The shop which the first glimpses of the outside world for generations of Darlingtonians

Like Simpsons' sport shop of Post House Wynd, which featured here yesterday, Thornleys was a family-run shop. It was started in 1896 by Edgar and Mary Ellen Thornley. They initially sold a bit of everything: stationery, newspapers and tobacco. Edgar sold paper bags to other grocers, and was the agent selling motorcycles made by Wolf, of Wolverhampton, and NUT, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Northgate, Darlington, in 1938, showing Thornleys' early pram shop

With their baby, Felix, sleeping behind the counter in a drawer, they expanded into the ironmongery next door and, briefly, Edgar was an agent for Richardson light cars, of Sheffield.

But it was Mary Ellen’s sidelines that proved the most enduring. She sold toys – apparently for decades there was a hole in the Northgate floor where she had vigorously demonstrated a pogo stick – and also “baby carriages”.

When Edgar died in 1921, Thornleys gave up the bikes and cars as Mary Ellen concentrated on selling and repairing prams.

When Felix took over from her in 1945, he expanded the business further so that Thornleys now occupied the complete run of shops between the Salvation Army citadel in the south and St George’s Church in the north.

By the late 1980s, Thornleys had grown to fill the Northgate space between the citadel and the church

All Darlington and the surrounding area was prammed by Thornleys, and as the century wore on, grand-daughters followed their mothers and grandmothers in getting their offspring mobile from Thornleys.

Debbie Bowerbank bought her first pram from Thornleys in Northgate – and still has the receipt to prove it. With all the accessories, it came to £519.83 in 1999.

But she must have been one of the last Thornleys’ customers when she picked up Mamas & Papas navy blue Heritage pram for her first daughter, Olivia, in April 1999, because the shop fades from The Northern Echo’s archive around this time when we believe the third generation of pram-sellers, John Thornley, retired.

John Thornley, the third generation of Thornleys, in the shop in 1989

Please add any memories you have of Thornleys to our story...