Bishop Auckland

The Elms has the hallmarks of a large mid-18th-century house with its narrow handmade bricks, tall sash windows and central door with patterned overlight. However, scars within its external fabric, particularly on its east elevation (facing the castle) suggest that it has undergone a number of changes and the building may have earlier origins.

In the early 19th century the building was used as Mrs Dobson’s School for Young Ladies and by the late 19th century it was occupied by Doctor Valentine Hutchinson, who lived here with his family and held surgeries in the former study/library. It was described in 1885 as containing drawing room, dining room, library, nine bedrooms, dressing room, bathroom, store closets, kitchen offices, coach house and stabling for three horses, when it was sold to another doctor who also held surgeries here.

The building was used as the Wear Valley Council Offices in the late 20th century and is now private flats. Many of its original internal features are thought to survive.  Read why The Elms is Grade II listed .

The medieval core of the town is formed of the roughly triangular market place with Auckland Castle at its head and High Bondgate (where the Bishop’s Bondsmen lived) at the opposite end. The earliest reference to a church on this site, built as a chapel of ease to reduce overcrowding at the Bishop’s Palace chapel, dates to 1391 when the Bishop granted land to extend the churchyard.

This medieval church was rebuilt in 1781 and this was in turn rebuilt as the present church in 1846. The construction of the present church was overseen by the local architect William Thompson (of the well-known Thompson family of architects) and was built by the contractor William Edgar. The church, in its neo-Gothic Early English style, remains a striking feature at the heart of the historic market place.  Read why the Church of St Anne is Grade II listed .

Bishop Auckland saw massive investment and expansion in the mid- to late 19th century with the construction of new and large buildings adorned with rich architectural detailing. Auckland House (now Sports Direct), which was built as a large drapery emporium in the mid-19th century, was extended and re-fronted with its grand classical features in about 1871 for Robert Hedley at a cost of £10,000. The interior rooms were largely open-plan with ample space for multiple counters on the ground floor, show rooms on the second floor and warehousing on the third floor. Large light wells ran through the building and provided lots of natural light.

The store was taken over by Arthur Doggart in the later decades of the 19th century and grew to become a well-known department store with branches across the North East.  Read why Auckland House is Grade II listed .

17 North Bondgate is one of the earliest buildings in the Bondgate area – although many more may conceal earlier fabric – perhaps dating to the late 17th or early 18th century as suggested by its steeply pitched roof and its construction using handmade narrow bricks.

 Read why 17 North Bondgate is Grade II listed . Buildings with similar characteristics include 55-57 Fore Bondgate and 47 Market Place (now part of the Miners Art Gallery). The eastern gable of 17 North Bondgate also contains the remnants of a shorter gable end wall, the rest of this neighbouring building has been demolished.

The practice of retaining what would have been the shared party wall between two buildings was common in Bishop Auckland and these can be spotted sandwiched between buildings or up against exposed gable ends throughout the town. 

These two properties (Sam Zair’s café and the adjoining Spice Lounge take away) were probably built as one large house (one of the largest in the town) in the late 18th century, with extensive gardens to the rear. By 1875 the building had been subdivided into a private house on one side and a public house on the other. The latter included two large assembly rooms known as the ‘commercial room’ and the ‘long room’, which were used to accommodate the local magistrates’ courts and other town meetings before the town hall was constructed in 1862.

The extensions to the rear of 10-11 Fore Bondgate once extended across Finkle Street and a tunnel was built underneath to provide pedestrian access. This became known as the ‘Doctor’s Tunnel’ because one of the visiting magistrates, who was also a doctor, reputedly held surgeries at the inn and requested poorer patients to wait their turn in the tunnel. 

This row of buildings was rebuilt incrementally between 1898 and 1910 as part of the widening of Newgate Street to better accommodate the increased amount of traffic within the town. The buildings share similar characteristics such as parapets to the top of the elevations and keystones set within the window lintels. Interestingly, 10 and 18 were built as banks and are faced with stone, whereas the others are of red brick and accommodated public houses and hotels, including the White Lion, the Criterion and the Market Tavern. They are perhaps some of the most decorated buildings within Newgate Street, with elaborate carved details around the doors and windows. 

