This district’s history is as rich and varied as anywhere else, as the latest journal by Teesdale Record Society demonstrates. Editor Trevor Brookes looks through its pages
CHARLES Dickens’ visit to Teesdale led to his ruthless exposure of the notorious Yorkshire schools. But not all was as it seemed, as Robert Kirkpatrick has revealed in his article for the 23rd journal by the Teesdale Record Society.
“When Charles Dickens visited Yorkshire at the end of January 1838, looking for information on the cheap boarding schools which formed the basis for Dotheboys Hall in Nicholas Nickleby, he travelled along the Great North Road to Scotch Corner and then along the road to Carlisle, stopping at Barnard Castle which he used as the base for his research,” he explains.
Mr Kirkpatrick adds that had he visited Gainford “he may have discovered that not all the cheap boarding schools in that part of the country, many of which recruited most of their pupils from London, were as bad as those he set out to expose”.
Gainford Academy survived the fallout from Charles Dickens’ book and gained a reputation for its academic work – pupils studied subjects including Greek, navigation, elocution, book-keeping and history.
The academy was aimed at wealthy middle classes to prepare boys for the world of business and commerce. And yet it was still education on the cheap, thanks to the thrifty ways of the owners.
Pupils went off to places such as Cambridge and boarders often numbered about 50 until a rival academy opened in the village, leading to its closure in 1914. The grade II-listed building is now the base for the village theatre, which is on the ground floor with flats above. Its biggest claim to fame is that one of its pupils in the early 1900s, Arthur Stanley Jefferson, went on to become a household name. He is better known as the slapstick comedian Stan Laurel. Teesdale Record Society was founded 1934 to identify historical records of Teesdale. It has become a historical society and members hold regular meetings and outings.
Anyone can contribute articles to its journal but all must be based on Teesdale’s past. Anything – from botany to archaeology – will be welcomed. For its latest edition, member Bill Heyes has researched Revd Timothy Tully, a former rector of Middleton-in-Teesdale who sued the lessees of leadminers for failure to pay tithes on the lead ore. Tithes were a form of tax and a way of funding the parish church.
Old schools and chapels of Teesdale are the subject of a pictorial article by Jim Sewell, who shows ecclesiastical and educational sites across the dale such as Mickleton Primitive Methodist Chapel. His piece includes a fascinating photo of the “tin” church of Mickleton which was pulled down to make way for the village hall.
Malcolm McCallum has penned a chapter on Barnard Castle School’s chapel, which has been a major part of school life since 1912. He reveals the school at one point planned to cover the ceiling to improve the acoustics.
“Why this was considered is a mystery because the report on the opening of the chapel referred to the acoustics as being excellent,” notes Mr McCallum, whose article reports how the stained glass window installed to make the centenary was a far better idea. In 1914, an advert in the Teesdale Mercury made an appeal for old boys to join the North Eastern County School Old Boys Company for Lord Kitchener’s Army. Weeks later, 322 young men answered the call to arms and were enlisted to fight in the First World War. Some 740 joined up by the end of the war and 157 died. A roll of honour was erected in the chapel.
“The panelling records the names of all those who lost their lives in both world wars and more recently the Old Barnardian who lost his life in the Falklands War,” writes Mr McCallum. Last but by no means least in the journal is an entertaining account of Sir Thomas Robinson by Anthony Wood, who describes him as an “architect, connoisseur and scallywag”.
Robinson, the future builder of Rokeby Park, was the eldest of 11 children of William and Anne Robinson whose family had owned the Rookby estate since 1611. He was born in 1702, and inspired by a tour of Europe decided that the old Jacobean house at Rookby was “unworthy of his ambitions and it was demolished”. The reaction of his mother and siblings is not recorded.
He decided “with the confidence of youth” to be his own architect. Mr Wood writes: “He determined that he wanted to be as true to Vitruvian/Palladian ideas as possible, producing a building of striking proportions and symmetry with large windows, elegant colonnades, triangular pediments and the wings stuccoed and ochre coloured, in line with the villas he’d seen in the Veneto but a complete culture shock for the inhabitants of Teesdale.
“It was a bold, innovative design at the forefront of modern thinking and was still capable of dividing opinion 50 years after it had been built.”
The park was enclosed and the estate name gentrified – the old Scandinavian spelling of Rookby giving way to the current Rokeby.
Like the home he built, Robinson divided opinion.
Mr Wood explains: “One of the many stories told to his discredit is his habit of foisting himself upon people – Burlington writes of him visiting and never leaving. He would appear uninvited at Burlington House and stay on the pretext of looking at the Hall Clock or playing with the tame monkey if Burlington was absent. This behaviour eventually led to him being greeted by the porter thus: ‘Sir, his Lordship is out, the clock has stopped and the monkey is dead’, the door being shut in his face.”
Robinson helped spy on French fortifications across the channel and later led a lavish lifestyle, possibly the result of his grief at losing his wife. He landed the sought-after position of governor of Barbados, married again into wealth and built one of his little-recognised masterpieces, the bridge over the River Tees at Winston, its single span arch of 111ft being the longest of its kind in Europe. Teesdale has much to thank Robinson for – as well as the Teesdale Record Society for reminding us.
For information on Teesdale Record Society, visit www.teesdalerecordsociety.org.uk or call Bill Heyes on 01833 640885. The society’s 23rd journal is available at the Teesdale Mercury’s shop at 24 Market Place, Barnard Castle.
