For millennia, the High Row was a row of Darlington's poshest houses built high above the Skerne, which tended to flood, and above what became the Great North Road. From the front doors of the houses, a gentle slope rolled down to the river.

Animals - horse, cattle, pigs, sheep, geese - were sold on the slope, with animal pens the only constructions allowed.

When it rained, High Row became a muddy, stinky mess, so, in the early 18th Century, the slope was cobbled.

In 1864, the first horse-drawn trams ran along Low Row; these were electrified in 1899.

Joseph Pease, MP and industrialist, died in 1872. His statue -which could be moved under the council's plans for High Row - was created by sculptor George Anderson Lawson. It is made of bronze and stands on an Aberdeen granite plinth. It was unveiled before a crowd of about 100,000 people on September 28, 1875 - the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which the Pease family had financed.

The four panels on the statue show Joseph controversially standing for Parliament in 1833; working with William Wilberforce to end slavery in Africa; industry, both railways and the Cleveland Hills' ironworks; and education in a County Durham pit village.

In February 1878, for health reasons, the livestock sales were moved to a cattle market near Bank Top station.

In 1897, after 15 years of debate, Darlington council held a competition to find the best design for High Row.

Mr Roberts, of St John's Crescent, Bank Top, won the £20 first prize but George Winter, the borough surveyor, seems to have amalgamated many of the entries to come up with the present design.

In May 1900, Mr Winter's plans to use reddy-orangey terracotta were ditched, and purpley-grey granite from Ireland was ordered.

The redesign was completed during 1901 at a cost of about £3,600.

In 1958, Pease's statue - a traffic hazard - was moved 20 yards from outside HSBC to where it is today.

Nature wishes High Row to be a slope again, which is why even the granite slabs are moving downwards. Man-full-of-beer wishes it to be a mess again, which is why only four of the original 14 granite urns survive.