From the Darlington & Stockton Times of October 14, 1871
THIS week 150 years ago, the first plans were emerging to reshape the town centre of Northallerton for the first time in centuries and create what we see to this day.
“The fine town street of Northallerton has, for a number of years, been disfigured by the old, unsightly and inconvenient buildings standing in the Market Place, called the Toll Booth and Shambles,” said the D&S Times. “It is proposed to sweep them away, and to erect a Town Hall, consisting of a covered market and public room, 72 feet long by 32 feet wide, and to provide shelter and suitable accommodation for butchers, dealers in butter, eggs, poultry and other farm produce.”
The paper explained that the Northallerton Market and Public Improvements Company had just acquired all the ancient properties and market rights from the Bishop of Durham – the tollbooth dated from 1334 and was the building from which the Bishop regulated the market and collected all the moneys due to him from the traders, whereas the Shambles was a meat market perhaps dating from the 16th Century.
From the Archive Northallerton.
The company had sold £3,000 worth of shares to finance the project and had issued “a neat lithographed plan of the proposed new Town Hall”.
The directors, said the D&S, “have only one object in view, and that is the permanent benefit and welfare of the town”.
In 1872, the old buildings were indeed swept away and on December 22, 1873, the new Town Hall was officially opened.
THE D&S also reported 150 years ago how the staff of the Vale of Mowbray Brewery at Leeming Bar had been treated by their bosses, the Plews family, to a “most enjoyable” day out in Newcastle, travelling on the railway in “a special carriage”.
On returning, the carriage was detached at Northallerton and shunted into a siding so it could be attached to the Bedale train.
“It appears that as the carriage was standing in the siding, Joseph Lee, the cooper of the brewery, got out and fell over the bridge which crosses the highway at this point,” reported the D&S. “He was picked up in a fearful state, his ribs being broken and having received other very serious injuries.
“He now lies in a very precarious state and is not likely to recover.”
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