IN JUNE 1899, The Northern Echo was gearing itself up for a campaign. If necessary, it said, one penny would have to go on the rates to pay for its proposals. And how could anyone gainsay them?

"All lovers of the beauties of Nature would view with sincere regret the passing of the estate into the hands of the builder," it said.

The estate in question was North Lodge, off Northgate, in Darlington, which was up for sale for a rumoured £12,500 (about £625,000 in today's prices). It was perfect, said The Northern Echo, because 800 houses had been built in the town centre in the previous six years, so the area desperately needed a green lung, and North Lodge could be converted into a museum.

Others disagreed. The corporation had just spent £3,000 buying the trees and the crocuses of Grange Road for public enjoyment, they said.

The East Mount estate, opposite North Lodge, was also about to come up for sale and there were moves afoot for the corporation to buy that, too.

Plus, there were the new waterworks and the introduction of electric street lighting to be paid for. Capital outlay and maintenance costs for all these grand projects would add more than three pennies to the rates, said the critics, and the townspeople would not accept it.

But they did. The estate was bought in 1902 and opened as a public park on July 5, 1903 - exactly 100 years ago in two weeks' time, when the Friends of North Lodge Park will hold a summer fete to celebrate.

Darlington Borough Council is also about to spend £265,000 of National Lottery money on refurbishing the park.

The full story of the park, though, is much older than just a century. In the mid-1820s, the land stretching from what is today Gladstone Street up to the Cocker Beck on the other side of Corporation Road was parkland belonging to banker William Backhouse (1779-1844). His elder brother, Jonathan, was the family's head banker and was bankrolling the building of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.

William had wooded walks and a large pond with a boathouse on his land. In about 1830 he built a mansion there, which he called Elmfield. The house still stands, although its frontage in Northgate is shrouded in takeaway shops and taxi offices.

A couple of years later, William sold the southern portion of his estate to John Beaumont Pease (1803-73), the nephew of Edward Pease, who was building the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR). JB built North Lodge there, and took ownership of the 1820s North Terrace that fronted on to Northgate. It, too, still stands, hidden behind some shopfronts. However, it is in such a sad state that earlier this year its Grade-II listing was removed.

North Lodge is a splendid building with a fine bay window over Northgate and an austere porch on the side. Its roof dips inwards to a lead-lined centre where rainwater collected for use in the house.

Here lived JB with his wife Sarah, six children and five female live-in servants.

In 1844 William Backhouse dropped dead in the Friends Meeting House in Skinnergate. In 1855 Elmfield went up for sale.

Francis Mewburn told in his diary how William had "laid out and beautified (Elmfield) with great taste. Now he's left the town, these charming grounds are to be divided into building lots".

True, William had specialised in herbaceous borders and alpine plants; he even had a mulberry tree - the only other one in Darlington was in Blackwell.

Although Kendrew Street nibbled away at the estate, and Mulberry Street was built on top of the mulberry tree, much of it was preserved, because Elmfield was bought by the railway engineer Alfred Kitching. His son, John, was a keen horticulturalist and prettified the grounds further.

Alfred had established a foundry in Hopetown in 1830 that would become known the world over as Whessoe. At the foundry he built railway engines, including the Derwent, which is now in Darlington Railway Museum.

In 1857 he built the S&DR's 118th engine for £2,100 and named it Elm Field after his new home.

During the late-1880s, though, once Alfred had died, John Kitching did allow more land to be built on: Easson Road and Thornton Street soon sprung up, followed by Elmfield Terrace and a collection of smaller streets: Branksome Terrace (named because John owned Branksome Hall at Cockerton), Kingston Street (because the Kitchings owned a large house in Kingston Hill in Richmond, Surrey), Derwent Street (after the engine), Oakland Street and Chelsmford Street (because the Kitchings had a large country retreat called Oakland that was believed to be near Chelmsford, in Essex).

Plus Gladstone Street, which was named after the Liberal Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, who died in 1898.

There were plans for North Lodge Terrace (built in 1900) on the estate's western boundary.

When the Pease family began to talk of disposing of North Lodge, the townspeople feared that the whole estate might be lost under bricks and mortar.

But the council was prevailed upon to step in and on May 6, 1902, it became the proud owner of 12 acres of town centre parkland. The borough surveyor, George Winter, then began laying out a public park which opened on July 5, 1903.

The ceremony was performed by Councillor Robert Seymour Benson, chairman of the parks committee, who was presented with a "beautifully engraved key".

The Northern Echo, having won its campaign, enthused about what it saw.

"The trees and shrubs, although planted this spring, seem full of vigour," it said, "and the grass has been cut several times and is a nice close turfy surface in wonderful condition considering that it was only sown last autumn."

Backhouse's castellated boathouse remained beside an enlarged pond, which the corporation connected to Kendrew Street swimming baths so that the pond could be kept full in all weathers.

A year after the park opened, Councillor Robert Wood, of Victoria Road, presented a pair of black swans.

"The newcomers' beaks are red - contrasting admirably with the black - the wing feathers tipped underneath with white and curly at the end like those of an ostrich," reported the Darlington and Stockton Times.

In 1906, North Lodge Park's amenities were complete when the bowling green opened. It was hoped that would ease the overcrowding on the greens in South Park which, just like North Lodge's, were laid with turf from Silloth on the Solway Firth.

This was the heyday of the park, for as well as the romance of the pond, fountain and boathouse, there was music from the bandstand. And there was none of the decay now associated with this area of town: Elmfield remained the home of John Kitching until 1920; North Villa, a mid-Victorian mini-mansion, was occupied until the 1930s, and North Lodge found useful life as the Borough Education Department.

The start of the decline came in 1932 when the pond was filled in and the fountain was moved to a dry berth behind Elmfield.

The decay accelerated in January 1955, with the demolition of the castellated 1820s boathouse - an act which today we would regard as vandalism.

Elmfield ran out of residential use and was used as a Spiritualist Church, a dancing academy and a furniture shop. Then its front garden had shops built over it and its conservatory was pulled down.

North Villa was turned into a garage; North Terrace was covered in cheap extensions (from the rear, the arched stained glass stair windows show that this was once a terrace of some grandeur); and in the 1930s it was suggested North Lodge be pulled down and replaced with a new town hall.

Nothing came of this and, fortunately, no one acted upon the suggestion of Superintendent Arthur McGuire, who was in charge of Darlington police in 1961.

There were just three concerts a year held in the bandstand and Mr McGuire reckoned you could park 300-400 cars there instead.

"Nowadays you can hear the best brass bands in England at the turn of a knob," he said.

"Finding motorists room to park in this town is a lot more difficult."

The bandstand was restored in 1989, although looking at it today you would never know. It needs another £80,000 to repair it - a forlorn hope because the council only has £265,000 to spend. This it proposes to do by improving lighting, installing security cameras, dog bins, floral displays and a disabled access play area.

Already in the park is a play area and a football pitch. Both are well used.

Although the ruined bandstand will stand out, the money will hopefully enhance the beautiful air of tranquillity that the park has clung on to in the face of the builders' desires and the vandals' derelictions.

Published: ??/??/2003

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