Journey along the 'chares' of Bishop Auckland

NOWADAYS the traffic entering Bishop Auckland on the Durham Road sweeps over the Gaunless without even noticing the river is there, and the vehicles climb the hill without looking down on the old road lost in the trees.

This new road was bulldozed across the Bishop of Durham’s south-facing asparagus beds in 1930 by builder Joe Dixon of Shildon. This was high quality growing land and so the Bishop extracted a good price for it from the county council, which wanted to build a new road to by-pass the steep and narrow “chares” which since time immemorial had been the eastern entrance to the town.

A “chare” is a north country word for “a narrow street”, and in the days before the new road was built, an old time traveller arrived would have arrived with a clip and a clop of his horse’s hooves in Gib Chare. He would have noted the mill on his left before he crossed the low Gaunless bridge, perhaps noting a strange stone in its middle. Then he came to a fork beside a quirky drinking fountain. The left prong of the fork was a substantial haul up Durham Chare onto Kingsway; the right prong was a frightening pull up Castle Chare into the Market Place and Auckland Castle.

Before he chose which prong to ascend, the traveller might have dismounted to look more closely at the items he had just noted.

FERENS MILL

THERE have been water-powered mills on this spot since at least the 16th Century. In 1830, the mill was taken on by the Ferens family, who were based at East Thickley, near Shildon – it was at East Thickley that Thomas Robinson Ferens, the multi-millionaire benefactor of Hull whose story was told in Memories 310, was born.

His father, George, and brother, Michael, came to concentrate on the Gaunless mill, enlarging it into a four-storey complex and moving into the big houses on Durham Chare above it. As well as producing flour, they provided many of the collieries of Durham and Northumberland with “horse provender” for the pit ponies to eat. The Ferens family built a little terrace of cottages next to the mill for some of their workforce – they employed nine men and one boy, according to the 1881 census – to live in.

Michael died in 1922, and his sons, Henry and Angus, modernised the mill further, adding electric motors to the water power. In turn, a fourth generation of Ferens, Michael, took the mill on. In the 1960s, he joined the Nitrovit firm of feed merchants and ceased milling on the site.

The mill stood empty until late 1969 when it was so badly damaged by fire that it had to be demolished. The Willows street of houses is now on its site.

GAUNLESS BRIDGE

HAVING examined the old mill, our traveller would have made his way on to the early 19th Century bridge. In the centre of it, he may have spotted a triangular piece of polished granite carved with a bad Scrabble hand of letters.

One side says "Bp.A.L.B. "; the other says "Bp.A.H.B" while the top says "H. &L.A. 1878".

This refers to the Highways & Locomotives (Amendment) Act of 1878 which created highways boards to maintain the roads in town and country. Every driver of a propelled vehicle – they were probably thinking more of steam-powered than petrol-driven – had to buy a £10 licence from each authority whose area he drove through.

The stone is believed to mark the boundary between the Bishop Auckland Local Board and the Bishop Auckland Highways Board – one town, the other country.

This arrangement lasted for less than ten years until county councils were created to take charge of all roads in 1888. Its short life means that very few reminders of it survive – the only other boundary marker we know if is a small cast iron headstone at the top of Darlington’s Bondgate, again with “H&LA” on it and again marking the boundary between the town and country authorities.

DRINKING FOUNTAIN

The Gib Chare drinking fountain last Sunday when there weren't any cars about. The old Castle Chare goes up behind it. Picture: Trevor Horner

OUR traveller now crosses the Gaunless bridge and comes to the fork where a large Gothic drinking fountain stands. Today, the route of what was once Castle Chare runs off behind it, while in front of it, cars usually park with their bumpers touching it, obscuring its view.

In this dingly dell, the fountain is an attractive and intriguing sight. Lettering on it says that it was erected in 1873 by the Temperance Society. It is a Grade II listed building, as is its partner – are they identical twins? – in High Bondgate. However, the Bondgate fountain is listed as a “horse trough” whereas the one by the bridge is called a “drinking fountain”.

But it must be for the refreshment of horses because any human would have to go down on all fours to reach the water.

There are other instances of public watering holes being provided for working animals. Only a year ago, Memories was enthusing about the cast iron horse trough, made by Lingford, Gardner of Bishop Auckland, at the top of Escomb bank to give animals a well deserved drink after the long haul up from the Wear.

There is also a stone trough at Bland’s Corner, Blackwell, to the south of Darlington. It was installed in November 1913 by the Metropolitan Drinking Fountain and Cattle Trough Association, to refresh the herds of cows, sheep and even geese (that should be “flocks”) which were being driven “with gaping and frothy mouths and lolling tongues” into market.

These, though, are humble troughs, whereas Bishop Auckland’s is a towering water feature.

And why would a temperance society install a fountain for horses? Temperance societies aimed to steer men away from the demon drink and they built water fountains to act as a healthy alternative to a beer in a pub – the Fothergill Fountain in Darlington’s South Park is a temperance fountain.

So the only reasonable conclusion is that in Bishop Auckland, the horses had such a drink problem that the local temperance society installed a fountain to stop them succumbing to the lure of hard liquor.

Any better theories?

BELVEDERE

Belvedere, on Kingsway, Bishop Auckland, which was where TR Ferens, the Hull multi-millionaire, is believed to have gone to school

LET’S move on, up Durham Chare and onto Kingsway. In Memories 310, we said that the multi-miollionaire TR Ferens attended school at Belvedere, Bishop Auckland, before finding fame and fortune in Hull.

Barbara Laurie, in Bishop, draws our attention to the rather rundown buildings by the Kingsway/South Church Road traffic lights. One of them contains the Belvedere Social Club.

“They were originally built as a fine block of six town houses,” says Barbara. “You can tell by the beautiful stonework that they were well built – Dr Wardle once lived there, and another of them was a private boys’ school.

“They were called Belvedere Terrace to accord with their posh status, I expect.”

“Belvedere” is an Italian word meaning “beautiful view”. In this country, a belvedere is usually a summerhouse on top of a hill with a commanding view, although in Vienna the Belvedere is an enormous baroque palace, with a good view. Bishop Auckland Belvedere doesn’t ever seem to have had an especially notable view, and now, bless it, it looks out to the fire-ravaged dereliction of two former schools.

But at least the word “Belvedere” is still carved in its stonework reminding of a time when it had better viewing.

A LOVELY Ferens-related letter from John Heslop of Durham City:

“WHEN I was a boy scout, we discovered that the shops in Newgate Street, Bishop Auckland, offered easy pickings in Bob-a-Job Week. Mostly it was sweeping back yards, but Marks & Spencer paid us half a crown each to sweep a flat roof – before health and safety – and our favourite job was at Sid Appleton's fish and chip shop where we received a bob from Sid on condition that we ate six pen'orth of chips for free!

“If we exhausted Newgate Street, there were rich pickings in Durham Chare.

The first house was the home of Angus Ferens, the owner of Ferens Mill. It was a large mansion, immediately above and with direct access to the mill, and had extensive gardens. We were set to work at ten o’clock weeding a large flower bed.

“After a couple of hours, we were happy to have completed this arduous task and were ready for our lunch break, so we presented ourselves at the house, expecting payment.

“However, Angus wished to inspect our work and told us it wasn't good enough, so we spent the afternoon re-weeding for the eventual princely sum of one shilling each.

“Needless to say, in future we bypassed Angus and started with Michael Ferens, his nephew, who lived next door and paid half a crown for much less work.”