The Witham, Barnard Castle: Built for the People of the Town

Before the building appeared on Horse Market

Henry Witham and the building raised in his memory

Henry Witham was a landowner and geologist who lived at Lartington Hall. He became known well beyond Teesdale for his work on fossil plants, but he was also closely involved with education and welfare in Barnard Castle.

Historic England records that he supported the Dispensary Society and the establishment of the Mechanics’ Institute. In 1844, he proposed a permanent building where both could continue their work. Henry died before the plan could be carried out, but the people around him did not allow it to disappear.

Money was raised through public subscription and the new building became the Witham Testimonial. Instead of putting up a statue to Henry, Barnard Castle created something people could use. His name would stand above the doorway, while books were borrowed, lectures delivered and patients treated in the rooms below.

The wider story of Henry Witham of Lartington Hall, including his geological research and the difficulties he faced in his private life, is told on his own page.

John Bowes and the building fund

John Bowes of Streatlam Castle was one of the people who helped the project on its way. He is remembered today as the co-founder of The Bowes Museum, but his support for public education in Barnard Castle began long before the museum was built.

On 24 December 1844, Bowes contributed £50 towards the new Mechanics’ Institute building being raised in Henry Witham’s memory. The payment is connected with a surviving letter held in The Bowes Museum archive.

His involvement continued after the Testimonial opened. Bowes gave a separate £20 when the larger New Hall was built in 1860, then served as president of the Barnard Castle Mechanics’ Institute from 1864 until 1867. The Institute’s accounts for 1876 to 1877 show him contributing again, this time with a £5 subscription alongside equal amounts from the Duke of Cleveland and the Reverend Thomas Witham.

The £50 and £20 were for two different stages of the building’s history. Together with his later presidency and subscription, they show that Bowes supported the Institute over several decades rather than simply putting his name beside one donation.

The original Witham building

The Witham Testimonial was designed by John and Benjamin Green, the same father-and-son architects who designed Penshaw Monument.

Penshaw had been completed in 1844, only two years before The Witham opened. It was an enormous public memorial, built in the form of a Greek temple on the hill above Sunderland. In Barnard Castle, the Greens worked on a smaller scale, but they still gave Horse Market a building designed to stand out.

The Witham was built in sandstone, with Ionic columns around the centre of the frontage and the name WITHAM cut clearly into the stone above the entrance. Construction took place during 1845 and 1846, and the building opened on 27 April 1846 with a bazaar and an exhibition of paintings.

A corridor ran through the middle of the building. The library and Reading Room were on the left, where an early photograph shows the words “Subscription Library – Reading Room” across the front window. The positions of the old bookcases can still be traced inside, and some of the lower cupboards may survive from the building’s early years.

The Dispensary rooms were on the right. The main room still has its Frosterley marble chimneypiece, ceiling details and an early ventilation grille. A smaller room behind it was also used by the Dispensary Society.

Upstairs, the room now known as the Witham Room stretched across the front of the building and was used for lectures, classes and meetings.

John and Benjamin Green designed the Testimonial, but the builders and tradesmen who turned their plans into stone, timber and plaster have not yet been securely identified.

Treatment tickets, medicine pots and the Dispensary

The Dispensary was a working medical charity supported by governors and subscribers. A person needing treatment would normally require a recommendation ticket supplied by one of them. Someone of limited means who personally subscribed five shillings could receive help without first finding another person to recommend them.

Patients had rules to follow. They were expected to attend when instructed, follow the medical officer’s advice and behave with what the rules called “decency and sobriety”.

They also had to bring their own phials and pots for medicine.

That small detail brings the old room to life. A patient might arrive with a paper ticket and an empty container, wait to see the medical officer and then carry their medicine home in the same pot or phial.

The figures from 1861 show how much the service was needed. During that year, 180 patients presented 232 treatment tickets. Of those patients, 158 were recorded as relieved or cured, seven died and 15 remained under treatment.

