Middleton-in-Teesdale in 1870

Stepping off the train

Arrive by train in Middleton-in-Teesdale in 1870 and the first odd thing is that you are not actually in Middleton yet.

The little terminus sits on the Yorkshire side of the Tees. Across the river is County Durham and the village itself, climbing the slope beyond. In July that year a newspaper visitor described the station simply as a neat building, with the old parish church visible on one side of the village and Middleton House on the other.

The railway is still new. Ordinary passenger trains have only been running since May 1868, but already people are using them to reach Upper Teesdale. On Wednesdays a market train leaves Middleton for Barnard Castle at 9.15 in the morning. When the morning train arrives from Barnard Castle, horse-drawn omnibuses and other vehicles wait to take passengers farther up the dale towards High Force.

If you need a conveyance, the man to ask is John Beadle, the postmaster in Middleton.

So the railway gets you here, but the horse still takes you the rest of the way.

Across County Bridge

From the station the road drops towards the Tees.

Even this short bit of the journey is causing complaints in 1870. One regular traveller writes to the newspaper about the unfinished footpath between the station and Middleton, fed up with the mud and asking why nothing is being done before the summer visitors arrive.

Then comes the bridge.

Cross it and you leave Yorkshire behind and enter County Durham. The stone bridge is already more than fifty years old, built after an earlier attempt collapsed in 1811. Before the bridge was built, travellers had to contend with a dangerous ford at Step Ends.

By 1870 the crossing is carrying an odd mixture of old and new: railway passengers walking up from the station, horses and carts, livestock, miners, farmers and people simply going about their day.

Ahead of you is Middleton.

Into Market Place

The village is compact, climbing the slope away from the river.

A visitor arriving could see the old St Mary’s Church, with its detached bell tower, standing on one side of the village. Middleton House rose prominently on the other, while the London Lead Company school could be picked out among the trees. Below them were meadows, gardens and houses running down towards the Tees.

Climb up into Market Place and one of the first important buildings is the Cross Keys Inn.

Joseph Raine is keeping it in 1870. In January around sixty members and friends of the 12th Durham Rifle Volunteers sit down to dinner here after their annual shooting competition. Only a few weeks later the same inn becomes the place where an inquest is held into the deaths of two young lads killed at Coldberry Mine.

The Cross Keys stands on the site of today’s Teesdale Hotel, although the grand frontage people know now is still years away. 

Nearby is John Beadle, Middleton’s postmaster. He has already held the job for decades. Letters come through his hands, while travellers wanting a horse-drawn journey further up the dale can also turn to him.

Market Place is not just somewhere people pass through. It is where news arrives, journeys begin, business is done and people meet.

Through Horse Market

Carry on into Horse Market and one very familiar Middleton landmark is missing.

There is no Bainbridge Fountain yet.

Instead there are horses, carts, inns, shops and houses being used as places of work as well as homes.

The Talbot Inn is open. The Forester’s Arms is being kept by Joseph Todd. The King’s Head is still in business too, run for much of the year by Mrs Hindmarch. When she retires in November, Ralph Bell, a cabinet maker and general dealer, prepares to move his business into the inn.

The Blue Bell is here as well, and the Rose and Crown regularly appears in village life, hosting meetings, dinners and society business.

These places are not simply pubs. They are where auctions happen, where committees meet, where dinners follow agricultural shows and where somebody might be told to leave after having rather too much to drink.

The people behind the shop doors

The shops are small and personal.

Joseph Beadle is working as a butcher in Middleton. W. Allison is a boot and shoemaker. Near the corner opposite Bridge Lane are shops kept by Mr Armstrong and Miss Bainbridge.

At Dalesholme, Thomas Coatsworth is established as a chemist and druggist.

Ralph Bell sells furniture and household goods. When he clears his old stock later in the year, the sale includes chairs, tables, bedsteads, mirrors, wallpaper, brushes, kettles, frying pans, tubs, pails and ironmongery.

At Mount Pleasant, John Allinson starts work as an auctioneer in October.

There is no neat line between home and business here. A shop, workshop, inn and family home can all sit behind the same frontage.

Up towards Hude

Walk towards Hude and the London Lead Company becomes impossible to miss.

