Shot down: Town loses historic link with guns

IT was a sad day for Gordon French when Wilkinson’s gun shop closed this year.  The former miner has had an interest in guns since age 11 when he first went out shooting with his dad. 
Mr French, who also goes by the pseudonym “Feltwad”, has extensive records of gun makers of the region.
Here he writes a potted history of Barnard Castle’s association with firearms...

RECORDS show that gun making in Barnard Castle has been known for more than 250 years and further research has shown that it could be longer.
In the late Georgian and Victorian era, gun manufacturing was thriving with as many as four gun makers operating in the town at the same time.
Indeed, in the 1830s the town was one of the most industrial in County Durham with many different trades making and selling their goods.
The reason for the high number of gun makers was demand from their clientele – mostly from the big estates of the area, the gentlemen and farmers.
The most well-known estates were Streatlam (the biggest), Bowes Moor (a trust), Rokeby, Raby, Eggleston Hall, Wemmergill and Holwick.
The North Yorkshire Militia, which was stationed at the barracks where the entrance gate still stands, were also a client of the gun makers.
One of the first in the records was John Swainton who was in business from 1770 to 1792 and whose shop was in the Market Place. In this period, the guns on sale would have been a flintlock type.
Most of his work was with Streatlam Estate and records show that he supplied four new guns for its game keepers.
Another gun maker, Thomas Dowson, was in business from 1780 to 1796 and also worked for Streatlam. Estate records show he was paid 2s 6d for repairing two gun locks.
In 1802, Thomas Arrowsmith was listed as a gunsmith as was John Dunham who traded on The Bank between 1796 and 1826.
Gunmaker and engraver John Hesketh was in the trade between 1835 and 1855. His shop was in the Market Place and he also worked for the Streatlam Estate.
There were also many well-known gun making families. The Rowntrees operated from 1810 to 1869 and were known as patent (specialist) gun makers.  Their business was established by James Rowntree below the Raby Arms pub and they built percussion muzzle loaders and double-barrelled breech loaders.
His son, William, traded on the Bank and the family also had a gun shop which they ran as father and son at Penrith, in Cumberland.
A Rowntree apprentice, Thomas Dalkin. was in business from 1820 to 1860 also started on The Bank and nearer the castle was Isaac Cust who was a gunsmith and lead shot manufacturer from 1810 to 1830.
Credit must be given to him for the present condition of the castle’s west tower, which he bought in about 1820 and fully repaired by turning it into a shot tower.
He supplied most of the estates with lead shot – a two-stone bag cost 6/6d and his best gun powder cost 3/6d a lb. James Rowntree developed patents which he sold to the London and Birmingham gun makers at the centre of the gun making industry.
He was the first gun maker to build a percussion cap shotgun for Joshua Shaw – the inventor and landscape painter who came to Teesdale to paint.
While in the area Mr Shaw approached Mr Rowntree to build him a double-barrelled gun using his own invention of a steel top hat percussion cap. Among Barnard Castle legends, it also seems likely that James Rowntree was involved in what was the “shooting contest” at the Buttermarket.
Legend states that the weather vane was shot from the Horsemarket by a Streatlam game keeper and military man.
But this was an almost impossible feat as the main firearm of the day was a smoothbore gun known as the Brown Bess musket and was only accurate from about 20 to 40 yards.
It is more likely that if these two men shot the contest, it would have been from Rowntree’s shop which was close to the Buttermarket.
Another possibility is that if Rowntree wished to test a gun he was working on he could have aimed at the weather vane from his doorway – we will never know.
Another well-known gun family were the Richardsons, with George Benjamin Richardson opening a gun shop on The Bank in 1883.
He mainly made breech loader hammer guns – some of which you still see some in use today. The business also loaded its own cartridges with the famous name of Barnard and Balliol.
By 1920, the firm had moved to the Market Place and was run by his son George Richardson senior before it shifted to 13 Galgate and was taken on by George Richardson junior until the early 1970s.
Eric Wilkinson opened the gun shop at 40 Horsemarket around the same time, and after his retirement there were two further owners, Richard Christon and Denis Steadman. These owners were not gun makers but supplied the local estates and sportsmen with shooting accessories and retailed guns.
The gun shop will be sadly missed by the local sportsmen of the area, not only for cartridges and shooting accessories, but also as a meeting place on market day for a chat and a cuppa.
With the closure of this shop and nobody opening another, it marks the end of 25 known gun makers and gun smiths in Barnard Castle supplying the community with their shooting requirements for more than 250 years. It is the end of an era.