BARNARD Castle’s trail of blue plaques has a new addition.
Mayor Cllr Sandra Moorhouse and town crier Ian Kirkbride unveiled the plaque at the Old Well Inn, on The Bank.
It commemorates the time the pub, formerly known as the Railway Hotel, was used as a billet for members of the Durham Fusilier Militia in the second half of the 19th century.
However, the 20 soldiers who arrived to be put up at the pub in July 1877 were in for a shock.
Rather than the holiday they were expecting, the beds made sleep impossible.
They were made of uneven boards and the mattresses were filthy.
The soldiers’ complaints resulted in an officer making an inspection and declaring the billet the worst he had seen in 16 years.
The Militia surgeon ordered the hotel landlord John Myers to repair the beds, fill the mattresses with more chaff and give each man a blanket.
Myers refused and was subsequently charged under the Mutiny Act with refusing to provide adequate accommodation for troops.
Current landlords Rima and Roy Chatterjee decided the incident was worthy of being recorded for visitors to the town and arranged for the plaque, which reads: “Circa 1877, when known as The Railway Hotel, soldiers of the Durham Fusiliers Militia refused to be billeted here. Using the Mutiny Act, the landlord was charged with providing unfit conditions.”
