THE Northern Echo's Priestgate headquarters have been sold for conversion into office and educational space.
The paper, and its archive, is still going to be based on the site that it has occupied since it was founded in 1870, but we've had to clear out our offices on the upper floor ready for the developers.
For the Memories desk, this was especially traumatic because, over the decades,we have accumulated so much fascinating stuff that people have given us but which has never made it into print.
Over the next few weeks, we intend to share some of the unseen gems in this space – well, it could takes us months, if not years, there is so much interesting material (plus two bricks and a non-rotating Rolls Royce hubcap that was found beside the Darlington inner ring road).
To start with, here's a collection of late Victorian prints of Darlington. We think they were taken by postcard manufacturers who also sold them as large souvenir prints on a kind of art paper.
A Union flag flies prominently from one of the buildings on High Row that made way for the classic white stone Binns department store in the late 1920s and early 1930s
High Row on a sunny day that has caused all of the shops to pull down their blinds so their window goods were not bleached or damaged. On the right, the cabs are parked outside the market hall, and there is shelter in the street for the cabmen
Looking at Stone Bridge and St Cuthbert's Church with just a hint of the properties on the left which used to stand in Clay Row before it was obliterated for the inner ring road
A great view across the Skerne in South Park towards the original Park Lodge, which had an observation platform for visitors to gain an aerial view of the park. The platform was replaced in 1901 when the Potts Memorial Clock was placed in the tower
The old town hall viewed from the corner of Blackwellgate
A view north up Northgate, with a tram approaching the cameraman. On the left hand side is the pretty Burns Hotel which was about where Boots is today
Darlington Market Place on Easter Monday. Outside the Bulls Head Hotel on Bakehouse Hill are shuggyboat swings, and makeshift tents so it looks as if a circus or menagerie has arrived to entertain the Bank Holiday crowds. There's an empty window on the corner building, probably because of a fire which caused it to be rebuilt around 1900. The ground of the Market Place is covered with horse droppings
Looking south down High Row over the head of the Pease statue from the first floor dancehall windows of the Sun Inn which occupied the Prospect Place corner until the Midland bank (now HSBC) was built in the mid 1920s
North Lodge Park used to have a boating lake with an amazing ornamental boathouse that looked like a mini-castle. The boathouse was demolished and the lake filled in in the mid-1950s, and today you wouldn't know they had ever been there
Looking south down Grange Road with the Crocus Walk on the right hand side. This part of Joseph Pease's Southend estate was developed in the 1890s. On the left is the entrance to the Beechwood mansion which is where Sainsbury's is today
A footbridge in South Park. The Skerne used to fill this boating lake beneath the Park Lodge. We're looking south, towards the Parkside bridge, with Blackwell Grange in the distance out of sight behind the trees. The bridge took people from Penny Lane on Grange Road over the Skerne and then around the boating lake so they could get to the Parkside entrance of the park
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