ANYWAY, as I was saying before I ran out of time yesterday: Teetotal Cottages in Hurworth.

So I was sitting outside in the snow and plucked up courage to approach one of the people whose address is Teetotal Cottages. This is a dangerous tactic: some people will talk at length, even ad nauseum, about their properties; others will tell a journalist to get lost in no uncertain terms and not to dare putting anything in the paper.

The young lady was very kind and showed me in and out the back, which is completely different to the front of the house. A rudimentary dated brick says 1878 which would tie in with the coffee house next door.

The back of the house is also built in two-tone bricks: red and cream, with decorative diamonds in the brickwork and other stones which are very obviously too grand for a backyard.

The colour concept and the design ties in with the Temperance Hall over the road - GG Hoskins, the architect of the Hall, called it "duochromy", I think.

There are a couple of curious outhouses in the backyard which are said to date back to linen days – one outhouse features a large bowl built over a fire grate where presumably some steeping or dyeing went on before the temperance types moved in.