Moulton mettle

THE banner outside Moulton church advertises tai chi classes, which may be small scale tai chi because it is a very small village and a very small church.

These days, attractively altered, St Andrew’s is described as a community resource. It may still be the only tai chi class with font, war memorial and altar.

Save for the bus shelter, where notices not only indicate that all are welcome but urge that the visit be enjoyed, it is currently the community’s only resource. That’s the story.

The Black Bull, arguably the North-East’s best known pub and at one time unquestionably its most garlanded, closed unexpectedly earlier this month.

When George and Audrey Pagendam bought it in 1963, a time when North-East dining out was largely a Berni issue, it was just a single-room boozer. Together they transformed it, perhaps best known for a Pullman car called Hazel out the back but renowned for both food and wine.

Critics loved it, punters loved it, though it never opened on Sundays.

The Black Bull was a trend-setter 24/6.

“A pioneer of gastronomic excellence in the North-East as surely as George Stephenson led the railway revolution,” said the Eating Owt column when George died in November 2000.

On another occasion, Eating Owt was yet more direct. “Moulton? It was damn near incandescent.”

It was bought in 2006 by Harrogate businessman Philip Barker who, amid fierce local opposition, planned to build a conference centre and wedding venue and 15 letting cottages.

A small, hand-written notice by the door now says that the Bull will reopen in the summer; the website announces that it is “closed for refurbishment” and offers a link to the “sister” pub, the Black Horse at Kirkby Fleetham, a few miles away.

Mr Barker is one of eight people due to appear at Reading Crown Court on March 1 charged in connection with allegedly fraudulently obtaining over £30m worth of loans from the Royal Bank of Scotland and others.

A spokesman for his solicitors said that he planned to deny all charges.

“He is looking forward to having the opportunity to defend himself and his reputation at the trial.”

MOULTON’S just off the A1, a mile or so south of Scotch Corner. It has just 43 houses.

Once there was a Moulton railway station, too, though that was three miles away in North Cowton.

The Rt Rev James Bell, Bishop of Knaresborough, is at St Andrew’s to lead evening service and to see for himself what community resourcefulness has achieved.

Around 25 are present, rather more than there’ve been in the Bull some evenings of late, though some are from neighbouring villages.

“There’s been a three-line whip,” says a lady from one or other of the Cowtons, if not a flag day then a flagellation day, anyway.

The bishop, for Black Bull read purple Bell, says that he’s spent “a lifetime” going up and down the A1, often seen the signs to Moulton but never previously been there. “It’s a delightful place,” he says, not unreasonably.

St Andrew’s, officially what church folk call a chapel of ease, now has toilet, carpet and what currently is the only catering kitchen in the village, though the bus shelter has been known to sell cooking apples, £1 a bag.

The shelter also sells second-hand books for 50p – Indiana Jones: the Ultimate Guide; Spooks, Behind the Scenes – and on a visit in December 2010 displayed issue No 1 of Bus Shelter News. The first issue reported that the Bat Conservation Trust had counted 47 common pipistrelles leaving the shelter roof – a maternity roost – but failed to say how the Trust knew it wasn’t sometimes the same bat leaving twice, having nipped in again through the back door.

The shelter still has its books, photographs of the friendly neighbourhood fox, stuff about the tai chi. There appears not to be an issue two. Given all that’s been going on, they’re probably holding the front page.

Just days after the pub closed, however, the Darlington and Stockton Times itself took the Bull by the horns. The page one headline may have spoken volumes: “Village pub wins battle to expand.”

THE Pagendams had formulated expansion plans of their own, though they never fully materialised. The latest scheme was approved in 2009, despite opposition, and resubmitted to Richmondshire District Council this month.

Among those who spoke in opposition was Viscount Eccles, who with his wife is a lifetime tenant of the National Trust-owned Moulton Hall.

John Eccles is the son of the late Conservative peer, Diana Eccles – Baroness Eccles of Moulton – a life peer in her own right.

Both have impressive CVs. Viscount Eccles, among much else, was managing director of Head Wrightson from 1955-77 and chairman of Courtaulds from 1995-2000; his wife’s directorships included Tyne Tees Television, Times Newspapers and Sainsbury’s.

Viscount Eccles, 80, told the Richmond meeting that a conference centre would be out of scale in the village.

Already there were parking and accident issues; potentially there’d be problems with the drainage system.

Mr Barker’s planning consultant said that the buildings “would reflect and be in keeping with the character and setting of the village.”

Planning consent was approved for a further two years.

John Gentry, chairman of Moulton parish meeting, is in no doubt that the RBS-related charges are coincidental and that the closure – on the day of the council meeting – was coincidence, too.

“They’ve changed it to farmhousestyle cottages from something that looked like minarets, but the village is still completely against. It’ll overwhelm us, dwarf the place. It’s a very big application for a very small village.”

As well as traffic and parking issues, objectors also cite light pollution and potential sewage problems.

“Yorkshire Water says everything’s hunky-dory but the village knows it’s not,” says Mr Gentry, though he fears there’s nothing else they can do.

Evening service over, conversation turns inevitably to Bull and bullish.

It’s closed then? “Oh I know,” says a lady, almost literally open-mouthed.

The number given with the notice of closure is the pub’s. A voicemail message has not been returned. Like the rest of us, no doubt, Moulton keenly awaits the summer.