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Darlington[edit]
St Cuthbert's Church
Darlington started as an Anglo-Saxon settlement. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon Dearthington, which seemingly meant 'the settlement of Deornoth's people' but, by Norman times, the name had changed to Derlinton. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the town was usually known by the name of Darnton.
Darlington has a historic market area in the town centre. St Cuthbert's Church, built in 1183, is one of the most important early English churches in the north of England and is Grade I listed. The oldest church in Darlington is St Andrew's Church, built around 1100 in Haughton-le-Skerne.
When the author Daniel Defoe visited the town during the 18th century, he noted that it was eminent for "good bleaching of linen, so that I have known cloth brought from Scotland to be bleached here". However, he also disparaged the town, writing that it had "nothing remarkable but dirt"; roads would have typically been unpaved in the 18th century.
The so-called Durham Ox came from Darlington; born in the early 19th century, this steer became renowned for its excellent proportions which came to inform the standard for Shorthorn cattle.
Victorian era[edit]
Stooperdale Offices (built for the North Eastern Railway Company)
During the early 19th century, Darlington remained a small market town.
The Stockton and Darlington Railway ran steam locomotives designed for passengers and goods, built to a standard gauge, on a permanent main line with branches. On 27 September 1825, George Stephenson's engine, Locomotion No. 1, travelled between Shildon and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, an event that was seen as ushering in the modern railway age.
The population at the time of the 1841 census was 11,008.
Later in the 19th century, the town became an important centre for railway manufacturing. An early railway works was the Hopetown Carriage Works (est. 1853), which supplied carriages and locomotives to the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The engineering firm of William and Alfred Kitching also manufactured locomotives there around this time. The town eventually developed three significant railway works:
The largest of these was the main line Darlington Works; its main factory, the North Road Shops, opened in 1863 and remained in operation until 1966.
Robert Stephenson & Co. (colloquially: "Stivvies"), moved to Darlington from Newcastle upon Tyne in 1902. It was renamed Robert Stephensons & Hawthorns in 1937, was absorbed by English Electric around 1960 and had closed by 1964.
Faverdale Wagon Works was established in 1923 and closed in 1962; in the 1950s, it was a UK pioneer in applying mass-production techniques to the manufacture of railway goods wagons.
Quakers and the Echo[edit]
During the 19th century, Darlington Quaker families such as those of Pease and Backhouse emerged as major employers and philanthropists. Industrialist Joseph Pease gave Darlington its landmark clock tower in 1864. The clock face was crafted by T. Cooke & Sons of York, and bells cast by John Warner & Sons of nearby Norton-on-Tees. The bells are sisters to Big Ben.[citation needed]
Darlington Mechanics Institute was opened in 1854 by Elizabeth Pease Nichol, who had donated towards its cost. In 1853, South Park was laid out, over 91 acres (37 ha), with financial support from the Backhouse family.
Architect Alfred Waterhouse, famous for work including London's Natural History Museum and Manchester Town Hall, designed Darlington's Grade II listed Old Town Hall and Market Hall, Darlington in 1860. Four years later he contributed Backhouse's Bank building that is, as of 2022[update], a branch of Barclays bank.
During the period, George Gordon Hoskins was responsible for much of the town's architecture, designing buildings such as The King's Head Hotel.[citation needed]
Darlington Free Library, a Grade II listed building in Crown Street, was built for £10,000 by Edward Pease. His daughter, Lady Lymington, opened the building on 23 October 1885 and presented it to the town council who agreed to operate it in perpetuity. As of 2022[update], it contains a library and "centre for local studies".
In 1870, The Northern Echo newspaper launched. Its most famous editor, William Thomas Stead, died on the Titanic. Facing the present Northern Echo building on Priestgate is the William Stead public house named for him.
Wars[edit]
Russian Crimean War Cannon from Sevastopol in South Park
In 1939, Darlington had the most cinema seats per capita in the United Kingdom.
On the night of 13 January 1945, a Lancaster bomber piloted by Pilot Officer William Stuart McMullen of Canada was on a training exercise when one of its engines caught fire and it crashed on farmland near Lingfield Lane. McMullen stayed at the controls while his crew parachuted to safety and directed the stricken aircraft away from the houses below. He was killed on impact. For his actions, Lingfield Lane was renamed to "McMullen Road" and a memorial was erected.
Tornado and the brick train[edit]
Starting in 1993, rail enthusiast group A1 Steam Locomotive Trust worked on building an all-new steam locomotive, the first to be constructed since the 1960s. It was intended to be the 50th member of the long withdrawn LNER Peppercorn Class A1 engine, called Tornado and numbered 60163, from scratch in the 1853 former Stockton and Darlington Railway Carriage Works at Hopetown. Many of the original fleet had been built at Darlington locomotive works in the late 1940s. Tornado was completed in January 2008.
To commemorate the town's contribution to the railways, David Mach's 1997 work Train is located alongside the A66, close to the original Stockton–Darlington railway. It is a life-size brick sculpture of a steaming locomotive emerging from a tunnel, made from 185,000 Accrington Nori bricks. The work had a budget of £760,000.
21st century[edit]
The Market Square in 2004
In 2001, Darlington became the first place in England to allow same-sex civil ceremonies and it hosts an annual Gay Pride Festival at venues across the town, the next scheduled for 8 August 2026. A 2005 Darlington Borough Council project to pedestrianise areas of the town centre, this included some Victorian features along High Row. In August 2008, a fire, in which nobody was killed, caused damage and weeks of closure until the damage was fixed for several shops (including Woolworths). The King's Head Hotel was also affected with damage to the roof and 100 bedrooms, the hotel was able to reopen in 2012.