Middleton House has stood here since 1823. In 1870 R. W. Bainbridge is living there and is the chief agent of the London Lead Company.

Company life spreads far beyond the mines themselves. There are houses at Newtown and Masterman Place, workshops and other buildings, the school on Alston Road, baths and wash-houses and gardens behind workers cottages.

The gardens matter enough for the Company to award prizes. In July John Harrison wins a guinea for the best produce and neatest plot, while William Simmonette takes second place.

But Middleton is getting crowded.

In March a visitor is sent here to find a house for an artisan, his wife and family. He cannot find one. He is told that houses for working men at around £7 or £8 a year would be very welcome and that land in Middleton is expensive.

People are coming here to work, and the village is struggling to fit them in.

The school on Alston Road

Up on Alston Road stands the London Lead Company school, built in 1861.

John Hyslop is the schoolmaster and has already taught generations of Middleton children.

An inspection a few years earlier found boys and girls learning together across seven classes, with good reading, handwriting and arithmetic. The inspector also noticed something unmistakably local: the children read with a strong Teesdale accent.

The school is not only for lessons. During 1870 its large schoolroom is used again and again for village life — concerts, meetings, a Bible Society gathering and the enormous summer bazaar and exhibition.

For some children sitting at those desks, the mines, quarries and Company workshops waiting outside are likely to become part of adult life.

Baths, washing and everyday life

Close by are the Lead Company baths and wash-houses, opened only the previous year.

People can come here to bathe and to wash clothes. It is not grand, but it belongs in this story just as much as the railway or the mines.

A family in Middleton still has clothes to wash, water to fetch, food to prepare and animals or gardens to look after.

The village may have steam trains and telegraph wires, but much of everyday life is still hard physical work.

Town Head and the old church

Carry on towards Town Head and the Middleton you know today changes again.

The present St Mary’s is not there.

In 1870 people are still worshipping in the old church that has stood here for centuries, with its separate bell tower nearby. Rev John Henry Brown has been rector for decades.

Richard Watson knows this church personally. He was baptised here, and his parents were married here.

Nobody walking through the churchyard in 1870 knows that the building has only eight years left before it is demolished.

Chapels and a new building going up

Church life in Middleton does not end at St Mary’s.

The Baptists are here, with Rev W. L. Greene preaching in the village. During the fierce heat of July he even holds an evening service outside in the park beside Middleton House.

The Wesleyans are having an even bigger year.

Their existing chapel is too small. At first they consider altering it to squeeze in around eighty more seats, but the plan changes when James Hindmarch provides land for a completely new building.

Through 1870 people raise money, organise concerts, hold a huge bazaar and exhibition, lay the memorial stone and watch the walls rise.

By November the masonry is almost at full height.

The large Primitive Methodist chapel at Town End still belongs to the future. It will not open until 1872.

If you needed the doctor

If work underground, in a quarry or on the road went badly wrong, Middleton had Dr J. Makens.

In April two men injured while preparing a blast at Wire Gill Mine are brought into the village. John Scott has serious injuries to his face and eyes, while William Edmundson is also hurt. Makens treats them both.

He is not some distant doctor called in from Barnard Castle. He is part of Middleton life. He lends paintings and watercolours to the big summer exhibition and later treats Captain Bainbridge during his final illness, bringing Dr Heath from Newcastle in for another opinion.

For people living here, he is simply the doctor they go to when they need him.

When evening comes

By evening Middleton is not completely dark.

Gas has been made in the village since 1860. Down at the station, the telegraph can carry messages far beyond Teesdale.

But there is still no electricity and no telephone.

A train might arrive at the terminus while horses wait outside. Gas burns in the village while somebody walks home to a stone house, checks the garden, feeds an animal or gets ready for another day at the mine, shop, school or farm.

That mixture is Middleton in 1870.

It is changing quickly, but nobody living here thinks of themselves as part of a historic scene.

It is simply where they live.

Middleton-in-Teesdale in 1870: month by month

Once you start following the year month by month, Middleton feels much less distant.

One week the streets are packed for the Lead Company’s annual pay, another there is trouble at an inn, a concert in the schoolroom, an accident at a mine or a fair bringing livestock into the village. Small things sit beside big ones, just as they do now.

