Darlington


Darlington is a large market town in County Durham, in North East England. With a population of 105,564 in 2011, the town lies on the River Skerne, a tributary of the River Tees. The town is administered as part of the Borough of Darlington. The town owes much of its development to the influence of local Quaker families in the Georgian and Victorian era, and who provided much of the finance and vision in creating the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the world's first steam locomotive powered, permanent passenger railway The town is often colloquially referred to as 'Darlo'.

History

Early history

Darlington started as an Anglo-Saxon settlement. The name Darlington 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. Built in 1183, the Grade I listed St Cuthbert's Church is one of the most important early English churches in the north of England. However the oldest church in the town happens to be that of St Andrew's Church built around 2001 and presides in the Haughton area of Darlington.
Visiting during the 18th century, Daniel Defoe noted that the town 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".
The Durham Ox came from Darlington.

19th-century industry

During the early 19th century, Darlington remained a small market town. As the century progressed, powerful Quaker families such as the Pease and Backhouse families were prominent employers and philanthropists in the area. Darlington's most famous landmark, the clock tower, was a gift to the town by the industrialist Joseph Pease in 1864. The clock's face was produced by T. Cooke & Sons of York, and the tower bells were cast by John Warner & Sons of nearby Norton-on-Tees. These bells were in fact the sister bells to those which are inside the Elizabeth Tower at the Houses of Parliament in London, the most famous of which is called Big Ben. The Darlington Mechanics Institute was opened in 1854 by Elizabeth Pease Nichol, who had made the largest donation towards its building costs. The 91-acre South Park was redeveloped into its current form in 1853, with financial backing from the Backhouse family. Alfred Waterhouse, responsible for London's Natural History Museum and Manchester Town Hall, designed the Grade II listed Victorian Market Hall in 1860, and also the Backhouse's Bank building, now a branch of Barclays, in 1864, the latter taking three years to complete. George Gordon Hoskins was responsible for much of the town's architecture in this period, such as The King's Hotel. The Darlington Free Library was built with funding from Edward Pease, and opened in 1885 when the Council accepted the gift of the purpose built, fully stocked library and agreed to run it in perpetuity.

Railways

Darlington is known for its associations with the birth of the modern railway. This is celebrated in the town at Darlington Railway Centre and Museum. On 27 September 1825 George Stephenson's engine Locomotion No. 1 ushered in the modern railway age when it travelled between Shildon and Stockton-on-Tees via Darlington, on the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which from its outset was designed for passengers and goods, to a standard gauge on a permanent main line with branches and powered by steam locomotives.
The town later became an important centre for railway manufacturing. An early railway works was the Hopetown Carriage Works which supplied carriages and locomotives to the Stockton and Darlington Railway. The engineering firm of William and Alfred Kitching also manufactured locomotives in the 19th century. The town developed to have three significant works; the largest of these was the main line Darlington Works, whose main works were known as the North Road Shops which opened in 1863 and closed in 1966. Another was Robert Stephenson & Co., who moved to Darlington from Newcastle upon Tyne in 1902, became Robert Stephensons & Hawthorns in 1937, were absorbed by English Electric around 1960, and closed by 1964. The third was Faverdale Wagon Works, established in 1923 and closed in 1962, which in the 1950s was a UK pioneer in the application of mass-production techniques to the manufacture of railway goods wagons.
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.
For 19 years, the A1 Steam Locomotive Trust built a 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.

Engineering

Darlington has long been a centre for engineering, particularly bridge building. Bridges built in Darlington are found as far away as the River Nile and the River Amazon. The large engineering firm Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company still has its headquarters in the town. The firm built the Tyne Bridge, Middlesbrough Transporter Bridge and the Humber Bridge, as well as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. One of the leading engine building firms, Cummins, has major premises in Darlington. The engineering companies Darlington Forge Company and Whessoe also originated in Darlington.

