ON Monday, phase two of the strengthening of Darlington’s Stonebridge begins. Phase one of the £900,000 project began in October after it was discovered that the Stonebridge was “severely corroded” – strangely, it appears that the Stonebridge is a bridge made of both stone and metal…

Pre-history: the wide, meandering Skerne was crossed by a ford (or wash or wath) near the bridge. The remains of The Wash can still be seen inbetween the Darlington Credit Union and TK Maxx on Crown Street

1343: the first mention of a stone bridge, with three arches

1727: Daniel Defoe visited Darlington and wrote of "a high stone bridge over little or no water". To bridge the wide floodplain, Stonebridge now had nine arches – but its approach roads regularly flooded

1767: R and W Nelson of Melsonby were paid £860 (£1.3m in today’s values) to build a three arch bridge of Gatherley Moor stone. A year later, £140 was spent adding stone parapets

1849: A two arch stone bridge was built

1895: Teasdale Bros, of the Bank Top Iron Works rebuild Stonebridge. Little is known about the brothers, except they formed their company of “engineers, boiler smiths, iron and brass founders, iron merchants etc” in 1835.

2015: Work begins restoring the Teasdale Bros’ metal and stone Stonebridge