Once, Barnard Castle was the centre of a global business, importing raw materials from as far away as Russia and exporting finished products to the other side of the planet.
Closer to home, Parisian cordonniers swore by thread from Barney.
Down by the River Tees, next to the County Bridge, and technically on the North Yorkshire side in Startforth, was a massive water-powered flax mill.
Barnard Castle from the air in March 1973, with Ullathorne's mill dominating the foreground
The business was started by Francis Ullathorne in 1760 and the mill was built around 1798.
Ullathorne’s imported flax grown in Belgium, Ireland, France and Russia and in the mill turned it into shoe thread – ultra-strong waxed thread that was ideal for shoe or saddle making. They also made similarly strong twine and rope that was used to make salmon nets.
These products were exported around the empire, and down under to Australia, as well as to places like Spain and Turkey. Ullathorne’s had a branch in Paris to sell thread to the local shoemakers there.
Ullathorne's billhead, noting that it was a truly global company. The medals on the left represent awards that Ullathorne's won in trade fairs in Philadelphia and Paris in 1876. The illustration features the castle and the County Bridge on the right, but there was never a railway running between the two, as the drawing suggests. And the mill was never that massive - although if you were in Melbourne or Sydney or Paris, you'd probably never visit Barnard Castle to see the truth. The address of the head office in London sounds very grand, but today it is a narrow alley behind Holborn tube station which is largely occupied by The Ship Tavern, which dates to 1549
In its heyday in the 19th Century, Ullathorne’s was one of the country’s largest shoe thread factories, and it was the biggest employer in Teesdale: up to 250 men, women and boys worked there.
Ullathorne’s premises weren’t restricted to the riverbank: its heckling shop, where the flax was split and straightened prior to spinning, can still be seen in Queen Street, near the Hole in the Wall.
Barnard Castle, from left: the castle, with its magnificent round tower which dates from 1200, the 14th Century County Bridge, the 18th Century White Swan and the vast hulk of Ullathorne's mill shortly before it was demolished
However, just as Ullathorne’s thrived as a global concern for nearly 150 years, it was cheap foreign competition that was blamed for its closure in 1931.
Looking across the gasworks on the Durham side of the Tees, with the silhouette of the castle in the top left, to Ullathorne's mill on a misty day in 1950
Ullathorne's mill and the County Bridge in Barnard Castle in November 1970
During the Second World War, soldiers were stationed in the mill, and in the years that followed, as it became increasingly derelict, it was used by a horseman to stable his animals, by a mushroom grower, a lemonade bottler and an oven-ready poultry producer.
Ullathorne's flax mill at Barnard Castle
Partially demolished Ullathorne's mill, beside the River Tees, seen through one of the arches of the County Bridge
But, by the start of the 1970s, it was falling down: slates would blow off its high roofs on a windy day and smash among the traffic waiting to go over the County Bridge.
It was demolished at the end of 1975 with its landmark chimney being the last bit to survive, being blown up in February 1976. The chimney’s base is marked by a plinth in the picnic area next to the river that now occupies the mill’s site, although if you go clambering along the river you can see all manner of old machinery for winding the sluices.
Ullathorne's mill being demolished in July 1975
A fortnight ago, we mentioned Peases Mill which stood from 1745 until its demolition in 1982 in the centre of Darlington. Largely a woollen mill, it dominated the town’s economy – employing more than 1,000 people, mainly women – and the town’s landscape, most notably through its tall chimney as well as its hulking presence. Ullathorne’s was just as dominant in Barnard Castle.
It is quite amazing that, through no fault of their own, those growing up in Barney or Darlo today will have no knowledge of such a huge enterprise around which the life of the people in their towns revolved for a couple of centuries.
Ullathorne's chimney coming down on February 19, 1976. A stone plinth in the picnic area beside the County Bridge marks the exact spot of the base of the chimney
If you can tell us anything more about Ullathorne’s, please email chris.lloyd@nne.co.uk
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