Last week on Alpha Radio, Echo Memories was asked about the precise connection between the Queen Mother, Streatlam Castle in Teesdale, and Bowes Museum. A vague flim-flam of an answer was given for, in truth, we did not really know. But we set about finding out:

In the beginning ACCORDING to local legend, in 1089 Alan the Black, Earl of Richmond, built a tower to stop the Scots from raiding his territory.

He gave the tower to his cousin, William, who had 500 archers under his command. William, therefore, became known as William de Bowes and his tower became known as Bowes Castle.

Local legend may be factually inaccurate - Henry II probably started Bowes Castle in 1171 - but it does appear that the Bowes family owed their beginnings to Alan the Black, a close friend of William the Conqueror, and their command of bowmen.

Streatlam Castle ABOUT 1310, Adam de Bowes, one of the top lawyers in the country, married Alice de Trayne, the heiress of Streatlam Castle. Her ancestors had somehow acquired the 12th Century castle from the Baliol family, and her father, John, had just built a new castle - known as Newcastle - on top of it. Naturally enough, Adam de Bowes moved out of chilly Bowes Castle into the more temperate Streatlam, and started a line that lasted for six centuries.

Battlers and builders SIR William Bowes rebuilt Streatlam about 1450. He was away much of his life fighting in France, but he sent back plans to Teesdale from the battlefields showing how he wanted his castle to look. Not surprisingly, its design was very influenced by the French castles that Sir William was attacking.

Sir William's grandson was Sir George (1527-1580). He was loyal to Queen Elizabeth I when she took to the throne in 1558 and ordered that Protestantism be the religion of England.

Many in the North-East did not agree. Rebellious Catholics held services in Durham Cathedral and in Darlington, and people were forced to attend Mass on pain of death. The Earl of Westmoreland, who lived in Raby Castle, about five miles from Streatlam, took up the Catholic cause.

Sir George was very worried about the antics of his bellicose neighbour and, in November 1569, retreated from Streatlam and holed up in Barnard Castle's castle. Westmoreland captured Streatlam after four days, and on December 3 attacked Barnard Castle.

Outnumbered and outgunned, Sir George stayed safely behind the castle walls. Westmoreland's troops on the outside are supposed to have taunted him with the playground rhyme: "A coward, a coward of Barney Castle Daren't come out to fight a battle."

On December 14, Sir George surrendered. Curiously, Westmoreland allowed him to leave unhindered. Sir George immediately joined up with the Queen's army, swept through the region and forced Westmoreland into exile.

However, Sir George was not happy when he returned home. He found Westmoreland's men had "utterly defaced" Streatlam, carrying off everything that was portable - including 40 feather beds - and smashing up everything that was nailed down.

Although the Queen rewarded him for his loyalty, Sir George could not afford to restore his castle, and he died there in 1580 of a broken heart - his ghost lingering to haunt the shell of his home.

His descendants spent three generations scrimping and saving to rebuild their grand castle.

Eventually, his great-grandson, Sir William (1658-1706), pulled off a masterstroke by marrying Elizabeth Blakiston, the heiress of Gibside, in the north of County Durham. Gibside came with great seams of unexploited coal and family interests in Newcastle iron.

The Bowes were in the money again. Sir William set about transforming Streatlam from a windy 15th Century castle into a luxurious 18th Century stately home, with stone quarried from nearby Stainton.

Not everyone was enraptured by his creation. One visitor wrote: "Nothing but veneration for the ancient seat of the family could induce Sir William to erect such a mansion in so ineligible a situation - so gloomy and confined. There is something romantic in such secluded scenes, but they are better suited to the vicinity of a cottage than a palace."

The Bowes-Lyons arrive SIR William's son, George, had just one daughter, Mary Eleanor. She was one of the wealthiest heiresses in Europe, and had men queuing up to marry her, even though they would have to change their surname to win her hand.

She decided upon John Lyon, the ninth Earl of Strathmore, whose ancestral seat was at Glamis Castle. They married in 1767 and had five children in nine years. They were the first to be born with the surname Bowes-Lyon.

The kidnap JOHN Lyon died at sea in 1776, and within nine months Mary Eleanor married again - even though she was carrying someone else's child. Her second husband was Andrew Stoney. He beat her and spent her money, and when she tried to divorce him on grounds of adultery, he kidnapped her from a London street. The full story is told in Memories of Darlington 3 (£4.95 from all good bookshops).

