DARLINGTON’S Railway Heritage Quarter has a rather attractive architectural mystery at its heart. At the top of MacNay Street, the closest plot of land to North Road Station contains a splendid Victorian warehouse that is now a glass shop – in fact, it is called Glasscraft House.

Above its main entrance is the date 1873.

We’ve long been intrigued by the building but all anyone has ever been able to tell us is that it was a coal merchant’s office. Now that regeneration beckons for this area of town, it would be great to know a little more of its story. Can you help?

BACK to our butchery theme. “I had a Saturday job at Zisslers’ Bondgate shop in the mid 1960s,” said David Pickup. “The business was run by brothers Albert and Maurice Zissler and I think there was a second shop on North Road. Albert’s son Paul worked in the shop when home from school.

“Everything sold in the shop was made in a large building to the rear. This included chitterlings, sausages, saveloy, polony, savoury ducks, black pudding, haslet, ham and tomato spread, sage and onion stuffing, pease pudding, pies and, if I remember rightly, bread.”

So we’ve investigated chitterlings, savoury ducks and saveloys. Polony seems similar to saveloys in that they are ground pork sausages, although saveloys are a German version and are bright, boiled and usually served hot, whereas polony is Italian (the name comes from Bologna) and is pink and usually served in cold slices.

Haslet sounds very interesting – has anyone any haslet tales, and is still made anywhere?

We’ve had one report of a pork dip still being available, and regarded as a delicacy, which we need to taste. Any other pork dips still on the go?

And in response to a butcher related question last week, David Knowles says that Park & Zeller butchers were at 110, Northgate, in the 1960s.