Cotherstone in Teesdale sits near the confluence of the Tees and the Balder and, now it has a new community café in a rescued Methodist chapel as well as two pubs, it is as welcoming to day trippers as it was back in 1866 when it was first connected to the Tees Valley Railway.
The trains brought visitors from the North-East’s great cities. So many of them that Cotherstone became known as 'Little Sunderland', such was its popularity with Wearsiders.
In 1903, the Sunderland Echo described it as “the Rhine in miniature” and said there was easily enough to do to fill a month’s summer holiday. In those days, Cotherstone was full of rented apartments, lodging houses, tearooms, pubs and at least 12 shops catering for the tourist trade.
The visitors would wander over the two footbridges across the rivers to inspect the Fairy Cupboards, a unique rock formation beneath Percy Myre Crag.
They would also climb up to Cotherstone Castle, now just a pile of stones in a field, but a motte-and-bailey from the 11th Century and then a stone stronghold from the early 13th Century, all to keep Teesdale safe from the marauding Scots.
It was owned by the Fitz Hugh family, who had long-standing enmity with the Curr family of Roxburgh, near Kelso, in the Scottish borders. They regularly waged war on one another, and on one raid, the Teesdalers captured the beautiful daughter of a Scottish nobleman and brought her home to the castle.
The two Fitz Hugh sons fell in love with her, and even fought a duel over which one should marry her.
Henry won, but just as he was preparing his nuptials the Currs turned up in great numbers. Their anger went deeper than just not being invited to the wedding. They poured decades of hatred onto the castle, as well as plenty of fire and cannonball, destroying the stone walls, setting alight the timber roof, and killing the Fitz Hughs when they tried to escape.
But there was a secret tunnel that led from the castle into the village, and just as the angry Scots stormed in, Henry and his lover made their getaway through the subterranean passage, the entrance to which was known in the village as recently as in the 1950s.
And so the Fitz Hughs lived on…
The castle is above The Hagg, one of the most unusual features of the village. It is a natural amphitheatre which has been carved out by the rushings of the rivers. The word 'hagg' means land cleared of trees and brushwood, and it was common pasture.
In the dell was Hagg House, which was the home to an old lady, Elspeth, who was, by turns, a nurse, a poacher and a witch…
According to a ballad called The Legend of Cotherstone, in 1512, she halted George, the 7th Baron Fitz Hugh, as he was going out to hunt. George, 25, was the Fitz Hughs sole heir, but preferred to chase deer for amusement rather than find a wife to keep the family line going.
The hagg of The Hagg warned him not to go hunting that day, for she had a bad feeling in her waters for him and his horse. She warned him he was in a mortal danger, and finished by saying: “Keep away from Percy Myre Crag.”
George, a little unsettled by the soothsaying, promised only to hunt on the south side of the river and so could not possibly come to any harm at the crag on the north side.
But, of course, hunting that day on the south side was very poor until, late in the evening, they raised a terrific stag. The hounds chased it for miles, getting closer and closer, until, to shake them off, it plunged into the Tees and swam to the other side.
The hounds followed the stag. And the horsemen followed the hounds.
The stag, out of the water, bounded up a cliff 100ft high. The hounds, hot on its heels, followed with the horsemen hot on their heels.
At the top of the cliff, with the hounds closing in, the stag made a sudden, nimble 90 degree turn, but the excited dogs could only rush headlong over the crag, followed by leading horseman.
Who was George Fitz Hugh.
Neither he nor his horse survived the fall, and Elspeth of The Hagg was now given the dubious credit of foretelling the death of the last of the Fitz Hughs.
However, there is no record that she predicted the greater tragedy that befell people crossing the Tees at Cotherstone in the 20th Century…
IN THE Great Flood of March 1881, when many bridges along the length of the Tees were damaged or washed away, the wooden footbridge at Cotherstone was washed away.
The local council decided to commission John Harper, a fencer turned bridge builder from Aberdeen, to replace it.
Using a technique for tensioning cables that he had adapted from his fencing days, Mr Harper specialised in suspension footbridges. He ran a very successful company that, between 1870 and 1910, built 60 suspension bridges around the world, from Nepal to Jamaica to Estonia to North Yorkshire. In 1888 he built a private footbridge over the River Leven at Crathorne Hall for Lord Crathorne.
At Cotherstone, the pillars and the oak flooring for the bridge were given free by the Duke of Cleveland, who lived in Raby Castle, and the Reverend Thomas Witham of Lartington Hall allowed his boat to be used during the two-week construction, which Mr Harper personally oversaw.
The £200 bridge formally opened on October 7, 1882. "It was celebrated by a number of rustic games, held in Percymyre Park, together with a public tea meeting which took place in a spacious marquee," said The Northern Echo.
"The site is in the highest degree picturesque, and the surrounding woods having now assumed their beautiful autumn colours, the charms of the landscape are thereby greatly enhanced."
It was another of the many attractions that drew people from Sunderland, and beyond, to this part of Teesdale.
On Good Friday 1929, a holiday football match was held on the north side of the river "in one of the most delightful pieces of scenery on the Tees". Cotherstone played their local rivals, Mickleton.
On the final whistle the crowd rushed back over the bridge to catch one of the motor omnibuses that shuttled up and down the dale.
"Suddenly, there was a loud snap and in a second, I saw my relatives and many others flung into the water below, " said the mayor of Doncaster, Mr RB Hepworth, who was visiting family in the dale. "It was a terrible sight. I never saw anything more like a battlefield in my life."
