ON June 27, 1918, Private Christopher Woodward was awarded the Military Medal for his heroics on a First World War battlefield. The people of his native Ferryhill were so proud that they clubbed together to buy him an inscribed pocketwatch.

The watch is still in Ferryhill. In fact, it will take pride of place in next Wednesday’s (June 24) meeting of the Ferryhill History Society, when Pte Woodward’s story will be told.

But are there any of his descendants still about? Would they like to come to the meeting?

Before the war broke out, Christopher was a quarryman but, aged 26, he was one of the first to respond to the call from king and country. He volunteered for the Durham Light Infantry and, on August 22, 1914, he was among the first 500 recruits posted to Surrey for training to from the 12th Battalion.

The Northern Echo: SADBERGE HALL: Home of William Wooler, who often "embittered controversy". Picture: HUGH MORTIMER
SADBERGE HALL: Home of William Wooler, who often "embittered controversy". Picture: HUGH MORTIMER

A year later, he was sent to northern France, arriving for his first taste of action in the trenches of the Western Front on September 9, 1915. The 12th Battalion was posted to Contalmaison for the Battle of the Somme in July 1916, acting as a service battalion, carrying bombs and stores to the frontlines and then returning with stretcher cases.

It looks likely that Christopher was under fire almost continuously for three-and-a-half months, before he was moved to a quieter section, near Ypres.

But, on April 27, 1917, he witnessed a British plane being shot down over his head, the pilot crashing into no man’s land. With a small party of colleagues, Christopher, acting as a stretcher-bearer, tried to rescue the pilot, who’d suffered a broken leg.

One of the would-be rescuers was killed by sniper fire; a second was awarded the Military Medal for crawling three times out to the injured man, and the pilot survived.

After these heroics, Christopher and his Battalion were transferred to Italy, where they fought until the armistice of November 1918, and Christopher performed another remarkable act which won him the Military Medal – and the hearts of his hometown.

But who was he, and what became of him in the peace? If you can help, or to hear more of his story, go along to the History Society on Wednesday at 7.30pm in the Eldon Arms, Ferryhill Station.

The Northern Echo: ELDON ARMS IN 1906: Home of the Ferryhill History Society which will hear the story of Pte Christopher Woodward on Wednesday
ELDON ARMS IN 1906: Home of the Ferryhill History Society which will hear the story of Pte Christopher Woodward on Wednesday

FROM the Saddle, in Memories 232 provoked a lot of response. Both Peter Crosier and Olive Langthorne spotted the picture of the house – The Old Kennels, between Middleton St George and Sadberge – where they lived at different times in the 1940s and 1950s.

The kennels is a good-looking Victorian building which has recently become visible from behind its screen of trees.

But we’re still not sure whose dogs were kennelled in The Old Kennels. Mrs Langthorne thinks there is a connection with the Hurworth Hunt, which had a fox covert in a nearby wood. The Hurworth kennelled its hounds in Strait Lane and then Rockliffe Park until the 1920s when they moved to West Rounton.

There may also be a connection to Sadberge Hall, the big house just up the road from the kennels, which was on the market last year for £2.5m.

The hall has been occupied by some big names: Sir Robert Ropner, the shipowner; Reginald Pease, the son of Henry; Sir Holberry Mensforth, the Director-General of Factories, and his wife Lady Alice; and Stanley Sadler, head of a firm of Middlesbrough manufacturing chemists.

And also William Alexander Wooler, who lived there from the 1860s until 1891. A staunch Conservative, Mr Wooler was one of eight brothers from Wolsingham who had speculative fingers in many pies from Bombay to West Hartlepool.

“He also in his years and physical capacity took a great interest in fox hunting,” said his obituary. So perhaps they are his kennels.

His obituary in The Northern Echo also contained this fantastic sentence: “Mr Wooler’s life was stormy in many respects and his public work was married by peculiarities of temperament and character which rendered co-operation with him difficult and often embittered controversy.”

Anyway, back at the kennels: are they haunted?

Mr Crosier’s parents were warned of ghosts by neighbours when they moved in, and then “one night, my mother said that something fell out of the ceiling just as the dog got up”. He continues: “It was something like a bat and it fell directly on top of the dog and disappeared. The dog fell on the floor, panting, very distressed and it would never sleep in that room again.”

Mrs Langthorne is not so sure. “I’ve heard people say it is haunted, but none of us saw anything in the five years we lived there.”