THE Hole of Paradise is the steep descent from the Durham side down to Yarm bridge which is indeed steeped in railway history.

The Hole of Paradise is on the eastern edge of the ancient village of Egglescliffe. No one knows how it came by its wonderful name.

The Northern Echo: egglescliffe from the archive.

READ MORE: THE HOLE OF PARADISE AND ITS RAILWAY CONNECTIONS

The Northern Echo: From the late 1840s until the Second World War, the New Inn was called the Railway Inn. Yarm bridge was a favoured crossing point for drovers from the Highlands of Scotland as they headed onto the North York Moors and the Hambleton Drove Road. It is said

Yarm bridge was a favoured crossing point for drovers from the Highlands of Scotland as they headed onto the North York Moors and the Hambleton Drove Road. It is said that if they arrived on Yarm's market day, they were not allowed to cross the bridge into the town until all the local farmers had concluded their business. Consequently, the Scottish and Irish drovers held their cattle outside the Cleveland Bay pub in the Hole of Paradise, as is happening here, before they were given the all clear to cross the bridge

If you go through the village to its western edge, still on the high ground above the River Tees, there is Devil’s Hole just beneath Devil’s Hill.

The Northern Echo: egglescliffe from the archive.

Egglescliffe in the 1960s

Whatever can this be? There are plenty of theories:

  • The Devil’s Hill is a neolithic burial mound, perhaps 6,000 years old;
  • The Devil’s Hill is medieval motte and bailey castle that once had a timber fortification on its top. People who support this theory note Round Hill on the opposite bank of the Tees in Ingleby Barwick probably is such a castle and so perhaps the pair of them guarded the river;
  • The Devil’s Hill is a gun battery from the English Civil War of the 17th Century – Yarm bridge had a drawbridge in its northern arch during the war to prevent the Parliamentarians marching on Royalist Stockton. The Devil’s Hole must be where all the bodies were buried of them men killed by the Devil’s Hill gun;
  • The Devil’s Hill is an 18th Century parkland feature to create a panoramic viewing platform over the Tees;
  • The Devil’s Hole is a late 19th Century pond dug by a farmer, and the Devil’s Hill is the spoil thrown up.

The Northern Echo: egglescliffe from the archive.

Egglescliffe in the 1960s

An archaeological dig in 2015 failed to find any evidence of civil warfare, so it is probably not a gun battery; the first maps of the 1850s include Devil’s Hill, so it cannot be a late 19th Century pond.

Whatever it is, Egglescliffe must be a grand place to live if on one side of it is the Devil’s Hole and the other is the Hole of Paradise.

READ MORE: THE STRANGE LINKS BETWEEN HITLER AND A VICTORIAN CONCRETE VILLA IN EAGLESCLIFFE

The Northern Echo: egglescliffe from the archive.

Egglescliffe in the 1960s