TO MOST people, a rock is just a rock. Even if it is a very large, smooth rock lying in the River Tees, it is still just a rock – albeit a very large and smooth rock.

Dr Richard Taylor Manson, though, was a man who knew his rocks. And he knew this was no ordinary rock.

When he found it looking particularly rock-like in the river 300 yards above Winston Bridge, he knew it was an “erratic” and a “porphyry”.

He knew this rock had started its life many millions of years earlier on Shap fell, in Cumbria, and it had, 80,000 years ago, hitched a ride down Teesdale on a glacier – this is what made it “erratic”. As the ice melted, the boulder – joggled smooth by its bumpy ride – slid to the riverbed with a splash. At 12 tons, it was never expecting to move again.

Dr Manson knew also that there were large, pink feldspar crystals embedded in this large brown igneous rock – which is what made it a “porphyry”.

There were several other erratic porphyries in the district – most notably Bulmer’s stone in High Northgate, Darlington, which was four times smaller than the Winston monster – and Dr Manson knew them all.

“It was his delight to visit and admire not only this huge rock but any others in the neighbourhood,”

said The Northern Echo in September 1900, shortly after his death in Stanhope Road, Darlington.

“On one occasion, he arrayed a number of the village youngsters (from Winston) around the boulder…and pointed out the privileges held out to them in the lovely surroundings of Nature’s works. Finding one of the boys to be of a distinctively inquiring nature, the kind-hearted doctor on his return home sent the boy a very suitable book with a kind letter of encouragement.”

Dr Taylor was an eminent naturelover.

He was a founder of the Darlington and Teesdale Naturalists’ Field Club and wrote newspaper columns and books about his “zig-zag ramblings”.

When he died, the club thought it would be a good idea to move Dr Taylor’s favourite rock to South Park as a memorial.

But who do you get to move 12 tons of erratic porphyry out of the riverbed and along ten miles of bumpy road into Darlington?

The club turned to John Danby Jemmeson, of Piercebridge, who owned a steam-powered traction engine.

Mr Jemmeson was born into a farm worker’s family in the East Riding of Yorkshire, in 1870.

When he was 21, he was living in lodgings in Piercebridge and working as a traction engine driver.

At 23, he married Hannah, the blacksmith’s daughter, and in 1897, he is listed as a “thrashing machine proprietor” – perhaps it was this “thrashing machine” that he set to work in Winston, in September 1900.

The Echo said the rock was “drawn from the Tees by a road locomotive and a strong cable”.

The Sunday Companion newspaper went into greater detail.

It said: “The engine was fitted with a revolving drum, and a fine steel wire-rope, which was 400 yards long.

In addition, there were huge binding chains, one of which was smashed to atoms almost at the start by the weight of the stone.

“It was found necessary to raise the stone into a truck, and altogether it took eight men four days to haul the stone into its present position.”

Its present position is, of course, just inside the Victoria Embankment entrance to South Park. Whether this was its intended position is doubtful.

“According to family anecdote, the position of the boulder was determined by the fact that it had fallen off the conveyance, and it was decided to leave it where it had fallen as the difficulties of trying to move it were too great,” says Christine Jemmeson, whose husband’s grandfather was the fellow with the traction engine (and a remarkably fine moustache).

Christine got in touch with Echo Memories to tell the family anecdote after reading A Walk in the Park, a book compiled from this column’s articles about South Park.

She says that after the Manson job, the heyday of the traction engine came to an end and Mr Jemmeson found work in the steam-driven fairgrounds.

In 1910, Hannah, the Piercebridge blacksmith’s daughter, died, and he moved to Thornaby, near Stockton, where he remarried and worked as a “motorman”.

After the First World War, he came to Bedford Street, Darlington, where he died in 1947.

When compiling the book, we knew much more about Dr Manson.

He was born in Liverpool but came east to run a private school in Heighington. He qualified as a doctor and set up surgery in Witton-le-Wear and Howden-le-Wear.

He always said that his first patient was George Sisman, because he was present at his birth, in Witton-le- Wear, on January 17, 1868.

Dr Manson vaccinated baby George three times because he was a confirmed believer in the value of vaccinations.

Baby George thought otherwise and grew up to become the secretary of the Darlington Anti-Vaccination Society.

Having injected much of Weardale, Dr Manson moved to a practice in Coniscliffe Road, Darlington, and became the town’s public vaccinator.

He was best known, though, as a naturalist who knew his rocks.

“The townspeople are particularly proud of this memorial, for Dr Manson was one of the most popular men in the town, and everybody was delighted that such a suitable memorial was found to commemorate the splendid work he accomplished as a geologist,” said the Sunday Companion.

The paper also added a tantalising further fact: “The local museum has secured a portion of the broken binding chain to prove to future generations the difficulty of conveying the boulder from the Tees to the park, and to give a practical idea of its weight.”

If the chain can be found after 107 years, it will be at the park fun day on Sunday to prove the difficulties to today’s generation.