DARLINGTON hit the big time in 1825, when
George Stephenson's Locomotion hurtled from here to nearby Stockton-on-Tees,
with the inventor at the controls and flag-carrying horsemen
riding ahead to warn of the onrushing train, which reached a
terrifying fifteen miles per hour. This novel form of transport
soon proved popular with passengers, an unlooked-for bonus for
Edward Pease, the line's instigator: he had simply wanted a fast
and economical way to transport coal from the Durham pits to
the docks at Stockton. Subsequently, Darlington grew into a rail-engineering
centre, and didn't look back till the pruning of the network
and the closure of the works in 1966.
It's little surprise, then,
that all signs in town point to the Darlington Railway Centre and
Museum (daily 10am-5pm),
housed in Darlington's North Road station, a twenty-minute walk
up Northgate from the central market place. The museum's pride
and joy is the original Locomotion , actually built in Newcastle, which continued in service until
1841 - other locally made engines superseded it, and some of
these are on show, too. Darlington's origins lie deep in Saxon
times, following which it enjoyed a long history as an agricultural
centre and staging post on the Great North Road. The monks carrying
St Cuthbert's body from Ripon to Durham stopped in Darlington, the saint
lending his name to the graceful central, riverside church of
St Cuthbert (Easter-Sept daily 11am-2pm; Oct-Easter Fri 11am-1pm),
where the needle-like spire and decorative turrets herald the
delicate Early English stonework inside. One of England's largest
market squares spreads beyond the church up to the restored Victorian
covered market (Mon-Sat 8am-5pm, with a large outdoor market
Mon & Sat), next to the clocktower.
The town's helpful tourist
office is on the south side of Market Place at 13 Horsemarket
(Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 10am-4pm; tic@darlington.gov.uk ). Central accommodation options
include the New Grange Hotel , a smartly refurbished, 200-year-old
mansion on Coniscliffe Road, the continuation of Blackwellgate
west from the Market Place (tel 01325/365858), and the more reasonable
Balmoral Guest House , a grand Victorian town house at 63 Woodland
Rd, five minutes' walk northwest of the centre (tel 01325/461908).
Cheap and basic board is available at the town's Arts Centre
(tel 01325/483271), about half a mile west of the centre in Vane
Terrace - follow Duke Street from central Skinnergate. Heading
west from the Market Place a short way up Blackwellgate, Joe
Rigatoni's (tel 01325/464642) is the town's most reliable Italian
restaurant , in a grand, airy setting on the corner of Grange
Road. Check out the highly enterprising Arts Centre and its affiliated
Civic Theatre (on a separate site on Parkgate, between the Market
Place and the train station), which dish up drama, movies, comedy,
exhibitions and live music (bookings on 01325/486555).
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