NEW homes are at last coming to Cockerton in their droves on an eye-catching site which must have lain empty for a couple of decades since a petrol station closed down.

But what was on the site originally?

The Northern Echo:

The Drovers' Inn

There was a clue in last week’s Memories about Cockerton Hall which featured the hump-backed bridge over the Cocker Beck which travellers arriving from Darlington had to negotiate. Behind the bridge can be seen a white building which is on today’s development site.

It was the Drovers’ Inn, with stables and paddocks to its rear. It was an ancient hostelry which, as its name suggests, catered for people driving their animals into Darlington market. As well as local drovers, men from Ireland and Scotland would rest their cattle here, feeding them on the grass on which the new houses are going, while they re-lubricated at the bar.

The Northern Echo:

The site of the Drovers' Inn

In 1901, Robert Barker, the Drovers’ landlord, was "badly mauled" in a vicious attack by three male and two female customers, who refused to pay for their whiskey. Mr Barker an the Cockerton constable chased his assailants through the village and eventually captured them.

"The crowd remarked on the incongruity of the handcuffs and the rings on their fingers," reported The Northern Echo.

In 1925, The Travellers' Rest pub a hundred yards away was rebuilt to enlarge the entrance to West Auckland Road, and the licence from the Drovers was transferred to it.

The Northern Echo:

The Drovers' Inn

But the Drovers continued with its traditional role of assisting travellers: it became a garage. Mock Tudor timbering was added and the archway through it, which was only big enough for animals, was enlarged – but it was still essentially the old pub.

The Drovers was demolished in 1965 and replaced by a petrol filling station which closed in 1999. Now, at last, the Drovers’ site appears to have found its future.