The report described them as the “labouring poor of Barnard Castle”. At least another 30 tickets could have been used during the final two months of the year, but there were not enough available. The problem was not finding people who needed help. It was finding enough money and support to provide it.

By 1886, Robert Taylor Richardson was serving on the Dispensary committee. During the previous year, 219 treatment tickets had been recorded, with women and children making up most of the patients. Plans were also being prepared to improve the drug room, showing that the medical side of The Witham remained busy four decades after the building opened.

Richardson later left his home, The Starlings on John Street, for medical and convalescent use. His full story continues on the Robert Taylor Richardson of Barnard Castle page.

The arrival of the National Health Service in 1948 removed much of the need for the old ticket system, but the Dispensary charity did not vanish. Its funds were used for convalescent holidays and, from 1958, to provide chiropody for pensioners and people of limited means.

In 1962, 103 people received almost 450 treatments, including 90 visits made in patients’ homes. More than a century after the Testimonial opened, money from the old charity was still being used to provide practical care.

Newspapers, books and life in the Reading Room

Across the corridor, the library and Reading Room served the town in a different way.

This was not a collection of books left untouched on shelves. Books were borrowed, worn out, repaired and rebound. Newspapers and periodicals brought politics, science, markets, crime, wars and events from far beyond Teesdale into Barnard Castle.

The accounts for 1876 to 1877 show exactly where the money went. The Institute spent £14 5s 10d on books, £11 11s 6d on periodicals and £25 11s 3d on newspapers. Another £9 9s 1d paid for binding and repairing books, while the librarian received a salary of £16.

Newspapers were the largest of those expenses.

That makes sense in a time before radio, television or the internet. A paper bought for the Reading Room could be passed between many people. Someone arriving after work could follow events in Parliament, check market reports and local notices, or simply sit quietly with a book.

The room was managed through subscriptions and rules, so it was not open to everyone without restriction. Even so, it gave members somewhere dependable to read, learn and spend time away from home and work.

That part of The Witham survived for far longer than many people might expect. In 1977, the Mechanics’ Institute still held its annual meeting in the Reading Room. Membership stood at 66, the yearly subscription was 50p and three daily newspapers were provided, with the Yorkshire Post about to be added.

More than 130 years after the building opened, local people were still paying a small subscription to sit there and read the papers.

The Music Hall and tea for 500

The lecture room in the original building soon became too small for the events being held there.

In 1855, responsibility for The Witham was placed in the hands of 12 trustees. Six represented the Mechanics’ Institute and six represented the Dispensary Society, keeping the two sides of the building equally involved.

A much larger hall was then built behind the original Testimonial. It cost £807 and opened on Thursday 6 December 1860. The architect has never been identified.

The New Hall, later called the Music Hall, originally stood separately from the front building. Visitors appear to have reached it by an uncovered route from the rear. The enclosed link used today came later.

The opening celebrations began with a free concert of sacred music, including pieces by Handel and Haydn. Voluntary contributions towards the building fund were invited, but the largest job of the day had fallen to the “lady friends of the Institution”.

They prepared tea for 500 people.

Food had to be made, water heated, tables laid and enough cups, plates and cutlery gathered for hundreds of guests. The official programme carried the names of the Duke of Cleveland, MPs and local dignitaries, but the day depended just as much on the women working behind the scenes.

Speeches followed the tea, and the celebrations continued with an evening concert. Admission to the tea and evening entertainment cost two shillings, and members of the local Rifle Volunteer Band also took part.

The opening was not simply a formal ceremony. It was a concert, enormous public meal and town celebration rolled into one.

A hall used by the whole town

The Music Hall became one of Barnard Castle’s main gathering places. Its stage hosted concerts, plays, dances, operas and magic-lantern shows. Films came later, and the small structure on the roof once housed projection equipment.

The hall was also used for auctions, political meetings, local societies, public discussions and important announcements. During both world wars it gave the town somewhere large enough to hold fundraising events, military music, meetings and dances.

