Blackwell Grange. Blackwell Hall was rented out to Captain H Greathead, and W Hustler Hopkins, a coal owner and iron merchant, leased Blackwell Cottage.

It was all change in the 1903 street directory. Sir Henry was still in the grange, but Capt Greathead had died. The magnificently-named Hustler Hopkins had crossed the road and was living in Blackwell Hall, leaving Blackwell Cottage empty.

Then, in the 1904 directory, there was a new entry: Allan Havelock-Allan, the father of the film director, was listed as living in Blackwell Manor; however, all references to Blackwell Cottage had disappeared. Unless, of course, Blackwell Cottage and Blackwell Manor are one and the same.

Allan Havelock-Allan (who regular readers will note cropped up in Echo Memories three weeks ago, when he created one of the first golf courses in the area at his Dinsdale Spa Hotel) and his son did not stay in Blackwell Manor for much more than ten years. By the 1920s the building had reverted to being called Blackwell Cottage.

Well, that's the theory, anyway. Feel free to disagree.

Just for Bafta, in Darlington Centre for Local Studies there is a photocopy of a photocopy of an old postcard of Blackwell Manor.

Blackwell Cottage/ Blackwell Manor was demolished in the 1960s and now the Mormon church is on its site along with Cypress Close.

Blackwell Cottage was built on part of the riverbank called Castle Hill. You can walk down Castle Hill and along the river to Baydale field, off Coniscliffe Road.

Say "Baydale" carefully: "baydale...baytale...battale...battle." Here we have Castle Hill overlooking Battle field - surely not a coincidence?

We will finish by returning to our Victorian historian, William Longstaffe, who wrote: "I had better leave Blackwell Battle and Castle to a misty antiquary. One might easily multiply instances of similar titles given to places without even a tradition of blood, indeed at present such places are the chosen resorts of fairy elves."

* If you can prove the existence of elves, or have information or memories of Blackwell, please write to: Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloydnne.co.uk, or telephone 01325-505062 (and please do not be put off by the answering machine).

Published: 20/08/2003

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