ONE of the great mysteries surrounding Chesterfield, a large house in the West End of Darlington, is why there should be a large house in the West End of Darlington named after Chesterfield, a town in Derbyshire with a wonky church spire.

But it was in Chesterfield Hospital, a few years before the outbreak of the First World War, that house surgeon Frederick Charles Pridham met Ida Haworth, the theatre sister. Later they married.

At about the same time, Mr Pridham's father, James, returned to Britain from Ceylon where he had been in charge of a tea plantation. Pridham family legend has it that James was sent home suffering from sunstroke.

For an unknown reason, James Pridham, who hailed from the West Country, settled in Harewood Grove, Darlington, and set himself up as tea merchant.

James only stayed a couple of years in Darlington before moving to Stockton and finally to Bristol, but it was long enough to entice his son and his new bride to the town.

James must have been aware that a local construction firm had built a large doctor's surgery-cum-house in Stanhope Road. The surgery had been commissioned by a German doctor who had gone bankrupt before it could be completed.

James guaranteed his son enough money to go into partnership with another Darlington doctor, Dr J Donald Sinclair of Grange Road. Mr Pridham was the senior partner and so got to name the surgery.

There were three consulting rooms on the downstairs of Chesterfield and the remaining south side of the house was the Pridhams (the north side of the house, as readers will remember from past weeks, was called Marjoribanks).

There were seven bedrooms in Chesterfield, including the maids' rooms. Outside was a lawn with flowerbeds, herbaceous borders, a shrubbery and a vegetable garden. There was a garage opening out on to Scarth Street and an Anderson air raid shelter.

Mr Pridham's only child, Pattie, was born in Chesterfield in October 1915. She now lives in Gloucestershire and Echo Memories is very grateful to her for the information in this article.

Having seen her born, Mr Pridham joined the army medical corps and was posted to Ireland and the Western Front. In a Casualty Clearing Station near Ypres in 1916 he was caught in a gas attack and invalided out of the army.

He was well enough to return to his family and practice in 1918 when a terrible flu epidemic broke out. He would do his rounds, which stretched as far as Aldborough St John and Croft, at first on a bike but then as he cared for patients in the Dales, he got a car - a Bellsize Bradshaw.

He also became voluntary surgeon at Greenbank Hospital and then, when it was opened in 1933, he was senior surgeon at Darlington Memorial Hospital.

But in 1930, he developed tuberculosis as a result of being gassed during the war. He continued to work as a GP and a surgeon until he died in 1947 at the age of 58.

* Chesterfield is the subject of a planning application before Darlington Borough Council for demolition. Twelve flats could be built on its site with another 15 facing onto Scarth Street