Other

In 1870, The Northern Echo newspaper was launched. It is based in Priestgate and is a long-standing part of life in the North East. Although a regional paper, it is a full-bodied newspaper in its own right and includes national and international news in its scope, as well as having a well-maintained website and active social media presence. William Thomas Stead was a notable editor of The Northern Echo who died in 1912 on the Titanic. Opposite The Northern Echo building is The William Stead public house, restaurant and beer garden.

Recent history

In 1939, Darlington had the most cinema seats per head of population in the United Kingdom.
The town centre has undergone a full refurbishment entitled The Pedestrian Heart, which has seen the majority of the town centre pedestrianised. Initially, the project received criticism surrounding changes to public transport, and removal of Victorian features along High Row. There is now growing evidence, however, that the now-completed changes are meeting with local approval. Then in 2014, the town saw the revamp of one of its old cinemas, The Majestic, into a soft play centre and theatre.
On the night of 13 January 1945 a Lancaster bomber piloted by Pilot Officer William Stuart McMullen from Canada crashed on farmland near Lingfield Lane. One of the engines caught fire while on a training exercise, McMullen stayed at the controls while his crew parachuted to safety and directed the stricken aircraft away from the houses below. Pilot Officer McMullen was killed on impact but his heroism was honoured with the renaming of Lingfield Lane as McMullen Road as well as a memorial.
In August 2008 the King's Hotel in the town centre was devastated by fire, severely damaging the roof and 100 bedrooms. Several shops, including Woolworths, were damaged and had to close for weeks afterwards. No one was killed in the blaze. The hotel was carefully restored to its former glory and re-opened in 2012.

Governance

On 1 April 1997, the Borough of Darlington became a unitary authority area with the formation of Darlington Borough Council, which separated it from the non-metropolitan county of Durham for administrative purposes only, as the town is still within County Durham for ceremonial purposes. Currently,
the MP for this seat is Conservative Peter Gibson. Former members of parliament for the town include Jenny Chapman, the former Shadow Prisons Minister and Shadow Minister for Leaving the European Union, Alan Milburn, the former Secretary of State for Health under the Tony Blair Labour Government and Michael Fallon, who was Secretary of State for Defence under the David Cameron Coalition Government and Theresa May's Conservative government.

Geography

Darlington is located in the south of County Durham close to the River Tees, which acts as the border between Durham and Yorkshire. Both the River Tees and River Skerne pass through the town, the River Skerne later joining the River Tees which then flows through Teesside and into the North Sea.
Darlington railway station lies on the East Coast Main Line. There are also local services from the historic North Road railway station and associated Darlington Railway Centre and Museum.
Neighbouring towns include Newton Aycliffe, Stockton and Bishop Auckland.

Suburbs

There are several suburbs of Darlington. In the north are Harrowgate Hill, Harrowgate Village, Coatham Mundeville and Beaumont Hill and to the north-east are Whinfield and Haughton Le Skerne. To the east is the suburb of Eastbourne and Red Hall with Firthmoor and Skerne Park to the south. Situated in the west end are Hummersknott, Mowden and Blackwell. Finally, to the north-west are Branksome, Cockerton, Faverdale, The Denes, West Park, High Grange and Pierremont which is associated with the notable Henry Pease.

