IT is hard to believe looking at the desolate Commercial Street car park behind Darlington’s Bondgate that this area was once a tightly packed community of terraced houses: the streets of Sun, King, Regent and Union all ran off Commercial Street.

Some of the terraces dated back to the 1820s, and they were razed in the 1960s as the inner ring road came through.

Among the terraces were, of course, pubs.

Memories 481 contained the second part of our tour of lost and disappeared Darlington pubs, in which we stumbled upon the Butcher’s Arms.

“The Butcher’s was one of several pubs demolished when they cleared the slums of the Commercial Street area,” says David I’Anson.

“I have an Echo photograph of my grandad, William Henry "Harry" I'Anson, in 1960 or 1961 leaving one of those pubs, The Currier’s Arms, in Commercial Street having had his ritual few pints before his Sunday dinner. That’s North Lodge Park in the distance, and the Butcher's Arms would have been just behind the photographer.

A currier was someone who worked in the leather industry – he finished the process started by the skinners of Skinnergate.

“By coincidence,” continues David, “my grandad’s car number 2114 HN matched his phone number of Darlington 2114.

“I’m sure the old car spotters can tell that it was a Ford Escort which he replaced with a similar Ford Squire.”