THIS weekend's Memories (Dec 1) features an article on Bland's Corner at Blackwell, Darlington. One of the roads which creates the corner is the 1830s turnpike from Scotch Corner, which goes over Blackwell Bridge. Below is my article from 1993 about the building of the turnpike road.

I return to the turnpike for several reasons. Firstly, I am fascinated by the tollkeeper's cottage on Blackwell Bridge. It looks like a single storey from the road but it tumbles two or so storeys more down to the river. It has a nice little garden laid out in the shadow of the river, but surely it must flood. If I were brave, I would knock on the door and demand a look round.

Secondly, the tollkeeper's tollboard still survives. I thought it was in the Bridge Inn at Stapleton but I believe that in recent years it has moved to Cleasby village hall - perhaps someone could confirm.

Thirdly, I have recently noticed a cast iron milepost on the turnpike road between Stapleton and Barton. It's opposite the run-off to Cleasby Grange farm. Unliked most other mileposts in the district, which are listed buildings, it is not marked on the Ordnance Survey map. I reckon it dates from the 1880s. I'm rather proud of this discovery - I mentioned it to a chap who's driven past it every day from Barton into Darlington for the last 20 years, and he'd never noticed it! It is exactly two miles from Angel's Corner, so I would guess that there must have been mileposts at Stapleton, the Willow Bridge service station, the centre of Barton and probably another one just before Scotch Corner. I would be distressingly excited if anyone has any information on any of those.

Here's the archive article:

==============================

Blackwell Bridge has stood for more than 160 years – a remarkable achievement considering it is reputedly built on a woollen foundation.

Before the bridge was built Darlington could only be reached by crossing the Tees at Croft or Piercebridge. At Stapleton there was a ferry, and the foolhardy would often try to cross at Blackwell ford, which could only be safely navigated when the water was very low.

Foolhardy because initially this boundary was protected by a motte (an earthen fort) which was swept away by the great flood of 1771. And foolhardy because, as the fate of the Neville's ancient motte suggests, this was a particularly perilous stretch of river.

Parish records are littered with drownings at Blackwell. For example, in 1844, an 11-year-old boy named Fenwick met his watery end there in a flash flood. And if the waters didn't get you . Fenwick's deaf brother, Joseph, died exactly a year later: the horse-drawn Richmond omnibus and Cook's circus carriages were unable to stop as they hurtled down the incline of Blackwell hill towards the bridge. Poor Joseph never heard what hit him.

But the first Fenwick had had no reason to be in the river as Blackwell Bridge had been begun by Francis Mewburn, the first railway solicitor, when he laid the foundation stone on June 5, 1832. It was to the design of Newcastle architect John Green (more famous for his Penshaw Monument which adorns the A1 a little further north) and it was, like many Darlington constructions of this era, built of Gatherley Moor Stone Gatherley Moor Quarry was seven miles away near Scotch Corner and the stone was transported in horse-drawn wagons.

Because the bed of the Tees is shifting sand, the builders had great difficulty getting the foundations to hold. According to legend they adopted a method proposed by the great Hurworth mathematician William Emerson which had successfully cemented a bridge over the Thames. By the Emerson method, "bales of wool and faggots (bundles) of thorns" were sunk to the bottom of the holes, and upon these the pillars were erected.

The process worked, for the bridge still stands. Its most perilous moment came while still under construction. On December 16, 1833, the Tees rose quickly, washing away the timber scaffolding. Unfortunately a workman, Jeffrey Butterfield, was unable to jump clear and he was swept downstream by the charging current.

Clinging desperately to the timber, he white-water rafted under Croft Bridge over which a horseman was passing. Seeing the sodden Jeffrey, the horseman galloped to Hurworth and launched the ferryboat which intercepted the hapless workman just as he was about to breathe his last.

Blackwell Bridge was completed without further ado, and the road up the hill to the Angel roundabout (now Blands Corner) was built. This new route, grandly called "The Stapleton (or Angel Inn) and Barton Lane End Turnpike", became part of the Great North Road.

Being a turnpike, a toll was collected a small house which still stands on the Yorkshire side of the bridge was built for this purpose ("the first house in Yorkshire" as the Darlingtonians called it). There was a barrier across the road, and pedestrians had to go through a turnstile if they tried to sneak through without paying the turnstile would lock and keep them prisoner.

The toll-board, which stood outside the tollhouse giving a list of charges, has been restored and hangs in the porch of the Bridge Inn at Stapleton. It shows a "beast-drawn hearse" cost 6d to get over; a score of oxen 10d but pigs were cheaper at 5d.

At midnight on October 31, 1879, tolls were abolished and tollkeeper Elias Clarkson made redundant. Few tears were shed for poor old Elias judging by this comment in the Darlington and Stockton Times: "If the curses of objectors could have taken effect, the toll bar would long since have been levelled and all concerned in its maintenance impaled on the spikes which defend the bridge on two sides." By the Twenties, Blackwell Bridge 19ft wide and a single carriageway was a bottleneck. In the Thirties there was talk of building a new bridge downstream, but nothing happened until the late Fifties by which time it had become notorious the length of the A1.

In a commendable £100,000 project, the Ministry of Transport and Durham County Council in collaboration with the Royal Fine Arts Commission dismantled the south side of the bridge. Exact replicas were made of each stone removed, and these were placed on new foundations and now the bridge was 33ft two carriageways wide.

This "Siamese Twin" which was grafted on to the old section was ready by the middle of 1961. It can only have been part of the A1 for a couple of years as by 1963 the motorway which had been lain along the trackbed of the old Merrybent Railway was complete. Then Blackwell Bridge switched from its historic place on the Great North Road to secondary route status on the A66.

Unfortunately, no one thought to ask the workmen as they extended the bridge if they had discovered any evidence that back in 1832 their predecessors had really used bales of wool as foundations.

Presumably, the 1959-61 rebuilding team had a far more high-tec method to keep the bridge rock solid.