Park’s faded fountain poised to spring into life once more

THE Pierremont Vase is, at the moment, one of Darlington’s scruffiest pieces of historical bric-a-brac, fenced off from its people, with weeds poking through its fading stonework and wind-blown rubbish collecting at its feet.

But come next summer, the vase will be spouting in its full glory, its top tiers reinstated and its jets of water shooting out in all directions.

It is going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the £4m of National Lottery money being spent on Darlington’s South Park, as it is restored to its original splendour.

This 20ft high fountain started life in the gardens of Pierremont – the “Buckingham Palace of Darlington” – which belonged to Henry Pease – the “Laird of Pierremont”.

Henry (1807-1881) and his elder brother, Joseph (1799- 1872), headed their family’s industrial interests in their heyday, in the mid-19th Century.

The brothers also had many social interests. Henry was Liberal MP for South Durham from 1857 to 1865 and, as we have already seen in this series, in 1854 made a dash across thousands of miles of snow to try to talk the tsar of Russia out of the Crimean War.

Henry bought the mansion of Pierremont for £5,000 in 1845. It had been built in the early 1830s and was initially known as Pierpont – “the house on the hill overlooking the Cocker Beck”. Henry transformed it into a stately home.

In 1863, he acquired some boggy acreage across Woodland Road from Pierremont. A decade later he set about turning the land into an ornamental garden.

Vera Chapman, in her book Rural Darlington, describes the fruits of his labours: “From nurseries in Edinburgh came hardwoods and conifers, fruit trees, bulbs and roses. There was a kitchen garden, with greenhouses and glasshouses, a semi-circle of espaliers and a rose-arcaded promenade.

“An ornamental lake was set with masses of rock, an island grotto, boat cave and waterfall, and it was lit by gas lamps in the winter for skaters.

“The handsome fountain, 20ft high, with 21 jets and a main basin surrounded by 12 specially designed vases on pillars, was edged with semicircular flowerbeds. The park entrance on Woodland Road was laid with mosaic tiles, and had a desk and visitors’ book with names from all parts of Britain and abroad; it was open to all who wished to come.”

Mary Pease, Henry’s second wife, wrote: “In the six years since a visitors’ book was placed in the entrance, more than 10,000 entered their names singly, or in smaller or larger parties.”

The centrepiece of the garden was, of course, the Pierremont Vase, made of terracotta. It has been suggested that the vase was the work of the renowned landscape gardener James Pulham. He invented an artificial stone called pulhamite, which figured in many of his rockeries built in public parks in the South, but its distinctive design does not feature in any Pulham catalogue and so far, restoration work has failed to find his identification stamp.

Of course, an estate of this size – although it looked good from the windows of Pierremont – became less practical as the centuries changed.

After Mary died in 1909, having outlived her husband by 27 years, the break-up began in earnest. Initially, Pierremont South Park was used as a nursery by seedsmen Kent and Brydon, but in the early 1920s, builder Cuthbert Todd began building Pierremont Gardens on the park.

Being a man who understood his civic duty – Mr Todd was a councillor for 14 years – he presented the Pierremont Vase to the town.

It was removed to South Park, and left behind its terracotta base which, Echo Memories was told a couple of years ago, can still be seen beneath the floorboards of a house in Pierremont Gardens.

The fountain was ceremonially unveiled in its new position by Alderman Tommy Crooks, chairman of the parks committee, on June 10, 1925.

“The fountain has been placed in the tropical garden and is a handsome addition to that delightful part of the park,” reported the Darlington and Stockton Times.

The Northern Echo reported: “In turning on the water, Ald Crooks said he hoped it would be flowing until the millennium.”

This aspiration fell short by a couple of decades, but postmillennium it may once again hold water. Restoration work is being done by specialist companies in Grantham, Lincolnshire, and Darwen, Lancashire, and should be completed next summer.

THERE appears to be no pictures of Cuthbert Joseph Todd. From his obituary we learn that he lived in Sylvan Grove, in the West End, and he was a keen sportsman with links to Darlington Harriers.

He resigned from the council in 1947 after being injured in an accident, and died three years later, aged 69. Any further information would be most gratefully received.

