Darlington and the Tees Vale
Above: A Victorian illustration of St Cuthbert's church Darlington and the River Skerne
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From Rokeby near Barnard Castle, the River Tees passes through Whorlton, Wycliffe and Ovington to Winston on Tees, where a road leads two miles north to Raby Castle and the adjacent village of Staindrop, both in County Durham. Cnut (or Canute) the Dane (c 994 - 1035), Viking King of England, Denmark and Norway, the self appointed `Emperor of the North' owned a mansion and estate in the vicinity of Staindrop in the tenth century.
It has been suggested that the mansion owned by Cnut was on the site of the nearby Raby Castle and some argue that it was from here that he ruled his kingdom and Empire. Raby Castle's historic `Bulmer Tower' is believed to incorporate Cnut's mansion. Cnut `the Great' was the son of Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark and was very much a Viking in the war-like way he took control of England, despite the fact that he had been baptised and claimed to be a practising Christian.
The name of Raby is Viking-Danish in origin and means `settlement on the boundary mark' - perhaps a boundary between Angle, Danish and Norse settled districts ?. Raby lies on the course of an old Roman road that leads to Stainmore and Rey Cross - another boundary marker.Staindrop, which is historically the estate village for Raby also has a Danish name deriving from`Steinndrup' meaning `stony valley' - or perhaps `the valley of Stein', a common Viking personal name.
Place names containing the Viking element Stain are very common along the Tees valley but virtually absent further to the north.Raby Castle and the lands around Staindrop village were returned to the Northumbrian Bishops of Durham by King Cnut in the eleventh century as a gesture of goodwill to the Angles of the north. These lands like many others along the Tees valley had been taken from the Northumbrians by Cnut's Viking ancestors. Cnut may have wished to maintain good relations with Northumbria north of the Tees, because of its useful role as a `border region' which could defend his kingdom from the threat of the raiding Scots.
Read more about Cnut and the Vikings in the Timeline
RABY AND THE RISING OF THE NORTH
Raby, one of the best medieval castles in northern England, in early times associated with Cnut, passed later into the hands of the influential Norman family called the Nevilles who were the most important barons in the Bishopric of Durham from the twelfth century onwards.The famous Rising of the North was plotted by the Nevilles at Raby in 1569, with the help of the equally powerful Percy family of Northumberland. Support for this rising came from all parts of the North East;
Rising of the North
"Now was the North in arms: they shine
In warlike trim from Tweed to Tyne,
At Percy's voice : and Neville Sees
His followers gathering in from Tees,
From Wear and all the little rills
Concealed among the forked hills-
Seven hundred knights Retainers all
Of Neville at their master's call
Had sate together at Raby Hall.
William Wordsworth :From '
The White Doe of Rylston'."
The Rising was an attempt to replace Elizabeth I with her cousin the catholic Mary Queen of Scots, at a time when the people of northern England were mostly of the Catholic faith. Unfortunately for the Nevilles the Rising failed and Raby was confiscated from the family by the Crown along with their other great properties at Barnard Castle and Brancepeth.
Read more about this period of North East history in the Timeline
RABY'S WHITEWASHED HOUSES
In 1626 Raby became the seat of the Vanes, Earls of Darlington and Dukes of Cleveland and the present owner, Lord Barnard is a member of this family. He is the owner of the vast Raby Estate which extends over a large area of south Durham. Farmhouses and cottages belonging to this estate can be found throughout the northern side of Teesdale and are easily identified by their attractive whitewashed exteriors. Whitewashing goes back to the days when a Duke of Cleveland became stranded in a storm while out hunting in Teesdale. He was refused shelter at a local farmhouse which he had mistaken for one of his own properties. The Duke was determined not to suffer such a humiliation ever again and ordered that from that day on, all buildings belonging to his estate were to be painted white for identification.Raby Castle is said to be haunted by three ghosts, they are the headless Henry Vane the Younger, Sir Charles Neville and the First lady Barnard, who is known as `Old Hell Cat'.