Economy

are the largest private sector employers in the town, hiring 2,500 people. Another major employer in the area is the English division of the Student Loans Company, Student Finance England, who are based at Lingfield Point and employ over 1,000 people. Nevertheless, there are major engineering sites, with both Cleveland Bridge and the industrial arm of AMEC headquartered in the town. Another major firm within the engineering industry based in the town is Cummins which has a large scale engine building facility in the Morton Park area of Darlington. UK retail company Argos have their largest warehouse distribution centre in the North of England located in Darlington, within Faverdale Industrial Estate to the North West of the town.
Other large service sector companies with offices in the town include Darlington Building Society, Bannatyne Fitness Ltd and the national vehicle rental company Northgate, which is headquartered in the town; also within the Morton Park area.
As well as the large engineering sites based in the town, Darlington is also home to many businesses within the modern and developing industries including Information Technology. With large firms such as Infoserve Ltd having offices within the Morton Park area to the east of Darlington, located next to the A66 Darlington Eastern Bypass.
Close to the Darlington A66 Bypass is also the Link66 redevelopment scheme, which is a large plot of land close to the Morton Park site. It is hoped developers will see potential in the site due to its excellent transport links with fast access to the town centre and central park regeneration zone via the new Darlington Eastern Transport Corridor constructed in 2008. While also being in close proximity to the A1 Motorway which heads south to London and north to Edinburgh.
In November 2012, a deal was signed between Darlington Borough Council and developer Terrace Hill for a £30 million re-development of the site of the former Feethams bus depot. The development includes a new multiplex cinema run by Vue Cinemas to serve Darlington and the wider South Durham area, as the area currently has no multiplex cinema. Residents currently have to travel to Teesside for the nearest multiplex cinema. The development will also house a new 80 bedroom Premier Inn hotel, and various food and drink venues including Prezzo, Bella Pasta and Hungry Horse. The proposal had an expected completion date of late 2014, though this did overrun with completion early 2016.
Darlington Borough Council also announced the neighbouring site, previously a car park for the town hall, was also to be redeveloped to house riverside office space for the Department for Education in an effort to safeguard Darlington jobs. This was officially opened on 19 March 2015.
The international telecommunications company BT Group recently announced Darlington as one of the economically important locations in England to have BT fibre-optic cables installed underground as part of the company's BT Infinity superfast broadband rollout project. BT Group cites their decision to include Darlington in the national rollour of multi-provider fibre optic broadband as necessary due to the towns relatively large amount of IT demanding firms and future plans for developments including space for high-tech firms. Darlington Borough Council, residents and local businesses praised the decision by BT Group and it is hoped the investment will attract enterprise to the town, potentially creating employment for residents and boosting the economy.
The Morton Park area of Darlington is currently undergoing a partial redevelopment, with areas of unused waste land being redeveloped into modern industrial and office space, the developments add to the plans for redevelopment of the current Council depot on Central Park which is also to be redeveloped into commercial space and the Link66 scheme also close to Morton Park.
Other commercial spaces in Darlington include North Road Industrial Estate, which includes a Morrisons superstore supermarket; Cleveland Trading Estate and Faverdale Industrial Estate.
This is a chart of trend of regional gross value added of Darlington at current basic prices published by Office for National Statistics with figures in millions of British Pounds Sterling.
YearRegional Gross Value AddedAgricultureIndustryServices
19951,1158377729
20001,1926417768
20031,5386561971

Darlington is historically a market town with a well established weekly outdoor market and an indoor market located underneath the town clock on Prebend Row. Also located on Prebend Row is the Cornmill Shopping centre which is the main retail area of Darlington. The market square is one of the biggest in the country.
Darlington attracts people from a wide area. House of Fraser trading as Binns is a major retailer in the town.

Culture and community

Darlington has been subject to increasing amounts of inward investment in recent years with the completion of large scale local council sponsored schemes such as the 2007 Town Centre Pedestrian Heart Project worth 10 million pounds, which saw most of Darlington Town Centre modernised with an emphasis on fewer vehicles in the centre and roads pedestrianised completely. The town has also received further investment worth 170 million pounds with the creation of Central Park, a new industrial, residential, cultural and education park.
All of the investment in recent years and planned investment with large scale public sector support makes Darlington the most invested in Borough in the Tees Valley region, with Stockton a close second. The Civic Theatre is a popular arts venue in the town, hosting a mix of musicals, dramas, plays and pantomimes. The smaller but well-used Arts Centre, founded in 1982, featured smaller events, film screenings and more experimental material; however this closed in 2012.
Darlington was the first town in England to allow same-sex civil ceremonies in 2001. The town hosts an annual Gay Pride Festival which comprises a series of celebrations of local LGBT culture and acceptance held at venues across the town.
The Forum Music Centre, opened in 2004, hosts regular live music events, from Ska and Punk to Indie and Classic Rock. It also runs a comedy club. As well as live music, the facility houses a state of the art recording studio and several rehearsal rooms. The Carmel Rhythm Club, at Carmel College in the Hummersknott end of town, is another music venue.
Darlington town centre has built a strong focus on independent shopping, and offers a more varied shopping experience than in many other UK towns and cities which have a higher concentration of national and international chains. Grange Road has a number of "designer" stores, Duke Street houses art galleries and restaurants and between the two is Skinnergate, which holds the greatest variety of original stores.
Darlington Dog Show was a championship event from 1969. It was usually held in September on the showground in South Park; but it has now moved to Ripon.
The Brick Train, a substantial brick sculpture of a railway locomotive, is situated close to the A66 road on the eastern outskirts of the town. It was created by David Mach in 1997 to celebrate the town's railway heritage.

