“MY grandmother Eveline Churm and I have a family story about the butchers on Garbutt Street in Shildon that you may find interesting,” says David Churn before launching into one of the greatest stories ever told.

“Colonel Sandys, who may be related, returned from a trip abroad one day with a monkey called Herbert and gifted it to my great-grandad John George March Ramsey, who lived on Low Garbutt Street.

The Northern Echo: This was the Old and New Shildon Industrial Co-operative's butchers' department, which the datestone says was built in 1874, but taken over by the Bishop Auckland co-op in 1895. Can anyone tell us where it was?

The co-op butchers shop and slaughterhouse in Garbutt Street, Shildon

“One day, Herbert escaped and managed to break into the butchers. He started riding a sheep around Garbutt Street with all the residents running around trying to catch him.”

The co-op built its slaughterhouse and butchery on Garbutt Street in 1874 and it continued operating until the early 1970s.

READ MORE: WHEN THERE WAS A CO-OP ON EVERY STREET CORNER

The Northern Echo: Col Thomas Sandys, who dedicated the bells in St John's Church, Shildon, and may have given Herbert the monkey to his relatives in the town

The man who brought the monkey over to Shildon appears to have been Col Thomas Myles Sandys (above) (1837-1911), a soldier from London who fought with distinction in India. He retired to his family home of Graythwaite Hall near Ulverston, and represented Bootle, in Lancashire, as a Conservative MP from 1885 to 1911.

The Northern Echo: SHildon.Main Street, Shildon, on an Edwardian postcard with St John's Church in the background

He was in Shildon on August 2, 1902, for the dedication of the bells in the tower of St John’s Church. The church was first built in 1834 but was rebuilt at the end of the 19th Century, culminating in installation of its first bells, one of which was dedicated to 7th Royal Fusiliers Regiment of Foot, the regiment which the colonel had served in India.

He was guest of honour at the dedication and was even allowed to say a few words on the Education Bill which was passing through Parliament.

Perhaps it was while everyone was enjoying the public tea in the National School and the speeches in the vicarage garden afterwards when the colonel handed over Herbert the monkey.

“Unfortunately,” says David, “Herbert never acclimatised to the British weather and passed away after a short time in England.”

  • If you can tell us any more about Col Sandys or any other monkeys which have come to settle in Shildon or anywhere else in the area, please email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk

The Northern Echo: John Sowerby, son of Garbutt Street's last butcher, plays on a lamp-post outside the Garbutt Street butchers

John Sowerby, son of the last butcher in Garbutt Street, swinging on a lamppost outside the butchers shop in the street where Herbert the monkey rode a sheep

The Northern Echo: The co-op slaughterhouse in Grey Street, Bishop Auckland

THE Bishop Auckland co-op ran the butchers in Shildon and had its main slaughterhouse in Grey Street near Bishop Auckland station. Fred Pole grew up in the early 1960s in a co-operative house in May Street, just round the corner from Grey Street – he has a feeling that before the Poles arrived, there had been a murder in May Street. Can anyone tell us about this?

Being a young lad, Fred’s curiosity was piqued by the slaughterhouse, which operated in the days before modern sensibilities.

“I remember seeing through the open door how they pulled the sheep onto a trestle and cut their throats and let them bleed to death, poor things,” he says. “There was a wooden gantry for the cattle and a man put a metal punch to their foreheads and hit it with a sledgehammer and the poor animal went down – and this was all done in full view.”

When Fred was in his early teens, he was persuaded to join the gardening club at the Pollards Inn and take an allotment to grow leeks. “We would take stinking wheelbarrows of sheep guts up the back path to feed them,” says Fred, “but it didn’t work because they burst before the show.”

Fred’s father was the manager of the co-op’s bakery in Tindale Crescent – we think the Home Bargains store is on its site now – which provided all the bread and confectionary for south Durham. It was also the base from which Fred Snr did outside catering – Fred Jnr remembers doing silver service for 500 people at the Police Ball at the town hall.