A DELTIOLOGIST – that’s a postcard collector – from America has sent this image to the Darlington Centre for Local Studies in Darlington library, asking for information. It is the front entrance to a truly grand looking building which, it is said, is in Darlington.

But is it in our Darlington? Does anybody recognise it?

Darlington appears to be the only place called Darlington in the UK, but there are five Darlingtons in Australia, six in Canada and at least ten in the US, so perhaps this is from a different Darlington.

ON Thursday, June 11, in the library, in Crown Street, local historian Michael Rudd is giving a talk entitled Travellers to Teesdale through the Ages. Michael examines the impact that the landscape of Teesdale had on the work of artists such as JMW Turner and writers including Walter Scott, Charles Dickens and Alfred Wainwright.

The talk is part of the Crossing the Tees book festival. It starts at 2pm. Tickets are £2, and further information is on 01325-349630.

MANY thanks to everybody who has been in touch after last week’s Memories. There are loads of fascinating lines to follow up regarding, to name but three, Carlbury, Londonderry and Shildon’s footbridge. Future Memories will take up the stories.

In the meantime, Robin Cook in Swainby, at the foot of the Cleveland Hills, has been in touch, intrigued by the story of Carlbury. Carlbury was a hamlet near Piercebridge that was lost to road-widening in the 1950s. Its heyday was after 1856 when the Darlington to Barnard Castle branchline opened a station, called Piercebridge, in its midst, and it became involved in the transportation of goods and minerals from the area around.

Robin, though, is intrigued by pre-railway references in the history of Swainby. This pretty village expanded rapidly in the early 19th Century as leadmining developed in the Cleveland Hills, and from 1807 until the 1820s, there are records of cartloads of limestone being transported from Carlbury and Piercebridge to Swainby to build houses.

But where in the Carlbury area were the limestone quarries? Who can tell us?