HOLIDAYS so far over that I've forgotten I ever went away, but I've yet to get back into the rhythm of blogging. One of the things that has kept me away - and indeed, awake at night - has been putting together a new talk for Friday night. I was asked to do something on Teesdale for this weekend's Heritage Open Days, and I finished in the early hours of this morning. I reckon I'll call it Teesdale Tracks and Derailing Dukes.

There's a preview of part of it in this morning's Memories. As usual, I wrote far too much and some of the pictures got squeezed out, including the one here.

This is Barnard Castle's first railway station, opened in 1856 and designed by Sir Thomas Bouch. Only in 1861 he discovered he'd got it in the right place and so he had to build another one to service the line over Stainmore. The second one - now beneath Glaxo car park - quickly became the dominant one and so this little fellow was downgraded. It became a goods station and had its grand entrance portico taken from it in 1863 by the Saltburn Improvement Company which re-erected it in Valley Gardens as a memorial to the recently-deceased Prince Albert.

Lots more of this sort of nonsense at Mickleton Village Hall on Friday starting at 7pm. All welcome.

I was just asked to do something on Teesdale for the Heritage Open Days and have decided to have a run along