Two tall trees, three men and a wedding

TWO trees, three men, a royal wedding, thousands of children and a story that stretches from Weardale in the north to the banks of the Tees in the south.

Indeed, its seeds are probably across the ocean in California where, in 1833, explorers discovered the largest living organism on the planet: sequoiadendron giganteum.

Its tallest example is 93.6 metres high, but the explorers managed to lose sight of it until, in 1852, it was rediscovered in Sierra Nevada. A sample was dashed back to England where, with great ceremony on December 15, 1853, it was named after the Duke of Wellington.

Wellington, the man who defeated Napoleon Bonaparte, towered over all other mortals.

Recently dead - his state funeral in 1852 was probably the largest ceremonial occasion this country has ever organised - there could be no better way to remember him than by giving his name to the thing that towered over everything else on the planet. So the English called the tree sequoia wellingtonia giganteum.

US botanists were outraged at colonialists naming a prize American tree after an English war hero who had never even seen one. It still rankles. So perhaps it is safest to use the tree's common name: the giant redwood, or just sequoia.

IT took less than a decade for the sequoia to make its mark on Darlington. It arrived on March 11, 1863, a day that was "unpropitious in the extreme".

Snow fell at breakfast.

"Everything and everyone wore a miserable aspect," reported the Darlington and Stockton Times.

"The very flags on the housetops refused to wave in the breeze, the streets were a cold, comfortless swamp - the feet that waded through the streets were rendered shapeless by the dirt adhering to them; even the fireworks of the evening had no life to them."

This was a celebration. The marriage of His Royal Highness Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), to Princess Alexandra of Denmark (a union also marked by the naming of Denmark Street and Wales Street, off North Road).

Notwithstanding the unpropitiousness of the day, at 9am, 3,000 Darlington school pupils gathered in the Market Square covered in flags, ribbons and medals. At 9.30am they moved off, led by a drum and fife band into Northgate, along Kendrew Street into Bondgate, back down High Row and into Blackwellgate, before parading along Grange Road and into the grounds of Joseph Pease's Southend mansion (now the New Grange Hotel opposite Safeway). There they sang the National Anthem.

"A stupendously large bun was then served to each of them; it was as much as many of them were able to carry, " reported the newspaper.

"Every person couldn't fail to appreciate Mr Pease's kindness. . . but considering how sparsely some of the children were clothed, it is not improbable that some of them may suffer from the effects of the severe temperature and cold which they endured."

At noon in the Market Square, the 15th Durham Volunteers assembled with Colonel George Scurfield at their head on his white charger.

Ankledeep in mire, they processed to South Park.

The park had been open for about ten years, and this was probably its first official function.

On the terrace, near Park House, Col Scurfield and Francis Mewburn, the Chief Bailiff, each planted a sequoia that had been given to the town by Alfred Backhouse.

"Both gentlemen expressed their heartiest wishes for the welfare and happiness of the royal couple, " said the D and ST.

"The volunteers then sang the Reverend Newman Hall's National Anthem, but although they strained hard to make it effective, it was impossible, owing to the dense state of the atmosphere and the indifference of those around.

"Several volleys were fired by the corps, who then retired to the Market Place."

Of course, from small acorns large oak trees do grow. Today, 141 years almost to the day later, the sequoia have grown into huge trees with grand, sweeping boughs. They are probably the pride of the park.

It is amazing to stand in their shadows on a chill March day and to think how much we know about the moment they were planted all those decades ago.

At 141 years old, they are infants. In 2002 a sequoia was stump-counted as 3,266 years old. At 20 metres tall, they are dwarfs. The tallest sequoia in the UK is 45 metres high, at Leod Castle, to the north of Inverness.

ALFRED Backhouse was "an ardent horticulturist and an enthusiastic admirer of nature". He was born in 1822, in Sunderland, but came to Darlington to help run the family bank.

In 1851, he married Rachel, the daughter of Robert Barclay, another banker. They lived at first in Greenbank, a threestorey town centre mansion with a Swiss Cottage in its grounds (it was demolished about 1880 and the Greenbank Maternity Hospital was built on its site).

In 1863, with local architect GG Hoskins as clerk of works, Backhouse created Pilmore Hall, on the edge of Hurworth village, near Darlington.

It has a commanding view over pastureland down to the River Tees. A private carriage bridge crossed the river for a sylvan drive through the wooded Yorkshire banks.

