Commemoration plaque planned for Whorlton boathouse

VILLAGERS are a step closer to marking the significance of a ruin along a beautiful stretch of the Teesdale Way walking route.
Legends abounded in Whorlton about what was thought to be a ferryman’s cottage – with the belief that the resident ferryman and his family were wiped out while trying to cross the River Tees.
But now a former resident of the house has come forward to put the record straight.
This follows a hunt for information by parish council chairman Cllr George Stastny, who now plans to install a commemorative plaque at the site. He met Ada Pressley, who spent her childhood at the house during from the 1930s until 1952 when it was condemned.
A significant revelation by Mrs Pressley, whose maiden name is Barber, is that it was never called Ferryman’s Cottage and the story of the ferryman and his family’s death on the river has become mixed up with another tragedy that left six children orphaned.
She said: “We always knew it as the boathouse. It was called that even before we lived there. In the cellar there was a great big arch – my dad said that is where they used to bring the boats in.”
Mrs Pressley was able to shed light on the tragedy that played itself out in 1896.
She said husband and wife William and Louise Harrison, both 34, attempted to cross the river with a friend after visiting in Eppleby.
She said: “His wife wanted them to come across the bridge, but he didn’t want to.”
Mr Harrison’s stubbornness at not wanting to pay the toll to cross the bridge proved to be fatal.
An article in the Teesdale Mercury on September 30 that year backs up Mrs Pressley’s story.
It describes how the couple’s friend, William Robinson, survived when the boat capsized.
It reads: “The tragic event of Sunday night adds another chapter to the dismal tale which the parish registers and newspaper files furnish regarding the calamities of the Tees, but we question whether any previous disaster is surrounded by circumstances so truly melancholy.
“Husband and wife, having rejoiced all day with their relatives at Eppleby, are in a moment plunged into the jaws of a cruel death – late at night – and both find a watery grave in the boiling, surging waters of the Tees, while six helpless orphans anxiously await
their return! Truly the event is without parallel in local records.”
It goes on to say that six orphans ranged in age from three to 12.
The newspaper added: “Their forlorn condition has stirred to the core the hearts of many sympathetic friends in the neighbourhood.”
Equally important, Mrs Pressley was able to describe intricate details of the cottage and about what life in Whorlton was like, particularly around the time of the Second World War. Of interest were her memories of commandos training with live ammunition in the woods around the village.
Aged about seven or eight, she witnessed a German plane coming down low over the River Tees with its tail on fire.
She said: “I was sweeping in front. It was so close I could have reached out and touched it. He ended up at Humbleton Camp.”
Mrs Pressley, who now lives in Gainford, also gave insight into how difficult life was at the time. Her mother Annie was widowed after having only two children and later married Robert Barber, her father.
She said: “She would have gone to the workhouse with her children if he had not married her.”
Mr Barber worked for the council as a “lengthman”, who was responsible for the maintenance of a particular stretch of road in the district. He also put in the first cats’ eyes in the area.
The family, she said, had to move to a much smaller council house in the village after the Boathouse, which the rented, was condemned in 1952 and it quickly fell into ruin.
She said: “It was robbed of everything, the fireplaces, beams, everything.”
Since leaving the village, Mrs Pressley returns every year for a walk around the ruins of her childhood home.
In reaction to the plans to put a plaque at the ruins, she said: “I think you are a bit late actually, but it is nice to know it is there.”