AS the Darlington and Stockton Times helpfully noted, the Pierremont Vase is in South Park’s tropical garden – or “sub-tropical corner” as pre-fountain postcards describe it.

The heat-loving plants that the Victorians and Edwardians planted in this corner have long since succumbed to the nonexotic Darlington climate.

But in the middle of the lawn of this corner stands a lone tree, a little forlorn without a plaque.

It was ever thus for this unloved flowering cherry.

As we have seen in this series, many of the trees in the park were planted by mayors and great dignatories, who had processed through the streets of the town accompanied by playing bands. Crowds of thousands gathered in the park to watch the planting ceremony and listen to the brilliant speeches before being treated to a celebratory meal at a notable hotel (or at least tea and sandwiches in the tea pavilion).

But not for the poor flowering cherry in the middle of the extropical corner.

“I remember going down there to go through the formalities of planting it and nobody else turned up,” recalls Joe Anderson, the mayor who did the honours in 1985.

These were the days when councils did things like name blocks of flats in honour of Nelson Mandela, or plant trees dedicated to the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki – in the best of intentions, of course.

Darlington council was no different. At first, it wanted a symbol of reconciliation dedicated solely to the Japanese victims of the Second World War nuclear bomb. When this created divisions within the local community, the council rededicated it to the memory of “all Far Eastern victims”.

But this was still not sufficient.

“I know they altered the wording on the plaque to include everybody involved, but they didn’t mention those who were murdered after they had been taken prisoner,” said a spokesman for the North Yorkshire and South Durham Far East Prisoners of War Association, which boycotted the planting ceremony.

So, too, did everyone else.

The ceremony was held on August 6 – Hiroshima Day.

Proceedings began badly when a peace campaigners’ silent vigil on High Row was disrupted by Conservative councillor Peter Jones shouting that the campaigners were “a bunch of loonies”.

“I told them nuclear weapons have kept the peace and had to raise my voice because they wouldn’t listen,” said Coun Jones, who was not noted for his diplomacy.

“These dingbats are living in cloudcuckooland.”

After such inauspicious beginnings no one trooped down to the park to see the tree go in.

“There was only me, my wife, Margaret, and the parks manager and his deputy,” says Joe, now aged 76.

“I felt a bit let down by my colleagues who thought of the idea and then didn’t give me any support. Unfortunately, I was only the figurehead with the job of facing the music.

“People were anti-this and anti-that in those days, and they forgot how it would look in history.”

In fact, it looks fantastic in history. Any commemorative tree can have a huge planting ceremony; only a tree of unique character can throw a party which everyone boycotts.

“It was a very simple, noncontroversial ceremony to remind people that it is the innocents who suffer in war,” said Joe at the time.

The Northern Echo reported: “The plaque to go with the tree has already been removed from South Park in case it is vandalised.”

Now it is lost.

Says Joe: “I didn’t think the tree was going to last too long, myself.”

But, thankfully, it has – as has its story.

JUST before the outbreak of the Second World War, South Park was turned into a recruiting base for air raid wardens. A trench was dug into the bank and roofed over to resemble an air raid shelter.

A large screen was erected on the island in the lake facing the mock-shelter.

“A film was shown on the screen,” recalls Patrick Bourke, who was 12 when war broke out.

“In colour, an aircraft used to appear and drop a bomb on High Row, near Binns and then it flew off. Then they would appeal for air raid wardens to enrol.”

Today there are no signs at all of the mock-shelter, even though Patrick remembers it was U-shaped, with two doorways about ten yards apart. It was cut 10ft into the bank, and was probably filled in soon after it was built in 1938.

The following year war broke out.

“We were laid off school for about two months because there were no air raid shelters at Eastbourne,” remembers Patrick. “I used to go up the park quite regularly.”

He remembers that a hut by the aviaries was continually manned by St John Ambulance staff on first aid duty, and he remembers that a tank trap was built across the showfield from the lake to the children’s play area. It was about 30ft wide and 15ft deep.

Of course, if the German tank drivers invading South Park had spotted such a hole, they would have reversed out and driven along the path beside the river. But the British had thought of that. In the path near the grotto, a couple of lengths of railway track had been embedded to keep any tracked vehicles at bay. And so the nation was saved…