"His residence at Pilmore is famous for its woodland beauties and the cunning of its arrangement, " said his obituary.

He also had "one of the most delightful retreats in the north of England", Dryderdale Hall, which he built beyond Hamsterley in 1879. It is an isolated spot today, so it must have been very remote in Alfred's horse-and-cart days.

It was there, in September 1888, that "as his butler was leaving him, he suddenly fell down and expired almost immediately".

In his will he left £369,911 1s 1d to his wife - equivalent to a few pennies less than £20m today.

Since his death, his country estates have had chequered histories. In the 1960s, Dryderdale was the home of the fruit machine king Vince Landa, whose brother Michael Luvaglio is still serving time for the 1967 "one-armed bandit murder" at South Hetton. In 1971, scenes for Michael Caine's gangster movie Get Carter were filmed at Dryderdale.

Pilmore is now Rockliffe Park, the splendid training ground belonging to Middlesbrough FC.

Rockliffe and Dryderdale are united by a tree: the beckside walks at Dryderdale appear to be well-planted with sequoias and Boro's footballers drive to work through a veritable forest of redwoods. They were clearly Alfred's favourite tree.

COLONEL George John Scurfield (1810-95) planted one of the sequoias in 1863. He was the unofficial squire of Hurworth, a real member of the landed gentry.

He had been born in Norton, the second son of William Grey, but he took his mother's name by Royal licence - presumably to move further up the social scale.

He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge, and married Anne Alice Williamson, the daughter of the Reverend Robert Hopper Williamson, Hurworth's leading villager. They lived at Hurworth House, on the Green - now a private boys' school - and owned much of Hurworth and Neasham.

His biggest moment was on July 17, 1860, when Mr Scurfield presided over a meeting at Central Hall which agreed to form a Volunteer Rifle Corps of Darlington. The hall was packed with men with "patriotism in their chests that would not be smothered", according to Scurfield.

He gave an emotional address, invoking the spirit of Wellington at Waterloo, and prophesying invasion by the Emperor of France.

"There isn't one present who, if the invading foe landed at Hartlepool, would refuse to come forward, " said Scurfield.

"There isn't one man in the room who would like to see his home and heart made desolate by the invader."

But in the room were several Peases led, no less, by Joseph of Southend. They were bitterly opposed to any bellicose behaviour (being Quakers they were pacifists) and were hissed and booed when they spoke against Scurfield's plan.

Amid rowdy scenes, the Peases were out-voted and Joseph left feeling very unwell.

Scurfield took command of his corps, laid out a shooting range at Neasham, and built a tin shed in Larchfield Street (in 1894, this was rebuilt as the brick Drill Hall that stands today). Emperor Louis Napoleon was so scared that he immediately dropped his invasion plans (if he had any).

Col Scurfield died on Boxing Day, 1895, and the lych gate at All Saints Church, Hurworth, was erected in his memory.

"Only those who had the privilege of knowing him intimately can realise the extent of the loss of one who represented a class which seems to be disappearing from our midst - uniting as he did the courtesy and chivalry of the ancien regime with the advanced thought of the latter half of the 19th Century, " said THE third man involved in the planting of South Park's sequoias was Francis Mewburn, to whom we will have to return another day because usual verbosity means that we have run out of space.

Suffice to say that as Chief Bailiff (ie: the mayor before the mayoralty was invented), it was Mewburn's role to greet Queen Victoria when she visited Darlington.

This she did on September 28, 1849, when she sat for a while in her train at Bank Top (then little more than a shed) while Mr Mewburn performed some ceremony or other.

When Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, died in December 1861, Mr Mewburn called a public meeting at the Mechanics Institute in Skinnergate at which ordinary Darlingtonians could express their grief.

He led them in the singing of a version of the National Anthem that had been especially written by the Reverend Newman Hall - the version which was sung on March 11, 1863, when the sequoias were planted in South Park. Sing along if you like:

"God save our Gracious Queen Lord heal her bleeding heart Assuage its grevious smart Thine Heavenly Peace impart.

Our Royal widow bless God guard the fatherless.

Shield them with loving care Their mighty grief we share Lord hear the People's Prayer.

Her life-woe sanctify Her loss untold supply Thyself be ever night God save the Queen."

If you have anything to add to today's article (particularly about Dryderdale), please write to Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF, e-mail chris. lloyd@nne. co. uk, or telephone (01325) 505062.

Published: 31/03/2004

Echo Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington DL1 1NF, e-mail chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505062.