The finishing touches to Darlington’s iconic clock tower were applied at 11 p.m. when the clock face was backlit by naphtha gas for the first time. Unfortunately, the two men carrying out the trial upset their bucket of naphtha and set fire to the wooden floor upon which they were standing and the ladder up which they had climbed. The crowd gathered below in Tubwell Row saw flames come shooting out of the portholes – rather than the illuminated dial they had expected – and sent up buckets of water from the fountain. ‘We understand that the man who took the principal part in extinguishing the flames was burnt about the hands,’ reported the Darlington and Stockton Times.
Once the men got the gas going properly, they discovered that naphtha burns with a green hue. The original dial was red, and the hands were golden. It looked like something from a horror show, so the townspeople nicknamed it ‘Dracula’s Castle’.
The Darlington Telegraph fumed: ‘The figures are totally indistinguishable. It is much to be regretted that after such a large expenditure of money, what was expected to be a great public convenience is a total failure. Plain white glass and black figures along are required.’
Joseph Pease, who had paid £1,000 to have the clock tower built, dipped deeper into his pocket and paid for a new, legible, clock face.
(‘Memories’, The Northern Echo, 2013)