Keith Murray on a distinctive part of the output of an important cast iron producer McFARLANE CAST-IRON SHOPFRONTS IN DARLINGTON Clock Tower available with or without lamps or drinking fountains. CONTEXT 44 From the middle of the 19th century, one of the major producers of cast iron ornaments and appendages to buildings was Walter Mcfarlane & Co at the Saracen Foundry, Glasgow. Mr Mcfarlane began as a craftsman in gold and silver work, progressing first to hammered iron and finally to cast iron. The works covered a site of 10 acres and had its own internal railway system connected directly to the Glasgow Queen Street to Helensburgh line on the North British Railway. The company produced a catalogue of its huge array of castings which could be used in numerous combinations by customers to construct their own designs. Sometimes these were appendages to existing buildings, but they were more often built as part of original designs, for example awnings and columns for railway stations or sometimes for various types of commercial buildings. Two contrasting examples of commercial applications occur in Darlington. The first is 37 Tubwell Row, oddly named Doric House and built in 1860. The three-storey facade is a riot of cast-iron decoration, the ground floor columns being framed by ornamental spandrels and supported on cast-iron columns with the shopfront recessed behind. The two upper floors consist of a massive two-storey oriel projection on cast-iron brackets. There are two rows of six-light windows framed in cast-iron columns with panels of cast-iron ornament between them and between the floors. The second floor windows are round headed with a guilloche patterned frieze above. To the right of this grandiose affair is a smaller oriel which has a triangular plan and is carried over the ground floor entrance door on a canted cast-iron openwork hood. Surmounting this fine example of exuberant Victorian design is a row of four circular dormers set in a slated mansard roof with decorative iron cresting, although unfortunately some of this is now missing. Above: Doric House, 31 Tubwell Row, Darlington. Below: 24 Balckweffgate, Darlington. The other smaller example is at 24 Blackwellgate. This is an early 19th century three-storey one-bay house which has a later addition of a triangular castiron oriel to the upper floors. The large windows form rounded arches with human heads projecting from ornamental spandrels on the first floor. Between the floors are cast-iron recessed panels with medallions. Both these buildings are included 13
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