So from here, we simply follow 1870 as it happened.

January 1870

January opened with one of the biggest annual events in Middleton. On Saturday 8 January, the London Lead Company held its annual pay, bringing what the Teesdale Mercury described as an unusually large crowd into the village. The weather was fine, the streets were full of visitors and the payments themselves were reported to be good, reflecting how important the lead industry still was to Middleton and the wider dale.

The 12th Durham Rifle Volunteers were busy that month too. Their annual shooting competition was followed by dinner at the Cross Keys Inn, where around sixty members and friends sat down together. The prizes give the evening a wonderfully ordinary feel: alongside money there were bottles of whisky and rum, tea, a pair of clogs, a hat and even a rabbit. R. W. Bainbridge of Middleton House chaired the dinner, while the inn itself was being kept by Joseph Raine.

Later in the month came much darker news from Coldberry Lead Mine. On 20 January, 18-year-old John Beadle and 16-year-old John Collinson were killed when a huge piece of rock fell from the roof while they were working underground. The newspaper noted that both boys were the sons of widows. Their inquest was held two days later at Joseph Raine’s Cross Keys Inn, where the verdict was accidental death.

Only a week later, Middleton’s London Lead Company schoolroom was being prepared for a completely different gathering. On Friday 28 January a musical entertainment was arranged to raise money for the new Wesleyan chapel. The programme included music by Mozart, Handel and Haydn, performed by the Wesleyan choir, with the Brothers Matthews providing accompaniment on piano and harmonium.

One of them, M. J. Matthews of Glasgow, was visiting friends in Middleton before leaving Britain for New York, and the newspaper clearly expected his harmonium playing to be something special for a small dale town. It is a lovely little detail to finish the month with: only days after tragedy at Coldberry, people were gathering in the schoolroom for music and trying to raise money for a new chapel.

February 1870

February was quieter than January, but the newspapers still give us a few nice glimpses of life around Middleton.
On 10 February, people from Middleton had the chance to travel into Barnard Castle for an evening performance of Hamlet at the New Music Hall. A special train was arranged to leave Barnard Castle at 10.30pm afterwards, calling at the intermediate stations on its way back up the dale. Less than two years after the railway opened, Middleton people could now go out for an evening in Barnard Castle and still catch a late train home.

Sergeant Taylor of Middleton was also busy that month. Hobney Hutchinson, a miner from Forest, was charged with being drunk and disorderly on 4 February and fined 5 shillings and costs. Two days later, George Robinson and James Robinson of Middleton were reported for being drunk and riotous in the village. Neither appeared in court, and both were fined 5 shillings, with seven days’ hard labour threatened if they failed to pay.

The family notices give us quieter pieces of village life. On 4 February, the wife of Joseph Robinson at Aukside gave birth to a son, and two days later Matthew Scott and his wife at Hude also welcomed a son.

Towards the end of the month, attention turned to the coming spring fair. A notice announced that Middleton would hold a fair on the first Thursday in March for the sale of cattle, horses and sheep, with plans for it to become an annual event.

March 1870

March began with Middleton’s new livestock fair. On Thursday 3 March cattle, horses and sheep were brought into the town for sale, but one purchase caused rather more trouble than expected. A Teesdale gentleman bought a cow described as “wild” and sent a man to drive her about four miles home. She refused to cooperate. After charging her driver, knocking him over and escaping into the countryside, she disappeared for the night. The following day two horsemen failed to find her, and eventually six men were sent out on foot. Even they were scattered when she charged at them. The chase finally ended when the owner’s son managed to grab her by the horns and hold on until the others could secure her with ropes. The newspaper hoped that, after all that excitement, she might finally settle down to a quieter life.

There was a more serious problem in Middleton that month too: finding somewhere to live. A visitor wrote to the Teesdale Mercury after being asked to find a house in the town for an artisan, his wife and family. He came away empty-handed, saying it had been impossible to find a suitable dwelling. He had been told that more working-men’s houses at rents of around £7 or £8 a year would be a welcome addition to Middleton, while land itself was commanding a high price. For a village whose mining and other industries were attracting workers, there simply were not enough suitable homes to go round.

