A PROPOSAL to bulldoze part of a historic pub which stands beside the trackbed of the Stockton and Darlington Railway to make way for a convenience store has been recommended for approval. Planning officers have backed the plan to create a 416sq m Sainsbury’s store in Historic England’s Stockton and Darlington Railway Heritage Action Zone in Middleton St George. The recommendation comes despite concerns it will serve as another serious blow to the borough’s rail heritage as the authority pushes forward with multi-million pound plans to celebrate the first passenger railway’s bi-centenary. Railway enthusiasts have highlighted how Platform One, which was previously known as the Fighting Cocks, is inextricably linked with the early days of the line.
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TAKING a tour of Darlington town centre more than a century ago, WJ Mountford walked off High Row and up Clark’s Yard. “The old houses and workshops that crowded this picturesque and narrow way have nearly all become warehouses,” he wrote in his unpublished memoires in 1908. Then he, like Memories 510, looked up. “There is an interesting old leaden spout at the south side of the yard which bears the initials ‘IP 1767’,” he noted, referring to the drainheader on the top of John Pease’s old house. And then he looked down, and said: “A wooden gate bearing iron spikes stops the way to a dozen stone steps leading to some dark, damp, ancient chambers beneath.”