Community facilities

Darlington Library, an impressive Grade II listed building situated in Crown Street, was a gift to the town from Edward Pease, a leading Darlington Quaker. He left £10,000 in his will to build a free library in Darlington or for other educational purposes. The people of Darlington voted to adopt the Free Libraries Act, and the town's first free library was officially opened on 23 October 1885 by his daughter, Lady Lymington. The building now houses the Central Lending Department, Reference Library and Centre for Local Studies.
The Jamia Mosque and Islamic Society of Darlington is located in the North Lodge Terrace area of the town, an area with a relatively high proportion of ethnic minority residents. Constituted as a charity under UK law in 1982, the mosque offers worship facilities, as well as Islamic Education, and has its own telecommunications mast for calls to prayer.
Darlington Memorial Hospital is on Hollyhurst Road, in the corridor between Woodland Road and The Denes.

Leisure

The Dolphin Centre, which provides a wide range of sporting facilities, was opened by Roger Bannister in 1982. It received a £5m refurbishment in 2006 and was later officially opened by Redcar athlete Tanni Grey-Thompson.

Twin towns

Darlington is twinned with:

Road

Darlington has excellent road transport links with the North East's major trunk route the A1, which bypasses the town to the west. It was completed in 1965 replacing the Great North Road route which is now known as the A167. The town is served by 3 close junctions of the A1: Junction 57 A66, Junction 58 A68, Junction 59 A167. Junction 59 is the access exit for Darlington Motorway Services, with an onsite filling station, Hotel and a 24-hour restaurant with a drive through. Darlington is also close to other major trunk routes, including the A66 transpennine route connecting Darlington to Stockton and the A19.
The £5.9 million five-mile A66 Darlington Eastern Bypass opened on 25 November 1985. The Darlington Eastern Transport Corridor, linking the Central Park regeneration zone and Darlington town-centre to a new roundabout on the A66, was opened in the summer of 2008.

Rail

is an important interchange stop on the East Coast Main Line and has regular services to London Kings Cross, Leeds City station, Edinburgh Waverley, Manchester Piccadilly, Manchester Airport and Newcastle. Darlington railway station also serves as the mainline interchange for Middlesbrough railway station, which itself has few intercity services. Darlington railway station boasts a large Victorian clock tower which, in the relatively low rise town centre, can be seen throughout large areas of the town.
Darlington also has access to the Tees Valley Line connecting all the main settlements along the River Tees, and runs from Bishop Auckland to Saltburn via Darlington, Stockton-on-Tees and Middlesbrough among many other smaller settlements.

Bus

Bus transport in the town is provided by Arriva North East. Darlington lost out on considerable public receipts when the municipal bus operator Darlingon Transport Company was placed into administration during an attempted privatisation, due to continuing financial difficulties and the Darlington Bus War.
Arriva run most of the bus services in the town, as well as services connecting Darlington to neighbouring towns such as Durham, Bishop Auckland, Richmond, Stockton, and Middlesbrough.
Stagecoach used to operate in the town until 2007, when they sold their operations to Arriva. Arriva therefore became the main bus operator.
There is also two smaller independent operators that run services in the town, which are called Dales & District and Scarlet Band.