Travel was never far from the news either. One March visitor left Middleton railway station and climbed over Kirkcarrion before heading into Lunedale, praising the condition of the road towards Brough despite a long winter of frost and thaw. The same account looked back to the building of Middleton Bridge and the dangerous old ford at Step Ends which it had replaced. Only two years after the railway arrived, visitors were already stepping off trains and heading straight out into the surrounding dale.

Later in the month four men returning to Middleton from Alston Fair had a lucky escape at Newbiggin toll bar. They were travelling together in one conveyance when the shafts broke while they were paying the toll. The men were thrown into the road and the frightened pony bolted towards Middleton with the broken shafts still attached. People in the village apparently feared the worst when the loose pony came racing in without its passengers, but all four men escaped with only slight injuries.

March also brought Middleton’s annual township meeting at the Town Hall, attended by a large number of ratepayers. Anthony Todd of Aukside took the chair. J. Allison of Lane Side and W. Allison, a Middleton boot and shoemaker, were chosen as constables, while William Brown of Stotley and Joseph Beadle, a Middleton butcher, were re-elected as overseers. The contest for waywarden was much closer, with Anthony Todd defeating a farmer named Alderson of Middle End by 25 votes.

April 1870

April opened with one of the biggest musical evenings Middleton had seen. The Barnard Castle Choral Society came up the dale for a concert arranged to help the family of one of the young singers who had taken part in the Wesleyan fund-raising entertainment earlier in the year. The room was packed. Including a choir and band of around eighty performers, the newspaper counted 876 people present, and the evening raised just under £33.

Much of the programme came from Handel’s Messiah, alongside solos, duets and other pieces. Miss Atkinson and Miss Parkin, both already familiar from the January concerts, were warmly received again, while Mr Matthews played the harmonium. Before the concert even began, the band of the 12th Durham Rifle Volunteers paraded through Middleton, adding to the sense that this was a proper village occasion rather than simply another small meeting. Captain Bainbridge thanked the visiting Choral Society afterwards and admitted that Middleton did not have a choral society of its own, although he thought the town certainly had the musical ability for one.

There was more serious news from Wire Gill lead mine. Two men, John Scott and William Edmundson, were preparing a charge for blasting when an explosion occurred. Scott was close to the hole and was badly injured in the face, with fears that he might lose his sight, while Edmundson was also hurt. Both men were brought into Middleton, where their injuries were treated by Dr Makens.

Village life continued around all of this. Ralph Dickinson married Miss Parker, daughter of Thomas Parker, at Middleton parish church on 2 April, while later in the month township business was being dealt with at the Rose and Crown Inn. On the evening of 22 April, the letting of stone-leading work for Middleton was due to take place there, giving us another glimpse of an inn being used for practical local business as well as drinking and socialising.

By the end of April, the new Wesleyan chapel was moving from fund-raising towards actual building work. Advertisements invited masons, builders, joiners, plasterers, plumbers, glaziers and painters to submit tenders for its construction. Plans and specifications were to be available in Middleton at Mr Moffatt’s during May. After the concerts and collections earlier in the year, the chapel was beginning to move from an idea into something that would physically change the village.

May 1870

By May, Middleton was beginning to look towards the summer visitor season. One correspondent who regularly walked between the town and the railway station complained bitterly about the unfinished footpath, saying he was being left with plenty of mud and inconvenience on the journey. With summer approaching and tourists expected to make their way towards Upper Teesdale, he wanted the Brough and Middleton Turnpike trustees to get on with the job and suggested using the crushed whinstone already lying close by.

Whinstone itself was becoming an important part of the traffic leaving Middleton. Large quantities of road stone were being sent away by rail from the quarries of Ord and Maddison, with demand reported to be as strong as ever. The railway, still only two years old, was already carrying far more than passengers up and down the dale.

There were more ordinary sights on the roads too. A stallion called Bewcastle Jock was advertised to make a regular weekly round through the dale during the breeding season. On Fridays he was to visit Holwick and Harwood, on Saturdays Langdon Beck, the High Force Inn and Middleton, before returning through Baldersdale and Mickleton after the weekend. The fee was 15 shillings for each mare, with another 2 shillings and 6 pence for the groom.

