April 21, 1866

EXACTLY 150 years ago, the D&S Times was reporting the completion of one of Darlington’s landmark buildings: Backhouses’ bank on High Row, now occupied by Barclays.

“Surely none can look on the magnificent building, which now rears its head with such lofty grandeur and be disappointed,” said the D&S. “As a specimen of the 13th Century Gothic style of architecture, it would be difficult to find its equal in the district. Occupying a frontage of 70ft, and reaching about 69ft in height, it can claim an infinite superiority over any building in that part of the town which it adorns, while the carrying out of its detail entitles it to be regarded as chaste, as well as bold and grand.”

The building was designed by a 30-something architect from Manchester, Alfred Waterhouse, who had just completed the Darlington Covered Market complex, including the clock tower, and also Rockliffe Hall at Hurworth, now a luxury hotel which was originally the home of Alfred Backhouse, the head banker.

The D&S enthused over the new bank, and was especially taken by the “spacious and commodious” banking room. “With its elliptical arched roof, composed of elegantly moulded timber ribs between which are plastered panels, its apparently interminable rows of French-polished oak-fittings and counterdesks, its black marble mantlepieces with their glazed tile hearths, all bespeak unmistakeably the imposing scale on which the bank has been designed.”

A century-and-a-half later, the bank is still a magnificent centrepiece to Darlington’s High Row.

April 22, 1916

AN inquest was held into the death of John James Combe, 51, a fisherman from Lowestoft. He had been loading trucks beside the railway at Catterick Bridge “when he was run over by a train, the whole of which, consisting of two vans and six trucks, passed over him".

Because of the gradient, the engine had been pushing the train, as he might not have heard it coming.

“The engine driver said every care was taken, but drivers had great difficulties owing to the number of trespassers on the line, which for most part was fenced in,” said the D&S. “Only a short while before the fatal accident, two soldiers got on the line and raced the train, and one succeeded in crossing just in front of it.”

The inquest returned a verdict of accidental death.

It is an interesting enough story, but what would a fisherman from Suffolk be doing loading trucks in North Yorkshire?

One of the stories connected to Catterick camp is that the first that local people knew a large army base was to be constructed on their doorstep was in September 1914 when they were invaded by East Anglian fishermen. German naval activity in the North Sea meant that it was too dangerous for the men of Yarmouth and Lowestoft to ply their usual trade and so they were sent to North Yorkshire assembly 2,000 60ft by 20ft wooden huts to house 40,000 troops.

Was the unfortunate Mr Combe one of them?

April 23, 1966

FIFTY years ago, the D&S reported on the 73rd annual dinner of the Richmond Meet at the King’s Head Hotel.

The meet had started as a cycling festival and the mayor, Miss Phyllis Batson, reported that “there are signs of a revival of interest in cycling and the manufacturers report an increase in sales”.

Meet president, Cllr HK Hird, reported that £90, the proceeds of last year’s meet, had been handed to charity, and that plans for 1966 were well advanced for the “scooter rally, the sports, the jazz bands, the beat groups, and the procession, and two well known folk singers have been engaged”.

Then Cllr Roy Cross spoke in praise of the meet. He said: “In the old days people would ride to Richmond from all parts of Teesside to get together and have the happiest bank holiday of the year. The lack of this spirit which produced the meet – the ability to get together and talk – is the reason why we have tragedies like Vietnam and Rhodesia.”

Cycling has many positive attributes, but suggesting that more cycling could have prevented the Vietnam War, in which roughly four million people died, is perhaps giving it too much credit.