Sustainable Transport and Cycling

Darlington was chosen by the Department for Transport as one of three national Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns in 2004, and has successfully delivered a three-year research and marketing programme to promote sustainable travel choices under the brand name 'Local Motion'. It was also chosen as one of six cycling demonstration towns in October 2005, receiving £3 million worth of funding from the government and local council money. The money has been spent over the course of three years on improving cycling facilities and routes, and linking the town to the national cycle route network. Darlington is the only place to win both sustainable travel and cycling demonstration town status.

Airport

is east of Darlington town centre and serves County Durham and Teesside. The airport was known as Durham Tees Valley Airport from 2004 until mid-2019. It has flights to a few domestic locations across the UK and international flights to locations across Europe. Many private or General Aviation Flights use the airport. Weston Aviation are there for that purpose. The airport has a Fire Training Centre that trains many airport firefighters from all over the UK. The nearest larger airports are Newcastle Airport and Leeds Bradford International Airport.

Education

The town has the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College. There are many other schools including: Carmel College, a Catholic Academy, Wyvern Academy, Haughton Academy, Hummersknott Academy, Hurworth School, Longfield Academy, Polam Hall School and St Aidan's Church of England Academy. Darlington College is the newly built FE College. Teesside University opened a Darlington campus in 2011 offering higher education in the town to students and businesses.

Media

Darlington is home to the regional daily newspaper The Northern Echo and its sister weekly newspaper Darlington & Stockton Times.
The regional radio station 'Darlo Radio' broadcasts from the town.
In November 2009 the town appointed an official 'Twitterer in residence', the first of its kind in the UK. Mike McTimoney is a local regular Twitter user who has been officially charged with tweeting for and about Darlington, and to help promote The Darlington Experiment 2.0, the town's social media campaign.
In 1998 the County Durham town of Darlington hit the national headlines after local man David James Harker murdered and beheaded his girlfriend Julie Paterson before eating parts of her body in the Harewood Grove area, close to the large Sainsbury's supermarket; followed by the dumping of her torso which was later discovered in bushes by residents and reported to Durham Police. Harker was later diagnosed by experts as having Antisocial Personality Disorder, and is remembered as the Darlington Cannibal Killer. He was jailed for life in February 1999.

Sport

The town is home to the football team Darlington 1883, successor club to Darlington F.C., known as The Quakers because of the contributions made to the town by men such as Edward and Joseph Pease, members of the Religious Society of Friends. The town's football club played at the 25,000 capacity Darlington Arena when it opened on Neasham Road in 2003, after 120 years at Feethams. In 2010 they were relegated from the Football League, 21 years after they suffered a similar fate when they were then promoted back from the Football Conference at the first attempt. In the 2010–11 season Darlington won the FA Trophy but were relegated four divisions to the Northern Football League Division One for the 2012–13 season. Darlington played home games at Heritage Park in Bishop Auckland from the start of the 2012–13 season until moving back to Darlington in late 2016 to commence a new long term groundshare arrangement with Darlington RFC at Blackwell Meadows. Darlington's first home game at Blackwell Meadows took place on 26 December 2016.
Darlington is also home to Darlington Railway Athletic F.C., which plays in the Wearside League Division One and play at Brinkburn Road.
Darlington's leading athletics club, the Darlington Harriers, was formed in 1891 and has had a number of successful athletes wearing the club colours as well as GB vests. The club celebrated its 125th year in 2016, with anniversary games held at Eastbourne Sports Complex.
Darlington has two Rugby Union clubs Darlington Mowden RFC and Darlington RFC. Mowden were promoted as champions from National League 3 North in 2011–12 and now own and play at the Darlington Arena, in the fourth tier of the English league system, the National League 2 North. Darlington RFC play at Blackwell Meadows in the seventh tier, North 1 East. The Northern Echo arena also played a role in the 2015 Rugby World Cup, hosting the New Zealand national team known as the "All Blacks".
Cricket clubs are Darlington Cricket Club and Darlington Railway Athletic Cricket Club.
The Darlington 10K road run is held every August, and attracts several thousand competitors.

Notable people