VIKING SCULPTURES FROM GAINFORD
Gainford on Tees, near Winston to the south east of Raby was in Anglo-Saxon times the centre of an important estate belonging to the Northumbrian Congregation of St. Cuthbert. In the later Dark Ages this area was taken by the Vikings, whose settlement in the area is indicated by the names of the nearby villages of Selaby, Eppleby and Killerby. Selaby was the village where sallow grew, Eppleby the place where apples grew and Killerby was the village of someone called Kilvert. The name Kilvert is thought to be an Old Norse name meaning `One who defends the prow of a ship'.Archaeologists have found a number of Viking sculptures at Gainford and some examples of these are on display at the Monk's Dormitory of Durham cathedral. Many of the sculptures found at Gainford show both Northumbrian and Viking influence, suggesting that the vale of the Tees was an area where these two cultures intermixed. Indeed it is known that despite the Viking settlement, Angle Northumbrians continued to be important land owners along the banks of the Tees in Viking times.
Read more about the Viking period of North East history in the Timeline
OLD SPA VILLAGE
Gainford is arguably the most attractive village in County Durham and has long been a popular place of retirement for residents of nearby Darlington. The origins of its name are disputed, though there is a legend that there was once a ford on the river and that the ownership of this ford was disputed by the residents on either side of the Tees. In the end a battle was fought in which the residents of the Durham side of the river gained the ford- hence Gainford. On the Yorkshire side of the river we find the site of the deserted village of Barforth or Barford. Its name is said to be a reminder of an attempt by its residents to barricade the ford during the battle with Gainford .
In the nineteenth century Gainford village had its own spa. Today its main features are an unspoilt village green, a Jacobean hall and an attractive Georgian street called High Row. The village church of St Mary's, Gainford is also of interest, it is on the site of an Anglo-Saxon monastery built by Bishop Ecgred of Lindisfarne in the early 9th century and is said to be the resting place of a Northumbrian chieftain called Ida or Eda. In more recent times the church became famed in local folklore as the place where a vicar married a Pigg, christened a Lamb and buried a Hogg all in the same week !
PIERCEBRIDGE - THE FIRST `GRANDFATHER CLOCK'
Piercebridge, on the north bank of the River Tees, two miles downstream from Gainford is in County Durham but its Hotel `The George' is across the river in Yorkshire. The hotel is famed as the home of the clock which inspired a visiting American composer called Henry Clay Work to write his famous song `My Grandfather's Clock ' (1878), from which all long case clocks now take their name.
The clock is notable in that it stopped at the very moment of its owner's death and never worked again.
PIERCEBRIDGE ; ROMANS AND BRIGANTES
Piercebridge is situated at the point where the old Roman road called Dere Street crossed the River Tees. This road ran north from the Roman military headquarters at York well up into Tweeddale. The village green at Piercebridge marks the site of a Roman fort called MAGAE which stood on the road guarding the crossing of the Tees.This fort at Piercebridge will have been of strategic importance as the fierce Ancient British tribe called theBrigantes, were closely associated with this area.
The Brigantes were the largest tribe in Roman Britain with territory extending over large areas of what are now Yorkshire, Durham, Cumbria and southern Northumberland. Celtic or Welsh speaking tribes like the Brigantes were the native inhabitants of Britain many centuries before Anglo-Saxons or Vikings made Britain their home. South west of Piercebridge can be seen one of the most significant remains associated with the Brigantes at a place called Stanwick St John. Here we find the ancient earthworks of a Brigantian camp from which the tribe fought the Romans at the Battle of Scotch Corner in A.D. 71.
Read more about the Roman period of North East history in the Timeline
Between Roman and Anglo Saxon times the valley of the River Tees around Piercebridge is thought to have formed the central plain of an Ancient British kingdom called Catraeth whose people would have been the descendants of the Brigantes. In fact the name of the River Tees dates from the time of the Ancient Britons, who spoke a language similar to modern day Welsh. The name Tees is related to the Welsh `Tes' meaning `sunshine or heat'.
Tees probably means `boiling or surging river'. East of Piercebridge the Tees, ironically is neither boiling nor surging as it lethargically meanders its way towards the outskirts of Darlington, where it is crossed by the A1(M) Motorway. There are a number of Viking place names in this area, examples of which are Cleasby, Jolby, Brettanby and Ulnaby. Brettanby is a farm and manor near Scotch Corner and its name may be a Viking reference to the presence of Ancient Britons in the area. Ulnaby is a deserted medieval village on the Ulnaby Beck, a northern tributary of the Tees.
