Darlington’s Boulders (NZ290150, NZ288137 & NZ290146)

If, one day, you find yourself wandering around Darlington, then you may well notice rather a lot of large rocks lying here and there – items that have been named or labelled, and held in a sort of strange esteem. I know of three, and there may well be more.

© Copyright Chris Twigg and licensed 

for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The first one lies near the southern end of Northgate on the edge of the town centre. It can be found on the western side of the main road behind some iron railings and is known as the Bulmer Stone. It used to sit kerbside until, in 1923, it was deemed a traffic hazard and moved to its present location. The relic, a generous lump of Shap granite, was deposited hereabouts at the end of the last Ice Age, 10,000 years or so ago. It is named for the old town cryer, Willy Bulmer, who used to announce the London news from atop the rock during the early nineteenth century. It was once known as the Battling Stone, on account of local weavers who used to beat flax on it.

With kind permission of John Durkin - see here.

An even bigger chunk of Shap granite can found near the Victoria Embankment entrance to the town’s South Park. It was heaved from the River Tees at Winston and placed there in 1900 in remembrance of local geologist and naturalist Dr Richard Taylor Manson as a tribute to his literary and scientific work. It was he, apparently, who first documented the fine specimen – which is now, of course, known as the Manson Boulder. Its transportation took eight men four days to effect, with the help of a good deal of machinery. It was actually accidentally dropped on its way through the gates of the park, and was then just left where it fell!

© Copyright Hugh Mortimer and licensed 

for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Boulder No.3 – Stead’s Stone – is located outside Darlington Library in Crown Street. It sits opposite the offices of the Northern Echo and was used by the newspaper’s most famous ex-Editor, William Thomas Stead, to tether his dogs and pony. As you can read for yourself in the image above, he perished on board the Titanic in 1912 – more on this extraordinary man here.

Embleton’s Link with the Titanic (NU230225)

William Thomas Stead (above) is generally regarded as the father of modern journalism – and, many say, of all its ills. He wrote widely, profusely and usually in a sensationalist manner. He was also a native of Embleton, Northumberland.

The son of a Congregational minister, W T Stead was born in the summer of 1849. He lived for a time in Howdon-on-Tyne and was schooled in Wakefield, then found himself back in the North-East as an apprentice in a Newcastle merchant’s office. Quickly branching out into journalism, he worked for some time as editor of the Northern Echo, before advancing to London’s Pall Mall Gazette – becoming its editor in 1883. During his six-year tenure he made quite an impact in journalistic (and political) circles, where he developed his characteristic investigative style and championed the use of the interview. He was often accused of ‘creating’ the news rather than reporting it.

From 1885, he threw his weight behind the campaign against child prostitution; his ‘staging’ of the purchase of a young girl from her mother landing him a jail sentence. The great ‘Crawford Scandal’ of 1886 also attracted his attention. In the 1890s he turned his mind to many new and different spheres of writing during an enthusiastic period of reforming vigour. He was a pacifist, a psychic researcher and a great visionary – his reforming ideas and ideals often years ahead of their time. He claimed to be in contact with the spirit world, and was said to have hinted at the mode of his death on several occasions.

The nature of his demise – aboard the Titanic in 1912 – was typical of the man. He was on his way to a peace conference in the US when the iceberg struck, and Stead dutifully helped several women and children into lifeboats. He then retired to the 1st Class Smoking Room where he settled down with a book, no doubt mindful of his deathly premonitions. A later sighting has him clinging to a raft with John Jacob Astor IV, the wealthiest man on the ship, the pair of them relinquishing their grips after they became frozen, Leonardo DiCaprio-style. His body was never recovered.

It was widely rumoured that he was due to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his pacifist work, until his fateful trip intervened.