He held her hostage in Streatlam until local people closed in on him. He then dragged her across the Durham moors on horseback for nine days, winding up in a back room of a house in Darlington town centre. When the local constable knocked on the door he fled but was eventually captured near Sockburn.

Mary Eleanor did not care for Streatlam, and with Andrew Stoney gambling and whoring all her money away, the Teesdale castle was "deserted and fast falling into decay and ruin".

More scandal...

MARY Eleanor's eldest son, John, inherited the title Earl of Strathmore. One of his loves was horse-racing, and in 1803 he won the St Leger. With the winner, St Mab, he started the Streatlam Stud.

His other love was Mary Milner, a humble gardener's daughter from Stainton, near Streatlam. They did not marry until 16 hours before John died in 1820.

They hoped the deathbed marriage would make their son, John Bowes, legitimate in the eyes of the law. He had been born in 1811, outside wedlock. Two long court cases decided that John Bowes could not inherit the title, but he could take over Streatlam.

The museum, stud and station WITH no Englishwoman prepared to marry such a bastard, John Bowes took a Parisian actress, Josephine Benoite Coffin-Chevalier as his wife (Josephine, incidentally, was petrified of water, which must have made their cross-Channel love affair rather tricky).

They spent their lives collecting art, and in 1869 began building a museum at Barnard Castle to house it all - the Bowes Museum.

John also repaired Streatlam. In the 1830s he employed the Newcastle architect John Green, who built the Theatre Royal and Grey's Monument, to do interior work.

In 1862, Bowes shipped an orangery from his chateau at Louveciennes, on the Seine near Paris, to be reassembled in the Streatlam grounds.

He kept the Streatlam Stud going with great results. He won the Derby four times with Mundig (1835), Cotherstone (1843), Daniel O'Rourke (1852) and West Australian (1853).

West Australian became the first horse to win the Derby, the 2000 Guineas and the St Leger in the same season.

Another of John Bowes' extraordinary contributions to the Streatlam estate was his private railway station at Broomielaw.

This was an ornate halt on the Barnard Castle branch line which opened on July 8, 1856. Only guests for Streatlam castle could alight there - although in the middle of nowhere, between Barnard Castle and Winston, no one else would have wanted to.

A wide private carriageway, lined by railings, ran from the station to the castle.

When John died in 1885 without issue, Streatlam Castle returned to the legitimate line of the Bowes-Lyon family.

Last of the line WITH a variety of palaces and stately homes across the country, the last thing the Bowes-Lyons needed was a castle in the country. However, as he could afford it, Claude, the 14th earl, kept it as a pleasant retreat. If nothing else, it was somewhere to store his famous paintings - he had a Rubens, and a couple of Hogarths and Reynolds there.

When his eldest son, Patrick (1884-1949), came of age, he took up residence at Streatlam. Patrick had five brothers and four sisters who stopped off at Broomielaw station and nipped in to see him. The youngest of his sisters was Elizabeth Angela Marguerite (1900-2002), who fondly remembered her summer holidays in Teesdale.

The First World War changed everything. In peacetime, the Bowes-Lyons could not afford an expensive country castle that was surplus to requirements.

To make matters worse (or so local rumour has it), they were having to pay for a vast wedding: Elizabeth Angela Marguerite was betrothed to Prince Albert, the king's second son.

Streatlam Castle was put up for sale in 1922, ending six centuries of family occupation. On April 26, 1923, Elizabeth wed Bertie.

Demolition STREATLAM Castle's new owner was Norman Field, of Lartington Hall. He was interested in reviving the famous Streatlam Stud. He was not especially interested in a tumbledown 18th Century mansion. In 1927, he auctioned off every possible fixture and fitting and pulled down the mansion, leaving the 15th Century castle behind it exposed.

During the Second World War, the Army occupied the castle. In 1957, Mr Field sold the dilapidated ruin to Major Philip Pease, who lived in Sledwich Hall, just over the road from Streatlam. Two years later, he invited the Territorial Army to do an exercise involving dynamite on the site.

On March 29, 1959, the remains of Streatlam Castle were blown up.

What is left...

STREATLAM Park is still owned by the Pease family. There are a number of farmhouses, outbuildings and stables that date back to the glory days of the castle.

Broomielaw station shut when the Barnard Castle branch line closed to passengers in November 1964 and to goods traffic in April 1965. The railway house on the site is now a private residence, and the platform with ramshackle buildings on it can still be made out.

Plus, of course, still thriving is Bowes Museum, which was founded by the Queen Mother's great-grandfather's brother's illegitimate son, who lived in Streatlam Castle. So now we know.

Published: 17/04/2002

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