Darlington began as an Anglo-Saxon settlement on the River Skerne which is a northern tributary of the Tees. The town was later taken by the Danes and there are still many place names of Viking origin in its vicinity. Since Norman times Darlington has been a borough and the site of an important market and today it is arguably the `capital' of southern County Durham with its population of over eighty thousand much greater than that of Durham City. However, Darlington is no longer officially part of the County of Durham except in historical terms.
Darlington's name (see also place names) derives from the Anglo-Saxon Dearthington, which meant `the settlement of Deornoth's people' but by Norman times its name had changed to Derlinton. Confusion does not end here however, because during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the town was generally known by the name of `Darnton' or somewhat less politely as Darnton i' the Dirt. This unfortunate name was probably due to the once unpaved streets of the town which are said to have inspired King James of Scotland to write the following uncomplimentary verses during a visit of 1603;
`Mucky town' is certainly not a good description of Darlington today, as like many large towns in North East England it has a pleasant and attractive appearance. It is especially well endowed with town parks and leafy subburbs although despite its long history the very centre of Darlington is now largely of a Victorian and twentieth century nature.
St Cuthbert's, the "bonny church" referred to in the rhyme is still one of the most admirable features of Darlington. Built in the twelfth century by Hugh Pudsey, Prince-Bishop of Durham, it is sometimes referred to as the `Lady of the North'. It is one of the largest churches in the region.
In the seventeenth century Darlington became a popular place of residence for members of the Quaker faith, who formed an influential and wealthy community in the town by the 1800s. The best known member of this Darlington fraternity was Edward Pease, the man responsible for Darlington's fame as the `Cradle of the Railways'.
It was Pease who rejected an early nineteenth century plan by local businessmen to build a canal for the shipment of coals from south Durham to the mouth of the Tees and made the innovative suggestion that steam locomotives be used instead. The suggestion was accepted.
George Stephenson, the famous engineer of Tyneside was employed by Pease to design the locomotives and develop the railway, though it was Pease who provided the financial support and he was very much in charge. On one occasion Stephenson had suggested an alternative route for the railway which would have bypassed Darlington and altered the railway history books. Pease was clear with his reply;"George thou must think of Darlington; remember it was Darlington that sent for thee"
THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY
The Stockton and Darlington Railway was opened on the 27th September 1825, and history was made, for as well as carrying coal, the train included six hundred passengers, most travelling in coal waggons, but some in a specially designed carriage called 'The Experiment'. The Stockton and Darlington Railway was thus the world's first public railway. On the historic day, the coal waggons for the journey were linked up to the locomotive called 'Locomotion Number One' at Shildon and were brought there from Witton Park Colliery by inclines at Etherley and Brussleton. From Shildon the Locomotion travelled for two hours with only minor hitches before arriving in Darlington, where coal was distributed to the poor. From Darlington the Locomotion and its train of passengers continued its journey to Stockton stopping only at Yarm Junction where more passengers, including a brass band climbed on board.
George Stephenson's original `Locomotion Number One', the locomotive that hauled the train on the historic opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway can still be seen in Darlington today on display in the town's fascinating North Road Station Museum. This is one of the oldest railway stations in the world. A full size working replica of the `Locomotion' can also be seen at the Beamish Open Air Museum near Stanley, in County Durham. The `Locomotion Number One' is of course an older engine than Stephenson's more famous `Rocket', which won the victory at Lancashire's Rainhill Trials in 1829.
Find out more about Coal mining and the railways.
For a more extensive coverage of the industrial history the North East see the Timeline
A Link to The Northern Echo's History of the Stockton and Darlington Railway by Chris Lloyd
BRIDGE BUILDING AND JOURNALISM
Railways are not the only industry for which the town of Darlington is noted. Its engineering skills, particularly bridge building have long been important and famous bridges have been built at Darlington which span rivers as far away as the Amazon and the Nile.
Darlington also has an important publishing industry, as the headquarters of the Darlington and Stockton Times and of course The Northern Echo, a newspaper with a catchment area covering North Yorkshire and the North East. The paper was once edited by W.T Stead, the influential Northumbrian born social reformer who died on board the Titanic in 1912. Stead began his career as an editor with the `Northern Echo' at the age of only 22.
HELL'S KETTLES AND THE RIVER SKERNE
Although Darlington is undoubtedly in the valley of the River Tees, it is its tributary, the little River Skerne that flows through the centre of the town which is truly the Darlington river. The Skerne rises in eastern County Durham to the north of Sedgefield near the former colliery village of Trimdon and flows south before joining the River Tees at Croft near Darlington, close to the site of the famous `Hell's Kettles' at Oxen-le-Field.
