"IF the business or working man in one of our large towns gets weary and jaded by his strenuous work, and ready to get depressed and feeble, let him come away to Barnard Castle and enjoy a rest among its bonny woods, beside the murmuring river, or on the breezy moors where air of the purest can be inhaled in refreshing and invigorating abundance."
Such is the advice in the 1913 town guide which has just been reprinted to raise money for the wonderful Witham Hall, the town's community arts centre.
It was not just the townie who was advised to visit Barney.
"If the dweller by the sea tires of seeing the ceaseless flow of the big waters and feels its monotony, let him hie away inland and enjoy the varied beauty of the vale and hill, and inhale the ozone off the fells, or try a little lively angling by the Tees side in place of the quiet fishing from a pier," says the guide.
Edwardian postcard of Barnard Castle archive
The un-named writer has similar advice for the artist, botanist, geologist, archaeologist, entomologist and "lover of bird life": take a tour of Teesdale. The guide would even, we suspect, encourage a government advisor to come for a drive to try out his vision in the midst of a pandemic.
The guide provides plenty of adverts about where the tourist should stay and shop, eat and get their motor car fixed, and points out all the interesting places they should see.
Adverts from Picturesque Barnard Castle, 1913
There's the castle, the church, the Bowes Museum and, of course, the early 16th Century Blagraves on the Bank. "It is a beautiful specimen of the builder's art," says the guide. "The ponderous oak-beams are carved with festoons of flowers and fruit."
Blagraves postcard, Barnard Castle
Here Oliver Cromwell stayed on October 24, 1648, and "was regaled with burnt wine and short cakes". Perhaps that was why he left next day for Pontefract.
Down at the County Bridge, the guide points out the old boundary between Durham and Yorkshire where, around 1750, Cuthbert Hilton, a bible clerk who knew he was beyond the reach of either bishop or archbishop, would "entangle certain sons and daughters of iniquity with an illegal marriage upon this bridge in the middle of the river".
He had the lovers leaping over a broomstick on the bridge, while he would say:
My blessing on your pates,
And your groats in my purse:
You are never the better
And I am never the worse.
The guide is keen for visitors to get out and enjoy the dale's natural beauty.
"The close proximity to the town of several lovely woodland walks is of great advantage to visitors and will afford much pleasure," it says. "Such are the Cleveland and King's walks, near the latter of which is the pretty little Percy waterfall, in which Henry Hilton, formerly of Barnard Castle, is said to have bathed every morning."
It is also keen for visitors to explore the dale beyond the town's boundaries.
A first stop might be Abbey Bridge, near Egglestone Abbey.
The tollkeeper at Abbey Bridge lived in rooms on either side of the bridge
"Being a private undertaking, a toll is demanded on crossing," says the guide. "The amount of tolls collected has been a matter of speculation and curiosity to many. A tale is told of a shrewd old toll collector. He farmed the tolls, and being accosted by a stranger, who asked him what sum he might collect in a year, Tommy asked: "Can you keep a secret?". "Oh! Yes!". "So can I," came the quick reply!"
The next port of call might be the village of Bowes, which Charles Dickens visited in February 1838 while researching the appalling "Yorkshire schools" that he wrote about in Nicholas Nickleby. Barney was obviously still cashing in on the Dickens connection, as the guide contains a picture of the "Dickens room" in the King's Head Hotel, but the dale was also still smarting at being implicated in such an unpleasant practice as boy-farming.
The picture of the Dickens Room in the King's Head Hotel that appeared in Picturesque Barnard Castle, 1913
The guide says: "A great many idle tales have been set afoot respecting Dickens and his visit to this neighbourhood, but many of them are as purely imaginative and devoid of truth as his details respecting the school which he describes."
On up the dale, the visitor is advised to go, through Cotherston (as it then was), Mickleton and Romaldkirk to Middleton-in-Teesdale.
Advert for High Force Hotel from Picturesque Barnard Castle, 1913
"From this place the visitor can go by brake or motor bus to the famous High Force waterfall," it says.
"If in flood, a grand and impressive site will be presented to the gaze. The fall is 70 feet high and the surroundings teem with beauty and splendour.
"Higher up the dale is the Cauldron Snout amidst wild and uncultivated moorland, in the spacious silences of Nature - the home of the curlew and the plover - without a tree to relieve the monotony."
Perhaps some of the picture postcards used in this article were sold by Harry Ward
The guide is very keen to promote Teesdale's natural beauty. Around the rifle butts in Deepdale, a former shooting gallery, the botanist may be lost for hours...
"Here grows the golden marsh marigold, and colt's foot, the humble yarrow, the lovely meadow cranesbill, the field scabious, thistles or knapweeds with bright purple heads, comfrey with its drooping clusters of flowers, St John's Wort with its golden stars, and bed straws, in abundance.
"Here grows the graceful meadow sweet, fair, tall and fragrant; lilac heads of mint; the large bells of the nettle leaved campanula gleam out of the lush grass and herbage, and the tall, great water plantain rises from the stagnant ditch, besides handsome valerian and vetches galore..."
And then it says: "It will be noted that in these notes the Latin names of the flowers have not been used. Botanists can find them in their textbooks, and to the ordinary persons they are perplexing and meaningless and easily confused with other names. This was the case with the old lady who said she only knew two Latin names of flowers: Aurora borealis and delirium tremens."
Adverts from Picturesque Barnard Castle, 1913
The guide is very enthusiastic about the dale's bird life, even drawing attention to the "Chimney Swallows" which arrive with the housemartins and swifts. "The Water Ousel, or Dipper is particularly to be noted. He frequents the river and becks near the town and will burst into charming song while sitting on a mossy stone, and if the visitor keeps out of sight, he will hear some very sweet notes."
Then in the rivers, there's the fish. The largest salmon ever netted in Teesdale had been caught the previous year, weighing 34lbs (nowadays, a salmon in the Tees is considered very large at 15lbs).
"The salmo trutta, or sea trout - locally called "Skerf" - is a beautiful fish, indeed it is said to be the handsomest of fishes," says the guide. "It runs to 4lbs or so in the Tees. A lively sea trout of, say, 2lbs on the trout rod is about the finest and most exciting piece of sport you can have."
For those who prefer drawing to angling, "there is material enough to keep them at work for years".
The guide finishes by saying: "A young artist, when passing through a famous local glen some years ago, was so enraptured with the succession of lovely scenes that he exclaimed: "Oh! that I could live for a thousand years!"
"As that is not possible, it behoves artists as well as others to make the best of the time that is allotted to them and to work while it is day."
A 1913 original of the guide was found at a car boot sale by Anthony Wood who showed local author Chris Foote-Wood and he has arranged the splendid reprint. It is available exclusively from the Witham for £12 and all proceeds go to the community arts centre.