Preparations were also under way for three busy days at the London Lead Company schoolroom. A bazaar selling useful and fancy articles, together with what was advertised as a “Grand Polytechnic Exhibition”, was announced for 9, 10 and 11 June. Whatever exactly the exhibition contained, it was clearly intended to be rather more than a simple sale and would have given Middleton another sizeable public event as summer began.

Middleton’s gardeners also found themselves dragged into a small argument in Barnard Castle that month. At a meeting of the Barnard Castle Horticultural Society, one speaker complained that Middleton cottagers had been excluded from its competitions. He was quickly corrected: Middleton cottagers had actually been allowed into the Barnard Castle shows for years, while Barnard Castle cottagers had apparently never been admitted to the shows at Middleton. Even flower and vegetable competitions, it seems, could stir up a bit of rivalry between the two towns.

June 1870

June began with a plea to leave Middleton’s rooks alone. A correspondent was pleased to see them returning to the trees beside the rectory, but complained that local youths had been shooting at them in recent years. He hoped the birds would finally be allowed to nest in peace and grumbled that the fowling-piece had become far too common a form of amusement among the town’s young men.

The biggest event of the month came on 9, 10 and 11 June, when the London Lead Company schoolroom was taken over by a huge bazaar and what was advertised as a Grand Polytechnic Exhibition. It was all being held to raise money for Middleton’s new Wesleyan chapel. The bazaar contained useful and ornamental goods worth more than £300, much of it made during the previous year or more by women supporting the chapel project. Two of those helping were reported to be 79 and 88 years old.

Alongside the stalls was something Middleton had apparently never seen before. The newspaper described the Polytechnic Exhibition as the first of its kind in Teesdale, with paintings, engravings, photographs, fossils, prehistoric objects, minerals, old coins, working models and items brought from Africa, New Zealand and Australia. Dr Makens lent several works from his own collection, while R. W. Bainbridge of Middleton House again made the Lead Company schoolroom available for the event. A special late train left Middleton for Barnard Castle at 10pm on the Friday after a lecture on the Scottish Covenanters, allowing visitors to stay for the evening before travelling home.

The chapel itself had already been some time in the planning. The Wesleyans had first considered altering their existing building to gain around eighty extra seats at a cost of about £250, but eventually decided to build a completely new chapel. Finding land had proved difficult until James Hindmarch provided a suitable site. By June the plans had been approved and the fund-raising effort was well under way.

Not everybody in Middleton was discussing chapels and exhibitions, though. One resident wrote to the newspaper complaining about groups of young men lounging around street corners. A favourite gathering place was apparently the corner opposite Bridge Lane, where people heading for nearby shops and two chapels had to pass through the groups. The writer thought the whole thing looked “silly and ridiculous” and was particularly unhappy that women visiting the shops of Mr Armstrong and Miss Bainbridge had to make their way through the assembled young men.

Sergeant Taylor had other trouble to deal with as well. John Lee, a Middleton miner, was taken to court for assaulting him on 27 May. Lee had already been convicted twice for assault and was fined £1 plus costs.

There was work available too. An advertisement called for a number of competent men to quarry whinstone at Middleton, another reminder of the amount of stone being worked and carried away from the village by rail at this time.

By the end of June the new Wesleyan chapel was beginning to change the village physically. An auction was announced for 2 July for the slates, roof timbers, windows, doors and fireplaces from cottages that were to be removed to clear the chapel site.

July 1870

July brought hundreds of visitors into Middleton. On Monday 11 July the Odd Fellows of Bishop Auckland and the surrounding district held a gala on land beside the Tees at Step Ends, provided by James Burrow. The ordinary trains were already crowded, and at about half past ten a special train arrived from Bishop Auckland carrying a large number of excursionists. The newspaper later reported that the return special alone carried around 700 passengers.

For those stepping off the train, the paper gives us a wonderful description of Middleton as it actually looked that summer. The station was described as a neat building on the Yorkshire side of the Tees. Visitors descended the hill, crossed the single-arched stone bridge and entered County Durham and Middleton at the same time. Looking towards the village they could see the old parish church with its separate bell tower on one side and Middleton House, the home of R. W. Bainbridge, chief agent of the London Lead Company, on the other. The Company school stood among trees, while gardens, cottages, meadows and the river filled the ground below.