These three, supposedly bottomless pits also known as `Devil's Kettles' or `Kettles of Hell', have been the subject of numerous legends and superstitions. Said to have been created by a ferocious earthquake in 1179, locals may tell you that they are full of green, boiling sulphorous water. People and animals are alledgedly drowned or eaten alive by the Pikes and Eels that infest their waters.
The pits once aroused the curiosity of people the length and breadth of Britain and were even visited by the writer and traveller Daniel Defoe, who dismissed them as `old coal pits'. This they certainly are not, as coal has never been mined in the Darlington area.
LEWIS CARROLL AT CROFT ON TEES
Croft on Tees, an attractive village just to the south of Darlington was the place where Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known to us as Lewis Carroll, grew up as a young boy. His father was the rector at Croft and the rectory gardens are thought to be one of the most likely settings for famous scenes in `Alice in Wonderland'.
Lewis Carroll always considered Croft his home and it was here in the company of his large family that his unequalled talent for composing nonsense verse developed on this pleasant spot by the Tees. His earliest pieces were written in a little home made magazine which he wrote for his family at Croft.
Pieces written at Croft by Lewis Carroll include the first verse of one his best known poems, the `Jabberwocky', which was written in 1855 though not published until a number of years later. The rest of the poem was written further north during visits to relations at Whitburn near Sunderland where he is also said to have composed the Walrus and the Carpenter. The gravestone of Lewis Carroll's mother and father can be seen in the churchyard at Croft.
LEWIS CARROLL'S JABBERWOCKY - THE SOCKBURN WORM
A mile to the east of Croft, the River Tees makes a large and unexpected meander which penetrates deep into North Yorkshire to form the most southerly portion of County Durham called the `Sockburn Peninsula'. In local legend this area was once the domain of a notorious creature called the Sockburn Worm'.
This terrible beast, a kind of winged serpent or wyvern terrorised the local neighbourhood until it was eventually slain by a certain young man called John Conyers, a member of a wealthy local family.
From that day on each new Prince-Bishop of Durham was presented with the sword that killed the worm upon entering their new Bishopric for the first time at at Croft on Tees. The recently revived ceremony includes the following presentation speech, traditionally made by the Lord of Sockburn;
"My Lord Bishop. I hereby present you with the falchion wherewith the champion Conyers slew the worm, dragon or fiery flying serpent which destroyed man, woman and child; in memory of which the king then reigning gave him the manor of Sockburn, to hold by this tenure, that upon the first entrance of every bishop into the county the falchion should be presented."
The Durham historian Hutchinson was of the opinion that the legend of the Sockburn worm is a reference to some long since forgotten Viking rover who sacked and plundered this part of the Tees valley.
The sword used in the presentation known as the `Conyers Falchion' can still be seen today on display in Durham Cathedral. The Sockburn worm itself is almost certainly immortalised by Lewis Carroll in his brilliant piece of nonsense rhyme, `Jabberwocky'
Worm legends are a feature of both Anglo-Saxon and Viking mythology, where `worms' usually take the form of ferrocious Dragons or serpents. There are a number of other `worm' legends associated with the North East of England, most notable of which are the `Laidley worm' of Bamburgh, Northumberland and the famous `Lambton worm' of the River Wear.
Today Sockburn is little more than a farmstead but in Anglo-Saxon times it was a place of importance as it was here that Higbald, Bishop of Lindisfarne and Eanbald, Archbishop of York were consecrated in the 8th century A.D. In later years the Sockburn area was settled by the Vikings and like the Teesdale village of Gainford, Sockburn was an important centre of Viking age sculpture. Viking settlement in the area is also indicated by local place names such as the nearby hamlets of Hornby, Girsby and further south Birkby. Girsby derives from `Grisa by' - `the village where pigs were reared'.
From the southern tip of the Sockburn peninsula, the Tees flows three miles north, before reaching the villages of Dinsdale and Middleton St George. Dinsdale is the site of a manor owned in Norman times by a family called Siward.
When the Siwards settled at Dinsdale in the eleventh century they changed their name to Sur Tees which in Norman French meant `on the Tees'. Descendants of this Dinsdale family later included Robert Smith Surtees, the author, Bessie Surtees, the famous eloper of Newcastle upon Tyne and Robert Surtees the great historian of County Durham.
