200 years of the Stockton & Darlington Railway thenorthernecho.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thenorthernecho.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
BURIED in the countryside on the northern edge of Darlington is an abandoned 17th Century farmhouse called Coatham Grange. It is beside the Stockton & Darlington Railway – indeed there is an “accommodation bridge”, perhaps dating from 1825, which allowed the farmer and his animals to go under the line without getting run over.
Robert Stephenson, seated, with his father, George - both men used the same method to take their railway lines over notorious bogs This farmhouse was once called Myers Flat and, as Memories 517 told, this area was where George Stephenson had the most difficulty when building the world’s first modern railway.