The gala itself was a proper summer day out. There was archery, quoits, cricket, a three-legged race, a water race, pole leaping and high jumping, although the heat became so intense that many people abandoned the competitions for the shade. The band of the 12th Durham Rifle Volunteers played during the afternoon and dancing continued on the grass. Some visitors used the day to travel farther into Upper Teesdale, with Mr Beadle’s horse-drawn vehicles kept busy taking people towards High Force and Cauldron Snout.

That same heat affected everyday work around Middleton. During another particularly hot spell, haymaking had to stop during the middle of the day in some places. One Sunday evening the Rev. W. L. Greene even moved his service outdoors and preached in the park beside Middleton House to a large congregation.

The London Lead Company was also judging the cottage gardens of its workers. John Harrison won the first prize of one guinea for the best produce and neatest plot, while William Simmonette received half a guinea for second place. The gardens were inspected by R. French and G. McKenzie. The newspaper’s description of Middleton that month also noticed the cottage gardens around the town, bright with summer flowers.

The debate about young men gathering on Middleton’s street corners had not disappeared either. After the complaints printed in June, the newspaper came to their defence. A reporter described meeting a young lead-mine washer while walking in Upper Teesdale. The young man spoke knowledgeably about the landscape, geology and mineral veins, and explained that other workers shared similar interests. The paper argued that Middleton had plenty of young men who spent their spare time walking, reading and learning, rather than simply standing around street corners.

There were less admirable nights out too. Joseph Horn was brought before the magistrates after becoming drunk and refusing to leave Mr Railton’s public house in Middleton. He was fined 5 shillings plus costs.

One older member of Middleton’s mining community also died that month. Jacob Readshaw of Masterman Place died aged 89. He was described as a lead-ore washing agent and as a much-respected man.

August 1870

August showed just how much the railway was changing everyday life in Middleton. A Wednesday market train left the village for Barnard Castle at 9.15 in the morning, while visitors arriving at Middleton station could find omnibuses and other horse-drawn vehicles waiting to take them farther into Upper Teesdale and towards High Force. The vehicles returned in time for the afternoon trains heading east, and anyone needing a conveyance could apply directly to John Beadle, Middleton’s postmaster.

There were plenty of reasons to travel that summer. Around 200 people left Middleton on a cheap railway excursion to the Durham County Agricultural Show at Sunderland. For some, the trip went far beyond seeing the livestock and displays. A Sunderland correspondent reported that members of one Middleton party saw the sea for the first time in their lives and promptly decided to go for a swim.

Back in Middleton, Step Ends was again being used for outdoor gatherings. An Odd Fellows gala attracted only around 180 people when organisers had hoped for as many as a thousand, leaving the society facing a loss instead of raising money for its widows’ and orphans’ fund. Joseph Raine of the Cross Keys provided refreshments and the 12th Durham Rifle Volunteers supplied the music.

A few days later the same ground was much busier when local rural sports were held there. There were horse and pony races, trotting, foot races, a three-legged race, pole leaping, wrestling and pole climbing, with a large crowd from Middleton and the surrounding area watching. The Volunteer band played popular music and dancing broke out during the afternoon. Refreshments were provided by Mr Todd of the Foresters’ Arms in Middleton.

August also brought the twenty-second annual show of Middleton’s Floral and Horticultural Society. The London Lead Company schoolroom was filled with flowers, fruit and vegetables, and despite the effects of the long dry summer the exhibition was considered a success. Afterwards the judges and officials sat down to dinner at the Rose and Crown Inn.
The Rose and Crown was busy again when Middleton’s Miners’ Friendly Society held its annual meeting there. The society had 296 members at the beginning of the year and was supporting men who were unable to work through sickness as well as making payments following deaths. Its finances were under pressure, and members agreed to reduce some long-term sickness payments rather than eat further into the money they had invested. They also decided that, instead of the usual anniversary dinner, they would try to arrange an excursion to Newcastle and Tynemouth.

