I'M not really bitter, but I thought I took some half-decent pictures of the oldest domestic building in Darlington.

Did the sub-editors use them? No. They preferred some boring old sepia-tinged ones of what it used to look like. That's the trouble of writing a Memories column.

I guess the sub-editors were probably right. But parts of Haughton-le-Skerne Rectory are said to date from the 12th Century and, for me, my pictures are pretty good. So I've used them up here.

Tomorrow (Sat, May 5) is the last book sale of the Rectory book shop which has run from an outbuilding for the last seven years. The sale is in the church hall the church hall between 10am and 4pm. The book shop is closing because the Rectory is no longer the home to the Rector of Haughton-le-Skerne. He's lived there - or on that spot - possibly since Rector Reginald in 1131, but the Durham diocese has confirmed to me that when a new rector is appointed he will live elsewhere.

And so ends 800 or so years of history. My photos don't, after all, seem to good enough to do it justice.