Another week, another park. ECHO MEMORIES traces the story of a recreation ground that was almost friendless when it was born but has just acquired a Friends Of… group to steer it into the future

IN ancient times, before sugar was a sweetener to an Englishman’s taste or it put an inch upon his waist, honey was all there was. Honey was the only way to sweeten a dish.

But, as there was not enough for everyone, it had to be limited.

In the north end of Darlington, it was decreed that only Freemen of the Borough could collect honey that the bees made in the woods stretching eastwards from the township of Cockerton.

Freemen were the middle class of their day. They weren’t aristocracy (who, of course, would have had their own hives); they were men who had sworn loyalty to their king, but were free from doing the feudal service that the peasants were required to do.

The track that ran through the woods – from Harrowgate Hill in the north to Cockerton in the west – became known as Honeypot Lane.

Indeed, some sources say that the freemen could call at the large house on the lane – Honeypot House – to collect their pots of honey.

Today, there are certainly no woods and probably no honey to be found in this district.

The Stockton and Darlington Railway swept over Honeypot Lane in 1825. In 1854, the Barnard Castle branch line cut across it and, in 1908, the North-Eastern Railway Company closed the western part of the lane to vehicular traffic. Now it is just a footpath winding its way across some post-industrial scrubland.

As for the eastern portion, in 1923 Darlington council decided to change the name to Longfield Road, and so Honeypot all but disappeared from the maps.

Honeypot House remains. It is apparently a Georgian building on top of Elizabethan foundations – part of its garden wall appears to be very old.

It fell derelict after the Second World War, but was saved from demolition when it was converted into stores by the Durulum Company.

Today, it is a private residence of quite spectacular, if unique, taste with huge eagles swooping on the gateposts and a giant fountain in the garden.

In Victorian times, Honeypot House was the home of Robert Thompson. Regular Echo Memories readers will remember that he featured early last year, as with his older brother William he became one of the biggest players in Darlington, before going quite spectacularly bankrupt.

The Thompsons were stockbrokers, accountants and property developers, with a finger in every industrial pie in the Tees Valley.

In 1863, Robert married Martha Pease, a cousin of the town’s ruling family, which must have helped to ease a few deals.

He drove Thompson Street across his Honeypot Estate and started building houses.

But in 1866, the brothers lost a small fortune when a London bank collapsed. Recession hit their North-East interests and in 1878 they were declared bankrupt – their biggest creditors were the Peases, so Robert’s marriage hadn’t helped too much.

As Echo Memories told last year, Darlington council acquired the brothers’ Little Polam Estate and converted it into the showfield of South Park.

ANOTHER year; another park. In February 1894, the council bought nearly 16 acres of land from the Honeypot Estate on which to create North Park.

The Honeypot Estate’s trustees had wanted £200-anacre, but the council managed to negotiate £180-an-acre, and one alderman boasted that, at £2,790, it would be impossible to find “a cheaper piece of land”.

Even so, it was not a universally popular acquisition. It was too large and too close to North Cemetery, complained its opponents.

When the borough surveyor estimated that it would cost £2,000 to level and drain the land, one alderman exploded: “Spending £4,790 on it is throwing money into the gutter. Darlington already has two parks.

There’s not another town of 40,000 in England with two parks.”

He was, of course, referring to South Park, of 1852, and Stanhope Park, of 1878.

NEVERTHELESS, overcoming 15 years of opposition, the council pressed ahead with the purchase.

Surveyor George Winter laid the park out and it was formally opened on May 16, 1896.

About 2,000 people gathered at the top of Cumberland Street to witness the municipal party arrive at the gates preceded by James Hoggett’s bands.

Mayor JJ Wilkes presented Alderman Thomas Taylor Sedgwick, the chairman of the parks and cemetery committee, with a large, handsome, inscribed silver key. He formally opened the gates and the VIPs walked to the bandstand for the speeches.

Alderman Sedgwick said that “in time it promises to become a really beautiful little park”, and then added: “Though they – those who live in the north end of the town – will derive considerable pleasure from strolling about the walks of the recreation ground and basking in the sunshine on its seats, the primary object of the town council is more than that.

“It has been, under proper rules and regulations, to provide a suitable playground for the boys and girls of the north end of town.”

Bandmaster Hoggett conducted everyone in a chorus of God Save the Queen.

The Northern Echo reported that “what was two years ago an aggregation of workmen’s gardens has been transformed into a pleasant, healthy and attractive recreation ground and park”.

It was surrounded by a “light iron rail fence”, supplied by George Denham, inside which 10,000 shrubs and trees, supplied by EB Spence of Victoria Road Nurseries, had been planted.

THAT, bar the opening of the bowling green in 1903 and the building of a bowls house in 1934, is the park’s history.

There appears to be no old pictures of the park. There don’t appear to be any modern pictures of it, either. Even when a couple of years ago a strange sculpture was placed at its centre, the event appears not to have been recorded.

The park was all but friendless when it was created as it was throughout much of its life. But in the past fortnight, a Friends of North Park has been formed.

The group meets tomorrow, at 6pm, in the Rolling Mills, and next Wednesday – same time, same place – people are invited to give their opinions on what the park’s future should be.

For further information, call Stephen Jones on (01325) 481737.