The month also brought sad news with the death of Captain Bainbridge, a familiar figure throughout Middleton and the London Lead Company’s mining communities. His illness had been long and painful, and Dr Makens had called in Dr Heath of Newcastle during his treatment. At his funeral the Volunteer Corps followed the procession, while Lead Company miners lined the route. The newspaper described the grief in Middleton as widespread and noted that Captain Bainbridge had been expected eventually to succeed his father in his important position with the Company.

September 1870

September was a busy month for Middleton’s farming community. The autumn fair was held on Thursday 15 September, with sheep and lambs being offered for sale close to the Fair Ground. One auction alone included 350 half-bred or grey-faced lambs, 120 black-faced wether lambs and 70 black-faced ewes belonging to Anthony Todd of Aukside, sold in a field belonging to Joseph Raine.

Two days later Middleton held the fourth annual show of its Agricultural Society in the park behind Middleton House, opened for the occasion through the kindness of R. W. Bainbridge. The show was bigger than the previous year, with thirty more entries and a noticeably larger crowd. Cattle, horses, ponies, sheep, pigs and sheepdogs were judged, while horse leaping drew plenty of attention. Visitors could travel in by rail on special return fares, and livestock entered in the show could even be carried one way free by train.

The weather brought occasional showers, but the 12th Durham Rifle Volunteer band played throughout the day and the show was considered a considerable success. Among the winners were local farmers and stock keepers from Middleton, Forest, Langdon, Mickleton and the surrounding dale, while the butter competition alone attracted eighteen entries.

Afterwards a large party moved to Joseph Raine’s Cross Keys Inn for dinner. The meal was followed by a long round of speeches and toasts covering farming, mining, the clergy, the volunteers and the success of the show itself. Charles Bainbridge described Teesdale’s mining and agricultural interests as a “carriage and pair”, arguing that the two depended on one another and that both were prospering.

Events much farther from Teesdale were being felt in Middleton too. With the Franco-Prussian War under way, collections were taken in the town’s different places of worship for wounded French and German soldiers. Miss Bainbridge of Middleton House was also gathering linen, flannel bandages and other supplies to be sent away for their relief.

September also brought another step in the building of Middleton’s new Wesleyan chapel. A notice announced that the memorial stone was to be laid on 2 September by J. C. Monkhouse of Egglestone, followed by tea in the old chapel and an evening public meeting. The chapel project that had begun with fund-raising concerts early in the year was now reaching the point where the new building itself was taking shape.

October 1870

October brought a mixture of old-fashioned village business and new industrial activity to Middleton. On 27 October the court for the Manor of Middleton-in-Teesdale was due to meet in the Town Hall. Anyone occupying an encroachment within the manor was ordered to attend, have it entered on the court roll and pay whatever acknowledgement was required. Those who failed to do so were warned that the encroachments could be removed.

The Foresters’ Arms was being used for business too. On 22 October a piece of grassland known as Town Field, around one acre and three roods in size, was offered for sale by auction there. The inn was being kept by Joseph Todd, giving us another firmly named Middleton landlord during 1870.

A new local auctioneer also appeared that month. John Allinson of Mount Pleasant announced that, following requests from friends, he had begun business as an auctioneer and was ready to take commissions around Middleton and the district.

Mining news came from Hudeshope, where a valuable vein of lead ore was reported to have been cut. The Allinson family were said to have possessed samples of the ore for around fifty years, but the deposit had never been properly explored. Mr Redfearn of Middleton was involved in the discovery and was the man who actually cut into the vein. The report also linked the family back to John Hunt, grandfather of the auctioneer John Allinson, crediting Hunt with the discovery of Coldberry Mine and other workings in the area.

The 12th Durham Rifle Volunteers were out at their Step Ends range again during October. Several of the unit’s best shots competed over distances of 200, 300, 400 and 500 yards, with Sergeant Pinkney, Sergeant French, John Coates, John Readshaw, Thomas Walton and J. W. Smith among those taking part.

Towards the end of the month there was trouble on the railway. A goods train from Darlington, which was due to continue from Barnard Castle towards Middleton, collided with the engine of a mineral train at the junction of the Forcett Railway. 