Bishop Auckland flourished in the late 19th century fuelled by industrial and commercial development. This encouraged a number of banks to open branches in the town, including the Yorkshire Penny Bank on the opposite side of Newgate Street (dated 1898) and the York City and County Bank (now HSBC). Both have striking architecture.

The HSBC building with its red-brick facade (unusual along this stretch of Newgate Street) was built in 1893 and altered in 1901 (as commemorated by the date of the rainwater pipe heads) to the designs of Walter H Brierley and James Demaine of York. It was described in 1893 as comprising banking room, strong room, manager’s room and lock-up shop with three large offices at first-floor level and retiring rooms and stores in the basement.  Read why the bank is Grade II listed .

This building was originally two separate properties, as depicted on the Ordnance Survey map published in 1857. It was probably constructed in the early 19th century. Documentary records dating from the 19th century suggest that the buildings were occupied at various times by small independent tradesmen including a shoemaker, saddler and a hairdresser, perhaps with retail space at ground level, domestic accommodation above and workshops to the rear. The two properties were amalgamated in about 1891 shortly before McIntyres boot, shoe and leather goods manufacturers took over the premises, a position which they held for over 100 years.

The interesting 1930s Art Nouveau shopfront, with its recessed lobbies, curved sheet glass and high-quality materials, including polished granite and bronze plating, is an important survival.  Read why 25 Newgate Street is Grade II listed .

No 47 Newgate Street, formerly Victoria House, was constructed in the early 1870s as part of the establishment of the new street, Victoria Avenue. It was built for Mr Issiah Cleminson and was described in 1891 as a ‘colossal cabinet and furniture emporium’ of four storeys containing ‘palatial rooms’, ‘extensive cellarage’ and a lift. It was transformed into a Burton’s tailors shop in about 1923. Burton’s and Dorothy Perkins occupied the premises until 2009.

Newgate Street probably follows the line of the roman road of Dere Street from Piercebridge in the south, to the fort at Binchester in the north, although exactly when Newgate Street became lined with buildings is unclear. Illustrations of the town suggest that the settlement had expanded southwards from its medieval core along Newgate Street by 1666.

This building – with its steeply pitched roof and low elevation – has the hallmarks of a late medieval house, suggesting that the occupation of Newgate Street may have been even earlier. Hidden fabric such as timber framing and the roof structure might provide further clues as to its origins. 

The Bishop Auckland Co-operative Society established its first independent premises on this site in 1862. The building was replaced by a new, purpose-built shop in 1873. The shop was extended in 1882-3 and 1892-4, and in 1902 they also acquired the neighbouring premises (originally built in 1894).

The four phases of development can be identified in the front elevation by the date stones on the parapet and by the cleverly disguised straight joints. The front part of the building provided the retail space composed of multiple departments while the rear incorporated offices, warehouse buildings, stabling and processing and manufacturing buildings.

The architects were William Vickers Thompson and his brother Robert Wilkinson Thompson, of the well-established Thompson family of architects based in Bishop Auckland.  Read why 80 Newgate Street is Grade II listed .

The King’s Picturehouse was built in 1914 for G W Rudd to the designs of local architect Douglas Crawford. It comprised a ground-floor arcade of shops which led to the picture hall at the rear. The hall was equipped to show silent films and included a stage for live variety performances. The establishment soon expanded into the neighbouring premises (number 75, formerly known as Beethoven House) and by 1937 it was advertised as the King’s Lending Library with ballroom and restaurant.

It 1949 the picturehouse was sold to Sol Sheckman’s Essoldo company which also took over the Eden Theatre (since demolished). The King’s was originally three storeys and was probably reduced in height as part of its transformation into a supermarket in 1962.

