IT may not be what the doctor ordered, but we are going back to the Doctors Tunnel in Bishop Auckland. It was at the rear of Fore Bondgate and was filled with concrete in June 1981 but it is still fondly remembered as the venue of spooky childhood shenanigans.

Memories 212 and 213 said that the tunnel was part of an ancient right of way behind what is now Sam Zair’s cafe. More than 150 years ago, this building was The Shepherd’s Inn, Bishop’s premier meeting place. Unscrupulous owners tried to extend the inn over the path, causing such an outcry that they were forced to burrow beneath their extension so people could walk in a tunnel along the ancient right of way.

You will also remember that magistrates held their court in the assembly room in the Shepherd’s Inn. One magistrate was a doctor. Sick people who couldn’t afford a home appointment would beg his assistance as he came out of court. Rather than wait in the pouring rain, they’d shelter in the tunnel – hence the “Doctors Tunnel”.

But... Tom Hutchinson points us to the first Ordnance Survey map, published in 1857, which refers to a “Doctors Bridge” over the path. This name is repeated on several Victorian maps.

Tom has also sent us a booklet, When Bishop Auckland was a Village, written in 1974 by the late Derek Hebden. Mr Hebden says the Shepherd’s Inn was built in the early 18th Century as a private residence by Dr Martin Dunn, apothecary.

“In its day, it was almost as important as Auckland Castle,” he says. “The roof was arranged in a series of terraces covered with lead, and a doorway enabled visitors to stand on the terraces for a first class view of Auckland racecourse on the north bank of the River Wear, on Flatts farm.”

In the 18th Century, a four-day race meeting was held in Bishop every April and a three-day one every October.

Mr Hebden continues: “Behind the house was a pit for cock-fighting, and it was customary to signal with flags the results of the contests from the roof to Farrar Wren, of Binchester Hall, who often had birds entered.”

The Wrens – who must have had very powerful binoculars – were well known in County Durham from the 14th Century. They owned much of Crook and Billy Row, and their most illustrious descendant was Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral.

In the middle of the 18th Century, Dr Dunn died, and his mansion was bought by Ralph Spencer. He’d been born in Gainford in 1736, made a fortune as a merchant in Calcutta – hence his nickname of “The Nabob” – and settled in Bishop with his wife, who’d started out as an Indian slave. The first floor of their mansion became a ballroom, with great social gatherings for the local aristocracy.

After The Nabob, Mr Hebden says William Proud converted the house into the Shepherd’s Inn in the early 19th Century. The ballroom became a theatre-cum-assembly room, and here William Macready, the greatest actor of his generation, famed in London and New York, performed as did the Italian Niccolò Paganini, the most celebrated violin virtuoso of the day. It may have been Mr Proud who extended the inn so that he had to dig out the tunnel.

In 1846, the Shepherd’s was bought for £1,100 by James Thompson, who replaced the lead tiers on the roof. In 1862, with the opening of the town hall, the Shepherd’s importance waned. At the start of the 20th Century it was split in two: one side became Ye Oakland Inn and is now an Indian restaurant while the other side has been Zair’s cafe for 100 years.

A RELATED nugget about Bishop Auckland’s towerblock: “You stated that Vinovium House was built for tax-workers in the late 1970s,” writes Vivien Ripley, referring to Memories 213. “But when I started work there in 1971, it had been built for the Department for Health and Social Security, although the tax office did have one floor.”

Perhaps we are better with Roman history than modern dates. The towerblock was given the Roman name for Binchester, the fort that guarded the River Wear crossing on Dere Street.

“Vinovium” means in Latin “on the wine road”, so it is clear what items sent from up Dere Street to the furthest outpost of the Roman Empire were most valued.