Stately surroundings for 'merchant' school

In the grounds in the early 1880s, there were children attending the forerunner of one of the North-East's most famous schools.

For three years, Pemberton House, in Middleton St George, was home to the North-Eastern County School. Pemberton House, as Echo Memories explained in March, became the Ropner Convalescent Homes; the North-Eastern County School has, since 1924, been called Barnard Castle School.

Today, there is a perception that all fee-paying schools such as Barnard Castle are for the well-to-do. But the county school movement was founded to cater for the emerging middle class of late Victorian England.

The upper classes had their children educated at Eton and Harrow, while county schools catered for the new middle class of self-made merchants who wanted their children to learn how to make money.

On the county's pioneering curriculum were subjects including shopkeeping, engineering drawing, metalwork and "the science of agriculture". At Barnard Castle there were "agplots" where boys experimented with the effects of different fertilisers on strips of cereal crops.

The North-East's county school was the third of its kind in the country - Devon and Norfolk were there first - and only an historic combination of factors caused it to be located in Barnard Castle.

The promoters of a county school for the North-East needed money to realise their dream. They found that railway pioneer Benjamin Flounders, of Yarm, who was one of the original driving forces behind the Stockton and Darlington Railway, had left a trust of £31,000 for education.

They also discovered the St John's Hospital charity of Barnard Castle had £10,000 to spend on education. But the St John's money was for a school to be built in Barnard Castle, and so the county school had to be located there.

While it was being built, the pupils who would make up its first intake needed somewhere else to go, so Pemberton House, in Middleton St George, was rented.

Pemberton House was a vicarage beside St Lawrence's Church. It bore the name of the church's legendary philandering benefactor, Squire Henry Cocks.

It was, though, far too large for any sensible country parson and so was turned into a school for 25 boarders and ten day boys. Also living in were the headmaster, Mr Brereton, two assistant masters, a secretary and a matron.

As the county school curriculum attracted more children, Violet Villa in the village was rented as additional dormitories. Then, a large wooden building was erected beside Pemberton House to contain the dining room and classrooms, which meant more sleeping space inside the house.

By the end of 1884, there were 76 boarders in Middleton St George.

Wooden buildings and boys, though, are a combustible combination.

A fire destroyed the wooden annex and, as flames licked around Pemberton House, pupils were transferred to North Lodge, in Northgate, Darlington.

They stayed a fortnight in that villa before returning to Middleton St George, where the wooden building was replaced.

Meanwhile, in Barnard Castle, 200 builders under the eye of Joseph Kyle, who was also the contractor building Bowes Museum, were constructing the new school.

On February 2, 1886, the North-Eastern County School - housing 116 boarders and 12 day pupils - formally assembled in its new home. The second wooden building was also transferred from Middleton St George and was used as a cricket pavilion.

With the boys gone, Pemberton House was rented by a Teesside charity to help industrial workers convalesce after accidents.

It became the Ropner Convalescent Home on July 3, 1897, named after Sir Robert Ropner, a runaway from Germany who became a shipping magnate and Stockton MP.

The one physical connection between Middleton St George and Barnard Castle was the wooden cricket pavilion. However, a little more than 50 years ago, the combustible combination claimed another victim and the pavilion burnt down. The educational link between the two is remembered in a plaque in St Lawrence's Church.

l With many thanks to Alan Wilkinson for his help with this article.

Close encounters with the 'squeezy' bridge

THE gouges in the stonework of the low ceiling of Darlington's Parkside West Bridge testify to the number of vehicles that have been unable to make it through to the other side.

As recent Echo Memories have established, the bridge was built in 1829 over a farm track that carried the occasional caller to the now demolished Polam Hill Farm. The "squeezy" bridge was not meant to be a main thoroughfare.

One of those who discovered that he was a little on the large side was a young auxiliary fireman called Peter Foster. One night in the late 1950s, he was Leading Fireman on a Green Goddess called to an emergency in Parkside.

Usually, the auxiliaries followed the regular engine from the Borough Road fire station, either by keeping it in view or by tracking its water trail - old fire engines leaked as they sloshed around corners.

On the night in question, the water trail led up Neasham Road. The auxiliaries then turned into Parkside - only to find the address was on the other side of the "squeezy" bridge.

"I said 'I'm sure we'll get through there'," recalls Peter, now district councillor for Hurworth.

"We wanted to avoid the embarrassment of getting there late because the regulars were always saying we were amateurs and no good."

Sadly, just as you cannot pass a camel through the eye of a needle, you cannot get a Green Goddess through the squeeze of Parkside bridge. There was a horrific squeal as the ladders on the Goddess' roof gouged into the stonework.

And there the auxiliaries were stuck for two hours while the regulars extinguished the fire. Only then did they come to their aid, letting all the air out of the tyres and sliding the ladders off the top.

"It turned out that we had followed the spilled water from a gravel wagon, because in those days they washed the gravel in the wagon," says Peter. "We were very embarrassed."

PETER follows his confession with a fascinating snippet. He understands that historically, in the days when the Backhouses lived in the big houses of Hurworth, the quickest way to Bank Top station from the village was via a footpath.

It starts on Roundhill Road and runs fairly straight over the A66 into what is now known optimistically as Neasham Forest. Then it passes under Parkside bridge and follows the western perimeter of the railway line all the way on to the platform.

Most of the footpath is still shown on an Ordnance Survey map - although the railway authorities have removed the bit allowing easy access to the station platform.

STILL on the "squeezy" bridge, Brian Fishpool, of Darlington, asks about the purpose of the tall brick building on its left in the 1921 picture. Maps from the last century suggest there was a pump here - possibly for the use of locomotives? Nowadays, there is an electricity sub-station on the spot. Any further information would be most welcome.

BACK in South Park, last week we were looking at the lion and the eagle presented by John Wharton in 1889. We mentioned there were once a pair of eagles and a statue of a boy "who appears to be playing a pipe".

The statue disappeared after 1975, which explains why our description was wrong. David Race writes to right the wrong.

"In fact, the boy was looking up - to heaven? - with a ball in his hands," he says.

"It was said to represent a boy who had drowned in the Skerne after chasing his ball down the bank and into the river. I was told this story by my grandparents, who were born in Darlington around the 1870s. The story was commonly told in the past, although I don't know if it was true."

If you know, please let us know.

Published: ??/??/2004

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.