Historic England describes The Witham as supporting the community through both conflicts, including the military personnel stationed around Barnard Castle. Its wartime role was not mysterious or grand. It did what it had always done by giving people a room in which to meet.

Much of the old Music Hall is still there. The original stage and proscenium survive, along with parts of its Victorian decoration. Above the boarded ceiling are green-glass panels hidden from the audience below, while graffiti left by people working in the roof remains among the timbers.

The rooms have changed, but they still carry marks left by the people who used them.

Decline, restoration and a new beginning

The Witham did not remain busy without interruption. After St Mary’s Parish Hall opened in the 1950s, some activities moved elsewhere and use of the older complex declined.

During the 1970s, the Music Hall was leased as a showroom. It and other parts of the building were later used by Barnard Castle Town Council as a social and sporting centre.

The Witham was listed at Grade II on 22 February 1973, recognising the importance of the original building, its surviving internal features and the increasingly rare Victorian Music Hall behind it. Those changing uses may have been far removed from the old Dispensary and Reading Room, but they helped keep the buildings occupied.

By the early twenty-first century, major work was needed. A wider regeneration scheme restored the historic rooms, brought the Music Hall back into regular use and created a modern link between the old buildings. The project also included library, council and business space and was completed in 2013.

Durham County Council, European funding and the Heritage Lottery Fund supported the redevelopment. The Heritage Lottery Fund awarded £336,000 in 2011 towards restoring the building and developing heritage activities for local people.

The Witham today

The Witham is now run by The Witham Hall Limited, a registered charity rather than a department of Durham County Council. It operates as a community arts centre with theatre, music, comedy, films, exhibitions, classes and social events, alongside its café bar and rooms for hire.

That is very different from the days of recommendation tickets and subscription newspapers, but the building is still being used for people to meet, learn and take part in something.

Its survival also comes with a cost. A large listed building needs heating, repairs, staff and regular maintenance. Ticket sales and commercial income form part of that, but grants, donations and public support have also played an important role.

In 2020, The Witham announced a three-year agreement under which Durham County Council provided £30,000 a year to support the organisation and its cultural programme. The funding came from the council’s cultural and social regeneration budgets.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund awarded another £229,800 in November 2025 for the project We Are Witham: The Witham Past, Present and Future. The work is intended to involve the community in exploring the building’s history while helping the charity strengthen its organisation and finances.

Built for the people of the town

The original Witham was never completely free, and it was never without rules.

Members subscribed to use the Reading Room. Patients normally needed recommendation tickets. Some lectures and concerts were free, while others charged for admission. Committees and trustees decided how the rooms and money should be managed.

What The Witham did was bring more within reach.

Behind one front window, people read shared books and newspapers. Behind the other, patients waited for medical help and carried medicine home in their own phials and pots. Upstairs, people listened to lectures and attended meetings. In the hall behind, hundreds gathered for music, public business, fundraising and dancing.

Henry Witham gave the building its name. John Bowes and other supporters helped pay for it. But the larger story belongs to everyone who used it: the patient waiting for treatment, the member reading a newspaper after work, the librarian repairing a worn book and the women preparing tea for 500.

Together, they turned a memorial to one man into part of the life of an entire town.

That is what The Witham was built to do.

Continue exploring Barnard Castle’s history

The story of The Witham connects with several other people and places across the town.

Read more about Henry Witham of Lartington Hall, the geologist whose proposal for a permanent Mechanics’ Institute and Dispensary led to the building that still carries his name.

You can also follow the story of Robert Taylor Richardson of Barnard Castle, whose work with the Dispensary became part of a much longer family connection with healthcare in the town.

For the wider story of how the streets, buildings and institutions of Barnard Castle developed, visit How Barnard Castle Grew.

You can also return to our main Barnard Castle Town Guide for walks, places to visit and more ways to explore the town.

Or head back to the Barnard Castle History and Heritage Hub to discover more local stories, including the castle, Galgate gallows, Blagraves House and the buildings that shaped Barnard Castle.