Gregory’s butchers and the building to the left of it were probably built in the mid-19th century as a pair of houses with two rooms on each floor. William Gregory, butcher, occupied one of the two premises in 1871 with the butcher’s shop at the front and living accommodation for him and his family above. By 1881 the family business also occupied the adjacent building, creating a double frontage. Plans of the building drafted in 1903 suggest that there was a pork shop on the left, a butcher’s shop on the right (each with separate central entrances as seen today), and a kitchen and sitting room to the rear. A series of outbuildings were arranged around a rear yard containing a slaughterhouse and boiling house (for boiling fat to make tallow for candles and soap).

As well as its colourful stained glass windows (dating from about 1910), the interior of the shop retains tiles depicting country scenes with cows and pigs, and steel rails attached to the ceiling for the easy manoeuvring of meat around the shop – these are rare and important features.  Read why 103-105 Newgate Street has just been Grade II listed .

In the first half of the 19th century back-to-back cottages were erected on South Terrace and the east side of Newgate Street (formerly South Road). These would have been very small in size, probably with a single room to the ground and first floor. The occupants would have had access to shared washing and toilet facilities in a communal yard to the rear.

Historic maps indicate that these were made into through-housing (where two back-to-back houses were knocked though to create a larger house) by the end of the 19th century, probably as a result of interventions by the Local Board of Health to improve the living conditions of the town’s poorest residents. 

Until the early 1920s, the stretch of Newgate Street from Princes Street southwards was known as South Road. In 1908-1914, a new Wesleyan Methodist Church was established here, overlooking the former Railway Goods Station complex to the west. The church was designed by London-based architects Henry Thomas Gordon and Josiah Gunter, and constructed by builder Thomas Hilton. Built in a neo-Gothic style in rock-faced stone with ashlar dressings, it is a prominent landmark in this part of Bishop Auckland.

Outlasting the Goods Station, which was demolished in the 1970s and replaced by Morrison's supermarket, it is now used as a community hub known as the Four Clocks Centre, named after the four clocks mounted on each face of the tower.  Read why the Wesleyan Methodists Church is Grade II listed .

Brougham Place was built in the early 1830s. The 1857 Ordnance Survey map shows a row of houses to the west side of Newgate Street (formerly South Road). Historic photographs indicate that the majority of the buildings were originally single storey. At the southern end was the town gas works, also established in the 1830s. The 1851 Census listed 37 separate properties within the row. The occupants were mainly colliery workers, though 34-year-old Christopher Harris, superintendent to the gas works, lived at the south end of Brougham Place.

The northern section was demolished in the early 20th century and replaced with the Wesleyan Methodist Church. A stone plaque on the wall of the Four Clocks Centre (former Wesleyan Methodist Church) preserves the name ‘Brougham Place 1835’.

The former Hippodrome Cinema, now a bingo hall, is the only remaining purpose-built cinema in Bishop Auckland.  Read why 27 Railway Street is Grade II listed . It opened on 30 November 1909 and was designed by Darlington architect J J Taylor (under the supervision of George F Ward of Birmingham-based architectural firm Owen and Ward) for Signor Rino Pepi. It was built as a cine-variety theatre equipped to present both stage variety shows and silent films. Signor Pepi was a theatre impresario who created a chain of music halls across northern England.

It was renamed the Hippodrome Picture House in the early 20th century and, along with the Eden Theatre, was taken over by the Newcastle-based Essoldo Group in 1947. It was converted to a bingo hall in the early 1960s. It has a central auditorium beyond the main entrance foyer to Railway Street. The upper balcony is accessed from side-entrance staircases at street level. 

The arrival of the railways in the 1840s and 1850s brought new industries to Bishop Auckland. The Lingford Gardiner & Co engineering works were established in the late 1850s on a plot of land between Chester Street and Railway Street, close to the Railway Station and well-positioned to connect to the railway network.

In the later decades of the 19th century the works expanded to cover an area of three to four acres. The business included the repair and construction of locomotives, stationary steam engines, pumping machinery and colliery equipment, as well as castings. The firm also went on to design and patent a spring framed bicycle.

The works closed in 1931, and by the mid-20th century the buildings across the site had been repurposed as a timber yard, drill hall, mission hall and instruction centre for boys, as shown on the Ordnance Survey map published in 1947.