THE main news in the first week of 150 years ago was that the region was experiencing its coldest weather in a decade, with a temperature of minus 19 being recorded on the thermometer at Ferryhill Station. The Tees had frozen, preventing ferry boats from crossing from Stockton to Middlesbrough, and in Darlington the Skerne was a sheet of ice on which large numbers of boys and men have daily disported themselves . Communal pumps froze in Bishop Auckland and Durham, despite fires being continuously kept burning around them; locomotives froze, and, of course, people froze. Mr Gallagher had been drinking in a pub at Sleetburn, near Waterhouses, on New Year’s Day and got lost on the way. Despite his wife searching for him much of the night, he was found dead the next day, “ultimately killed by the severity of the weather”, according to the Echo.
Merrington
Shropshire
United-kingdom
Kirk-merrington
Durham
Barnard-castle
Ferryhill
Bishop-auckland
Spennymoor
Ireland
Brancepeth
Waterhouses