Making a good impression

One side of it was described as a wilderness of long grass in summer and a sloppy, unpassable waste in winter. Cattle and sheep being taken to market churned it up every time it rained, as did horses which pulled carts and carriages in each direction.

It certainly gave a poor impression of the town to folk arriving by road from Bishop Auckland and Darlington, as well as railway passengers walking down from the station.

In an effort to put things right, a scheme was drawn up to set out a neat garden which would make a better impact on visitors as they arrived.

There was a feeling that the town could have an affluent future as a health resort, but this awful mess would stop people coming.

Many folk opposed the improvements, however, claiming they would not look right.

They said they would rather have a messy natural area than some artificial features that would be a waste of money.

But those wishing to make this entrance to the town look better got their way, so the central garden area and slip road were set out in much the way they can still be seen today.

It was generally agreed that this really was an improvement.

The garden area has served the area well for more than a century, but there has been a suggestion lately that it is now in need of further attention.

Earlier, there had been a more important change made further down Galgate.

For a lot of time in the 1840s and 1850s there had been an unsavoury drain running down one side of the street.

Open and unfenced, it was smelly and disgusting, an obvious danger to the health of everyone.

There was also a different type of danger, as the drain was deep. A scribe at the time reported that several people walking late at night had fallen into it “to their great detriment”.

A drop into it would definitely do them no good at all.

It was agreed that rates money should be used to cover the drain and place paving stones above it. The work was carried out promptly, so there was no longer a risk of latenight drinkers plunging into a stinky batch of slime on the way home from the pub – and that surely was a major improvement.

AN old photograph of Weardale Brass Band, which was printed here a few weeks ago, caused a lot of interest.

Now another one, taken in about 1952, of Weardale Junior Band will bring back more memories.

Peter Nattrass, who received it from Anne Peart and passed it on, says the young musicians in it were outside the band hall in Westgate.

Men of Weardale Brass Band about to board a coach to go to one of their engagements

In the back row from left are Maxwell Coulthard, Brian Milner, Winston Clement, John Barron, Eric Nattrass and Leslie Boon.

Next row: Brian Pattinson, Clifford Walton, Ann Woodhall, Alan Milner, Peter Walton and Angus Thompson. In front are Sidney Lambert and Alan Nattrass.

Another photograph from around that era is of members of the brass band at a coach which took them to an engagement. They are, from the left, Willie Fairless, Mansell Milner, Maurice Robinson, Harold Peart, Jackie Dargue, Martin Scott and Norrie Johnson. This picture was given to Mr Nattrass by Kathy Milner.

THERE were occasional fights in days of yore between the hard men of Upper Teesdale and those they regarded as softies – the lowlanders who lived in Barnard Castle.

One of their biggest battles came on Whit Wednesday in 1816, when lead miners and quarrymen from the Middleton area had a day out in the town.

It started with drinking and merry-making but ended with a mass brawl. A central feature was a contest between two hard-punching townies, Jamie English and Ben Godfrey, and two highlander brothers called Gray, who eventually admitted defeat and went away bruised and bleeding.

The Militia was called to intervene in the affray. The magistrates fined 44 of the fighters 12 shillings and sixpence apiece. They managed to scrape together the cash between them, but instead of handing it in, they spent it in a hostelry, got mightily intoxicated, agreed never to fall out again and parted as bosom pals.

Jamie English, a blacksmith, went off to the US, where his skill in his trade earned him lots of money. He did well, became a magistrate and died a wealthy man.

His son, James English, was stabbed to death in a tavern in the US some years later after speaking out about the way black men were treated as slaves.

A newspaper which reported the murder stated that he was the son of the late “Judge English”. That description of Jamie wasn’t quite accurate, but he had come up in the world, unlike Ben Godfrey, his partner in the bout against the Gray brothers. He went on picking fights against other men just for fun.

He could always beat one opponent at a time, but they often teamed up to give him a battering.

These beatings probably affected his mind so that he lost his senses and was described as a lunatic. He was confined to an upstairs room in a house on The Bank, in Barnard Castle, with friends taking care of him and keeping him out of trouble. One day, he heard a commotion in the street below and looked down to see men fighting. He opened the window and jumped out, plunging three storeys onto the pavement.

He amazed witnesses by getting up, apparently unharmed, and walking back into the house. But he had sustained internal injuries from which he died shortly afterwards.

MONEY was scarce in the dales in the early 1700s, but residents had to find some to pay a wide variety of taxes or end up in trouble.

Old accounts show that, in Cotherstone, Christopher Willson had the task of collecting these sums, which were levied on, among other things, windows, births, christenings, burials and bachelors. He had to travel several times to Romaldkirk in 1702 to get this cash and was paid a shilling.

Thomas Raine was a type of parish clerk at the time, and he was paid six shillings for preparing a return for freeholders.

In 1703, Alice Nicholson was paid half a crown for a set of stocks, which were a useful punishment for those who got drunk or used foul language.

Robert Allison was paid six shillings to set up the stocks and make a ducking stool that was used mainly to soak unruly women. When one man protested about rates charged on his wife, both he and she were given a ducking.

John Robinson was the parish constable, and that year he had to collect the substantial sum of £15 for repairs to the highway. The constable was paid 18 pence for conveying a poor man out of the parish and into another which would be responsible for supporting him.

A lot of these banishments went on, with parishes anxious to get rid of as many paupers as possible.

The capture of a fugitive called Jackson must have been a big event, because the overseers allowed five shillings to be spent on ale, at a penny a quart, to celebrate.

The constable was given extra cash for himself and his horse to take Jackson to Northallerton sessions and then to gaol.

Joseph Ewbank was paid 36 shillings for taking two culprits, Blades and Thompson, to gaol.

In 1722 a poor woman had “an accident by fire in ye dead of night”. The accounts show she was paid sixpence.

Later, the same sum was paid to a poor captain of a ship who had lost an arm.

But a lame soldier and a woman injured when part of her house fell on her were both treated more generously.

Upper Galgate in Barnard Castle after it was improved, making it no longer a wilderness and boggy eyesore

They were both given sevenpence.

When George I was crowned king in 1714, ale was provided for rejoicing, but at a cost of only half a crown, so it can’t have been much of a village party. Perhaps only the bigwigs were invited.

Thanks go to Mr and Mrs Keith Lamb of Doe Park for the loan of an old booklet which gives these details.