There were at least 40 people in the bridge when one of cables, which suspended it 27ft above the riverbed, gave way. The other three held firm, and about 20 people were able to crawl, clinging to the parapet at crazy angles, back to dry land.
But at least 20 were pitched into the river below – it was "like a dish of shelled peas", said Mr Farrow, the mayor’s chauffeur who had a great turn of phrase.
"Mingled with the screams of the women and children were the hoarse shouts of men struggling in the water," said the Darlington and Stockton Times.
The snapped cable had been on the Durham side so fortunately most of the fallers missed landing in the fast flowing channel on the Yorkshire side.
Instead, they tumbled into pools about 5ft deep, with the water even cushioning their falls. The unlucky, though, crashed onto the "unpleasantly stony bed" of the river.
"We at once rushed forward and scrambled down to the waters' edge to get them out, " said the mayor of Doncaster. The mayoress was rescued, but had suffered a cut leg.
Cotherstone villagers threw open their homes to tend the wounds, bruises and fractures of the injured. Sarah Annie Nattrass, who was known as Sally, was most seriously hurt.
"PC William North, the only qualified ambulanceman in the village, was on the scene at once," said the D&ST. "A rough stretcher, consisting of a gate, was improvised."
Mrs Nattrass was taken to her mother's home of Belle Vue, Romaldkirk, then transferred to Greenbank Hospital, in Darlington, (the Memorial wasn't opened for another four years).
"After the injured had been got away, men were fishing for purses, handbags, football boots and the football, dropped by the unfortunate who had fallen in, " said the D&ST.
Thoughts naturally turned to the cause of the disaster. "Mr Farrow, the chauffeur of the mayor, remarked that earlier in the day he noticed that the bridge had swung alarmingly when only two people were on it. His dog had been afraid to cross," said the paper.
After the match Mr Farrow had hung back nervously while the crowd crossed, and watched in horror as the cable snapped and they were suddenly propelled into the water as if they were peas being ejected from a newly popped pod.
When poor Mrs Nattrass – husband of Jonathan Nattrass of Holwick, Middleton-in-Teesdale – succumbed to her injuries, her inquest investigated the cause of the accident.
Richard Cowell, of Eaglescliffe, gave evidence. The mayor of Doncaster had been staying with him, and he happened to be a qualified engineer. He told the inquest what he had seen when he had examined the broken rope: "There were 42 wires – six strands of seven wires each – and practically the whole of them had gone. t was absolutely rusted through."
Villagers reported seeing little maintenance being carried out on the 46-year-old bridge beyond the occasional coat of paint, and they doubted if it had ever been lubricated.
The coroner, JT Proud, recorded a verdict of accidental death, and said: "The bridge was altogether in a rotten condition."
Barnard Castle Urban District Council was the authority responsible for the bridge. It rapidly placed red lights on either side of the wrecked bridge to stop people going across and expressed its condolences, but there don’t seem to have been any angry fingers pointed at it, nor calls for an inquiry, nor claims for compensation.
In 1932, Joseph L Thompson and Sons of Sunderland built the two-span girder bridge which still stands, and remains one of the many reasons to visit Cotherstone.
THE INJURED
Cotherstone: Lawrence Waites (scalp wounds and back injuries). George Eustace (scalp and hand). Henry Thorn (chest). Arthur Watson (leg and chin). Edward Thompson (minor injuries). Harold Stonehouse (minor).
Mickleton: John Tierney (scalp and knee). Maurice Allison (fractured ankle). George Walton (nose and knee). Alec Anderson (knee). Lawrence Raine (thigh). Arthur Thompson (minor).
Plus: Mrs Hepworth and her son from Doncaster, and her niece, Miss Mary Cowell of Eaglescliffe (all minor injuries).
"Considering everything, it is wonderful that the injuries were not more severe, " said the D&ST.
COTHERSTONE Wesleyan Chapel, which as readers of Thursday’s eating out review will know, has been successfully converted into a community café with a nice line in sandwiches and cakes.
The chapel has 1872 carved above its door, although its history goes back to 1777 when a smaller chapel opened on this site – ironically beside Fox Hall, which is where George Fox, founder of the Quakers, is said to have preached in 1654.
The small Methodist chapel had 130 seats, but in the rebuild of 1872 was enlarged to accommodate 222.
Plenty of newspapers across the north record how the foundation stone for the new chapel was laid on Friday, June 28, 1872, by Alderman Elwin of Sunderland, who used a silver trowel with an ivory handle which bore “a suitable inscription”.
“Addresses were delivered by various other gentleman,” said The Northern Echo. "A public tea meeting was held in the new marquee (belonging to the Barnard Castle Horticultural Society), erected on the ground when upwards of 300 sat down to tea. In the evening, a concert was given by several members of the Darlington Choral Society when a well selected programme was admirably rendered. The receipts of the day exceeded £40.”
However, there seem to be no subsequent reports on the progress of the building or of an opening ceremony. The next mention of the chapel seems to be on April 16, 1873, when the Teesdale Mercury said that an annual Sunday School tea festival was held there.
“There was an unusually large attendance which resulted in a complete clearing up of the good things provided,” said the Mercury.
- For more about Cotherstone, see Cotherstone: A Village in Teesdale by Paul & David Rabbitts (published by Amberley in 2022).
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