Under the entry for Dinsdale in `the History of the County Palatine of Durham' Robert Surtees compares this sleepy place of his ancestors to the `Border Country' of the north
"The knights of the Tees might mingle in the border warfare; but the bugle horn of an assailant would seldom startle the inmates of their quiet halls. Their mansions stood without tower or peel"
An important Roman road once crossed the Tees near Dinsdale on its way to the Roman forts at Chester le Street and Newcastle. The road sometimes named Cade's Road after an old Gainford historian, can be traced near the villages of Middleton St George and Middleton One Row. Here the old road is known by the name of Pountey's Lane and is probably named after a Roman bridge which crossed the Tees here called Pons Tesie- `Bridge of the Tees'. The bridge has long since disappeared with some of its foundation stones used in the construction of buildings at Middleton St George. The Roman road from Middleton St George passes through the village of Sadberge a few miles to the north. This was a place of considerable importance in Viking times.
SADBERGE AND OLD VIKING DISTRICT
The village of Sadberge half way between Stockton and Darlington was once the capital or Wappentake of the Viking settled area north of the Tees known as the Earldom of Sadberge which stretched from Hartlepool to Teesdale. Wappentakes were found in those parts of England settled by the Danes and continued to be important administrative centres in medieval times. There were neighbouring Wappentakes to Sadberge at Northallerton in Yorkshire and at Langbaurgh in Cleveland. The word wappentake literally means `Weapon Taking' and refers to the way in which land was held in return for military service to a chief.
Sadberge is a name of Viking origin deriving from Setberg, meaning `flat topped hill', - an accurate description of the location of the village from where good views of the surrounding countryside can be obtained. The place name Setberg from which Sadberge derives also occurs in Norway and in Viking settled Iceland. Closer to home in Norse settled Cumbria we may find the village of Sedbergh near Kendal which has the same meaning.
Northumberland, Durham, Scotland or Sadberge ?
The history of Sadberge can be confusing because in early Norman times the Earldom of Sadberge, though north of the River Tees, was not part of Durham and was not initially under the rule of Durham's Prince Bishops. Instead, the district formed an outlying part of the county of Northmberland by virtue of the fact that it had been part of the old Earldom of Northumbria.
To further add to confusion Northumberland was given to Scotland by King Stephen of England in 1139 so that the Tees actually became the southern boundary of the kingdom of Scotland !. This situation continued for eighteen years until Northumberland was repossesed for England by King Henry II in 1157.
Hugh Pudsey, Prince Bishop of Durham (1153-1195) was the man largely responsible for the decline in importance of the Sadberge district. He added the `earldom' to Durham in 1189 and from then on Sadberge was ruled by Durham's Prince Bishops.
The Earldom of Sadberge included the old parishes of Hart, Hartlepool, Greatham, Stranton, Elwick, Stainton (near Sedgefield), Elton, Long Newton, Egglescliffe, Middleton St George, Low Dinsdale, Coatham Mundeville, Coniscliffe and the baronry of Gainford in Teesdale.
Despite its fall in status, Sadberge retained a degree of independence and continued to be administered as an almost separate county until 1576. Even as late as the nineteenth century there were still occasionally references to `the Counties of Durham and Sadberge'. In 1836 the revenues of the Bishopric of Durham including Sadberge passed to the Crown. A plaque attached to a large ice age stone on the village green reminds us how important Sadberge once was;
"This stone was placed here
to commemorate the Golden
Jubilee of Victoria, Queen
of the United Kingdom,
Empress of India,
and Countess of Sadberge 1867"
Read more about the Sadberge's place in North East history in the Timeline
Brafferton on the norther outskirts of Darlington is where the famous Durham Ox was bred. It was developed by the brothers Charles and Robert Colling, of nearby Ketton farm in 1796 and achieved such great fame that it was exibited throughout England and Scotland in an especially designed carriage. Over a period of five years, the ox journeyed more than 3000 miles before the unfortunate beast dislocated its hip while on show at Oxford in February 1807. It was slaughtered two months later and weighed in at 189 stones. During its lifetime, it reached an incredible maximum weight of 270 stones. The Collings acheived far reaching fame for their development and throughout the country there are many inns named after the Durham Ox of Ketton Farm.
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