Barnard Castle
The castle dates from the 11th century, but was rebuilt in 1112 by Bernard de Balliol, from whom the castle and the town take their name as “Bernard’s Castle”. The distinctive circular keep was added in the 14th century, but the castle’s function had declined by the 17th century and it was allowed to fall into disrepair. A later owner took stone from the castle to repair his own country house, but fortunately left enough behind to give a good impression of how the castle would have looked in its heyday. At one time the castle was owned by King Richard III, and his boar symbol can be seen above a window in the castle’s inner ward.
Visitors can enjoy some splendid views over the river and surrounding countryside from the castle walls and can also visit the “sensory garden” that includes plants and objects that are easily appreciated through smell and touch by people with a visual impairment.
Bowes Museum
Barnard Castle’s other main attraction is the Bowes Museum, which catches the visitor completely by surprise as he or she turns into the entrance to the forecourt. The last thing one expects to find in a gritty northern town is a French chateau, but that is precisely what it is.
The Bowes Museum was the brainchild of John and Josephine Bowes, a wealthy 19th century couple who had a dream of creating a collection of works of art and objets d’art, of European origin, that could be displayed to the people of Northern England within a suitable building. The project began in 1869, but unfortunately both the Bowes had died before it was completed and formally opened in 1892. One interesting fact about the building is that it was the first in the country to be designed using metric rather than imperial measurements.
The building is jam-packed with beautiful treasures, comprising twenty galleries on three floors, including paintings, furniture, ceramics, glass, silver and textiles. Although most of the collection is original, additions have been made since the Bowes stopped collecting in 1874, and the Museum is recognised as being of international importance.
Pride of place goes to the life-size “silver swan”, a clockwork automaton that dates from 1773 and is still in working order. The swan twists its neck from side to side then catches a fish from the pond on which it appears to float. The swan performs once a day at 2.00pm, which is therefore when the Museum is at its busiest!
The Charles Dickens connection
The main street of Barnard Castle is Horsemarket, which curves away from the impressive circular Butter Cross. This broad street is lined with buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries and is the main shopping street of the town.
Not far along Horsemarket is the “Kings Court Care Home” which in former times was the King’s Head Hotel. It is clearly recognizable from the broad archway through which horse-drawn coaches would have passed to the stables behind. It was here that Charles Dickens and his friend Hablot Knight Browne (the illustrator “Phiz”) stayed in 1838 while Dickens was researching local schools for his third novel, “Nicholas Nickleby”. Dickens was particularly interested in Bowes Academy, a few miles out of town, and the savage reputation of its proprietor, William Shaw. These became, respectively, Dotheboys Hall and Wackford Squeers in his forthcoming novel.
While staying at the King’s Head, Dickens visited a clockmaker’s shop opposite. On being told that a particularly fine long-case clock had been made by an apprentice named Humphrey, Dickens took note and used the title “Master Humphrey’s Clock” for the weekly journal that he published in 1840-41 and in which “The Old Curiosity Shop” and “Barnaby Rudge” appeared.
The 1849 outbreak of cholera
A walk along Horsemarket will take you past the ends of a number of narrow alleyways between the shops and houses. These are very clean and tidy today, but this was not always so. Indeed, in the early 19th century these closely-packed houses, with their rudimentary sanitation, were a hotbed of disease. In 1849 there was a terrible outbreak of cholera that swept through the town and led to 143 deaths within six months.
The vicar, Rev George Dugard, refused to allow funerals of cholera victims to take place inside the church (St Mary’s, close to the Butter Cross) so he conducted them outside, with many bodies being placed in a mass grave. He was incorrect to assume that cholera can be passed on as an infectious disease, but this was typical of his concern for the wellbeing of his parishioners. There is therefore a single monument in the churchyard to commemorate the victims, one of whom was my own great-great-grandfather, also named John Welford.
© John
Welford
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