Sockburn Hall, Darlington: an archaeological ... - English Heritage

at Sockburn, was retained together with fragments of the nave and chancel, providing
a picturesque object of interest within the park. Curiously, and perhaps deliberately,
the removal of the north and south chancel walls introduced a narrow line of sight
at ground level between the new hall and the prospect mound ( ) at the south
of the Tudor/Jacobean gardens. It is perhaps too speculative to suggest that Henry
Collingwood Blackett deliberately set out to create a link between his neo-Jacobean
hall and the gardens of its predecessor,or that the mound once more supported some
form of eye-catcher. But the line of sight certainly exists,and it may be no coincidence
that the scarp left by the reduction of the old building platform (House ) on the
line of the garden avenue ( ) avenue serves to further enhance this view. A copper
beech on the mound is estimated to be between 50 and 100 years old. Other parkland
trees: oaks, chestnuts and walnuts - some well in excess of 100 years of age - stand
elsewhere across the park (see Figure 20).
An angular stone wall might have enclosed the churchyard in the early 19th century
(see Section 3.3 and Figure 10), in which case its demolition could have resulted in the
slight scarps which appear to mark former limits of the graveyard immediately north
and east of the church. The 1857 and 1898 Ordnance Survey maps (Figures 15 and
17) simply depict the graveyard as a small circular enclosure, perhaps no more than
the ‘simple fence’ recorded in 1894 (Hodges 1894, 69). This would have allowed a
relatively open view into the park,but a completely unimpeded view was subsequently
created by the introduction of a ha-ha prior to 1912 - the survey date for the 1914
Ordnance Survey map (Figure 18). The ha-ha consists of a brick wall, strengthened by
shallow buttresses and capped by a limestone pediment, set within a sharply defined
ditch. The 1914 map shows that it originally extended north to meet the short arcade
at the south east corner of the hall, but this final section was later buried leaving only
a slight indentation and a line of coping stones to mark its position (Figure 14). This
adjustment to the ha-ha is matched by the southward relocation of the park gate and
corresponding section of park railings to their present positions. The re-setting of the
gate piers to a narrower opening presumably indicates that wheeled vehicles were no
longer expected to take this route following the demise of the original bridge. South of
the repositioned gate the ha-ha continues to serve as a fully functional barrier to grazing
animals. It originally continued east as far as the river bank, but the final few metres
have been partly demolished and levelled to provide a modern vehicle access.
The avenue aligned with the main doorway on the west side of the hall appears on the
1857 map and was probably planted during the hall’s construction in 1834 or shortly
after its completion. It linked the hall with the walled garden of Sockburn Farm and
provided the southern boundary of an ornate garden created immediately to the north.
Neither of these gardens is included in the present study.
The th-century farm buildings
The row of farm buildings near the south-western corner of the park (Figures 21 and
28) exhibits many phases of extension and adaptation, and it is difficult to determine
exactly when the earliest parts were built. The 1857 map provides the earliest
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