November 1870

November began with a change at one of Middleton’s inns. Mrs Hindmarch was retiring from the King’s Head, and on 5 November the furniture from the inn was put up for auction. The sale gives a surprisingly detailed look inside, with feather beds, bedsteads, dining and kitchen tables, chairs, washstands, chamber ware, pictures, candlesticks, a dinner service, carpets, pots and pans among the contents.

The King’s Head was not going to stand empty for long. Ralph Bell, a Middleton cabinet maker and general dealer, announced that he was moving from his existing place of business to the inn. Before the move, his stock was sold by John Allinson on 19 November, including mahogany and birch furniture, beds, mirrors, brushes, tubs, pails, kettles, frying pans, fire irons, wallpaper and numerous other household goods.

There was a frightening accident on the Egglestone coal road that month. A boy employed by Watson Swinbank of Middleton was returning with a load of coal when the horse became restless. While trying to control it, the boy was thrown down and one of the cart wheels passed over him, breaking his thigh. People nearby saw what had happened and carried him home, where he was reported to be recovering well.

Work on the new Wesleyan chapel had meanwhile reached almost the full height of the walls. On one Saturday a labourer was standing on scaffolding when it gave way beneath him. He managed to grab the top of the wall and was left hanging there for nearly five minutes until fellow workers could rescue him. The newspaper reckoned that a fall of around fifty feet would almost certainly have killed him. Although physically unharmed, the shock was so great that he was unable to stand for nearly two hours afterwards.

Middleton’s old manor court was still functioning too. The Duke of Cleveland’s court for the Manor of Middleton was held at the Town Hall after occupiers of encroachments had been ordered to attend or send someone on their behalf. Despite the stern warning beforehand, attendance was actually very good: only two people failed to answer when their names were called.

The roads out of Middleton were still being managed through the old turnpike system. The tolls at Brough Gate, Middleton-in-Teesdale Gate and Mickleton Gate were advertised for letting for the following year. Middleton Gate alone was bringing in £84 during 1870.

And the Blue Bell Inn was certainly still part of Middleton life. An advertisement from a Brough spirit merchant asked for his empty bottles and casks to be returned either to him, to the Raby Hotel in Barnard Castle, or to the Blue Bell Inn at Middleton.

December 1870

December opened with several Middleton cases before the magistrates. Joseph Raine, an innkeeper in the town, brought a case against William Hutchinson, a butcher from Newbiggin, for damaging a table, although the matter was settled when Hutchinson paid for the damage and the costs.

There had also been trouble at the Talbot Inn. Two lead miners from Holwick, John Lee and Peter Wilkinson, refused to leave after causing what was described as a considerable disturbance, and a police constable had to be called to remove them. Lee was fined 10 shillings and costs and Wilkinson 6 shillings. Other Middleton lead miners appeared before the court that month for drunken or riotous behaviour, while John Allison, another lead miner, was ordered to pay costs following an assault case.

Village organisations were busy as the year drew towards its end. The Middleton branch of the British and Foreign Bible Society held its annual meeting in the London Lead Company schoolroom with R. W. Bainbridge in the chair. Mr Hyslop, the secretary, reported receipts of more than £76 during the year, much of which had been spent purchasing Bibles. A visiting speaker from Windermere also talked about the Society's work overseas.

The Miners' Friendly Society held its annual dinner at the Rose and Crown Inn, where there was a good attendance and the evening was reported to have passed harmoniously. The inn was then being kept by Mr A. Walton. Middleton Savings Bank also held its half-yearly meeting, again with R. W. Bainbridge in the chair, electing its officers for the coming year.
Even at the very end of December business continued. Ralph Bell, who had recently moved to the King's Head, advertised another sale of his remaining furniture, wallpaper, ironmongery and other stock for the beginning of January 1871. Among the goods were furniture, brushes, an American washing machine, a horse cart and three stacks of hay lying within a mile of Middleton railway station.

And that, rather wonderfully, is how the newspaper leaves Middleton at the end of 1870: not with Christmas festivities, but with meetings, pub trouble, friendly societies, business changing hands and preparations already being made for the new year.

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History of Middleton-in-Teesdale
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The Teesdale Hotel
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