From squatters' refuge to a thriving corner

DARLINGTON'S Bakehouse Hill was started hundreds of years ago by squatters, who saw the enormity of the town's Market Square stretching from Horsemarket to Priestgate and thought that the little rise would be a profitable place for them to stay and trade.

Most of the buildings that today look into the Market Place date from shortly before 1780 because in that year an advertisement appeared in the Newcastle Chronicle newspaper saying: "To be sold by auction on Monday 2nd October, all those newly erected messuages or tenements and shops, situated on the Bakehouse Hill, in the Market Place, very convenient for trade."

Let us have a quick spin around the Hill to see how those buildings have changed and traded.

CH SHARP'S PAWNBROKERS THE properties in Bakehouse Hill begin to the south of the entrance into Bakehouse Yard.

Those to the north are properly known as Tubwell Row, and so the first on the Hill is Charles Henry Sharp's pawnbroker's shop, which is now a bookshop.

Mr Sharp came to Darlington from his native York around 1879 and set up business on this spot.

In about 1890 fire ravaged his old shop and so he rebuilt.

He retired around 1919, leaving us a building that is certainly worth looking up at.

He died in the Thirsk area in 1939 aged 82.

PEASE'S WINE MERCHANTS WHEN, in 1808, Thomas Pease (nephew of Joseph) announced to his strictly religious family that he was going to forsake his chemist's trade and become a wine merchant, he was forced to renounce his Quaker faith and become an Anglican.

But his business thrived and in 1864 when the Covered Market was built he took over the cellars underneath it.

In the 1870s his son, Edward Thomas, was importing wines and spirits from areas of Europe which feared the Franco-Prussian War was about to destroy their districts.

This led, in 1875, to the importation of a 1,000 gallon cask of brandy, the largest amount of spirits ever imported into Britain in a single cask.

The cask was so large, it snapped the crane that unloaded it from a ship in Stockton.

The railway company then refused to move it because it was so large they feared it would break their wagons, so its contents had to be syphoned out.

When the cask eventually reached the Covered Market, it was too large to roll into Peases' basement, so coopers had to take it to pieces and reassemble it.

In the late 1890s, Edward Thomas' son, Frank, acquired the premises above the old ovens on the corner of Bakehouse Hill.

In 1899 he built the distinctive brick and terracotta building, designed by the well-known Darlington architects JP Pritchett and Son, which still stands today.

Because these Peases did not want to be associated too much with grubby money-making, they at first called their retail business Markham's.

In 1939, Peases' cellars under the Covered Market were requisitioned and used as an air raid shelter, and Peases' entire business transferred to Bakehouse Hill, the remains of the old ovens becoming their wine cellar.

T Pease and Son remained on the Hill until 1981, when, as Pease and Wrightson, they transferred to Gainford.

Their building has since been used as restaurants and cafes.

It was taken over three years ago by Mike Evers who started Caf Caffae there.

He went investigating underground and rediscovered part of the old ovens, as well as Peases' old lift, which had crashed down into the cellar.

These ovens, built about 1820, were closed by an 1875 Act of Parliament which banned bakehouses which had been excavated beneath public thoroughfares.

One of the most intriguing bits which Mr Evers found was what appears to be a cooling shelf. Here, pies must have sat waiting for their owners to collect them.

Mr Evers wanted to turn his cellar into seating for his cafe and asked Moroccan artist Ahamad el Hadad to do something interesting with the cooling shelves.

"We locked him in one night and said get on with it," recalls Mr Evers.

Ahamad came up with a bizarre collection of human bones.

"At first I thought it was a bit macabre, but no one has been put off by it," he said.

Macabre and bizarre, for it was not until Mr Evers read Echo Memories on November 20 that he realised the martyr George Swalwell was hanged in Bakehouse Hill in 1594.

George's innards were then boiled in a pot somewhere near the bakehouse and finally, whatever remained of the poor chap was tossed on to the bakers' dunghill.

Could this have been the spooky inspiration for the Caf Caffae artwork more than 400 years later?

THE BULL'S HEAD ORIGINALLY called the Black Bull Inn when it first started trading in the 18th Century (and it is probable that the cellars still beneath it date back to that time). In those days, the pig market was held outside the Bull's Head and, because of the number of farmers who were regularly in town, it gained a reputation as a country sports pub.

Two hundred years ago the Bull's Head had a cock-pit for the entertainment of its regulars.

The pub retained its sporting reputation right up until its closure in 1956.

A succession of cafes and restaurants have since used its building, the latest, Frank's Yankee Restaurant, closing just last week after 14 years in business.

MASON'S DINING ROOMS THERE is no sign that once, sandwiched between the two pubs of Bakehouse Hill, there was was a small restaurant.

In Victorian and Edwardian times it was run by John Robson Mason.

It seems to have remained an eating establishment until the 1950s, but then became a small shop.

In 1978, it was the Handicraft Centre when the Pennyweight decided it wanted to expand.

THE PENNYWEIGHT OF the three pubs on the hill (we will come to the third in a minute), the Pennyweight is the newcomer.

It is believed that the original borough bakehouse was on this south-east corner before it moved a couple of doors to the south-west around 1820.

Then the Market Hotel, or Tavern, opened on this spot, probably using the ovens as beer cellars.

The pub was renamed the Pennyweight, a reference to its baking past, in 1981.

BAKEHOUSE YARD DECORATED by graffiti and perfumed with dubious Friday night scents, the little stretch of scoriae-bricked yard behind the buildings on the Hill has always been the sort of place not to venture into after dark.

It has tried to do better for itself, as can be seen by the moulded brickwork at ground level and the timbered frontage at roof level.

This interesting building has, though, been boarded up since a takeaway closed there about ten years ago, but it may be the remains of the third pub on the Hill.

It was called the Castle Inn (possibly the Elephant and Castle Inn in its very early days), and it was selling beer until the 1890s.

The yard, though, has not really been a place of trade: it has been a place to cram as many poor people into as possible.

It did have its perks. In 1844, a single-roomed cottage in the yard was auctioned.

"The purchaser on this occasion will, for a small sum, obtain a vote for the county of Durham; and, what is more valuable, he will immediately become toll-free in the Darlington and Bishop Auckland markets," boasted the handbill for the sale.

Scrawled in pencil on the back of the handbill is the information that Ralph Alcock, of East Cowton, paid £40 for the cottage and other "back cottages" in the yard.

He got his vote, escaped taxes on goods he brought to a nd from market, and probably got his money back on his property by cramming people into his single-roomed cottage.

In 1848, there were 74 people living in Bakehouse Hill, most of them in the back cottages of the yard. The average age of death was 33.4 years.

In 1851, Darlington's Medical Officer, Dr Stephen Piper, discovered 13 Irish people "who'd come to the town looking for work" living in one room 12ft square. In another, 6ft by 8ft, room he counted five Irishmen living, sleeping and eating.

Dr Piper did much good work to remove Darlington's squalor, and after his investigation conditions in Bakehouse Yard eased.

By the start of the 20th Century, there was only a handful of people living there and the big traders on the front of the Hill had begun the process of expanding into the properties behind them.

If you have any information or memories about Bakehouse Hill, please write to Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF or e-mail chris.lloyd

Published: 11/12/2002

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