THE Batts area of Bishop Auckland is clearly bewitched. Last week, we told the chilling story of the ghost in the gaslight – a posh fellow, with a long black jacket, top hat, white scarf, who was smoking a cigar that glowed in the dark but who, when he turned round, had no face.
READ FIRST: THE GHOST IN THE GASLIGHT
This ghost was seen in the gaslight at the Jock’s Row end of The Batts, which in the past was a collection of terraced houses built on low ground overlooking the River Wear. Many of the old working class terraces have been cleared, and replaced by new houses.
Wear Chare, as it is today, and, below, 100 or more years ago. Pictures courtesy of Tom Hutchinson
Wear Chare is the steep bank the leads from Bishop Auckland down to The Batts. It was once lined by properties, of which only a handful remain on the river level.
When Tony Larkins’s stepfather, Ted Bryson, moved into one of the houses on Wear Chare, he was told a story about the previous occupants, a couple who had first lived there around the 1900s.
“One day soon after they’d moved in,” says Tony, “they had gone into the house, locked the door behind them, and they saw this figure, a female form, draped like a ghost in front of them.
“It drifted through to the back of the house and then out into the orchard at the rear.
“When they lifted the lino where the ghost had first stood, they found a patch of dried blood.
“And when they dug in the orchard where they had last seen the ghost, they found the remains of a woman.”
A 2009 Google StreetView image looking up Wear Chare from The Batts. Houses on the left have been cleared but have been replaced in the last 10 years
THE Batts was a tightly-knit, over-crowded mining community of 500 people who lived just above the floodline of the Wear beneath Auckland Castle.
The four streets had their own identity as they were separated from Bishop Auckland by Wear Chare which runs down from the Market Place – it is so steep that cobbles were placed on its surface to give the horses some grip when they were pulling a heavy cart, or fish van, up to the top.
Today on the Batts there is a smattering of sound houses, protected from the river by floodbanks, but most of the miners’ homes were cleared in the 1950s.
For historian Tom Hutchinson, whose family lived for four generations on the Batts from 1888 until 1962, this means that most of the potential information is already out there. The 1921 census was published last year, but the 1931 census was lost to a Second World War bomb and the 1941 census wasn’t taken because of the war, so it will not be until 2052 that the 1951 census is released – and when it was taken, the Batts were regarded as slums and were being prepared for demolition.
Tom published a book in 2008 called Down the Batts Bank and now would like to use the latest information to produce a follow-up about this lost community.
To do so, he needs pictures of the places – of the four streets, Wear Chare, Dial Stob Hill, Batts Terrace and Jock’s Row – and of the people who lived there. He also needs their stories, so he would be extremely grateful if anyone who has any connections to the area would contact him: email hutchinsontom542@gmail.com or phone 0191-410-4383.
Jock's Row at the bottom of Batts Bank, with Auckland Castle high in the distance
It is an area steeped in history. The first mention of it is in 1373 when a hermit, William Sheplady, was living down there.
It was, though, a working area. In the 18th Century, when Batts inhabitants appeared in court and were asked where they lived, they would stick up the hand showing how they had amputated their own middle fingers to avoid being forced to join the military – the Batts was the sort of place where pressgangs operated.
It was where Jonathan Martin tried to lie low after escaping from Gateshead asylum where he had been sent for trying to assassinate the Bishop of Oxford. He was recaptured, returned to the asylum but, on February 1, 1829, famously burned down York Minster.
Not all of the stories connected to the Batts are so brutal or incendiary. Most of them are of hard working people trying to pick a living on the edge of the coalfield while residing in a close community down at the water’s edge, and Tom would like to record them before they disappear. Email hutchinsontom542@gmail.com if you can add any stories - spooky or otherwise.
READ MORE: THE STORY OF CLAIRMONT, A DERELICT BISHOP AUCKLAND MANSION
READ MORE: HOW THE MINNOWS OF BISHOP AUCKLAND SAVED THE MIGHTY MANCHESTER UNITED
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