Scarce spring bulb found in Darlington's North Lodge Park

The Yellow Star of Bethlehem, or Gagea lutea (above, on the banks of the Tees), was only spotted by members of the Darlington and Teesdale Naturalists’ Field Club a couple of weeks ago for the first time in North Lodge Park.

Since the 1930s, club members have been keeping an eye on the colonies of the pretty bulb that grow on the banks of the Tees especially at High Coniscliffe but also Gainford. It is known to like moist, shady conditions, and on the riverbanks it seems to thrive when covered by floodwater which then retreats and leaves it rich silt to grow in.

It only flowers briefly in late February and early March, and when Looking Back got to the scene last weekend, it was over, the few remaining blooms bleached white.

But why would it like growing in a town centre park?

Skaters on the lake at North Lodge Park in the 1870s. Are there any Yellow Star of Bethlehems poking through on that bank in the background? Picture courtesy of the Darlington Centre for Local Studies

The park was laid out in the 1820s by banker William Backhouse as a pleasure ground attached to his Elmfield mansion, which fronts onto Upper Northgate. The grounds featured a large pond, which could be called a lake, with an ornamental boathouse. When the grounds became a municipal park in 1903, a councillor even donated a pair of black swans to adorn the pond.

The pond was filled in in 1932, although the grass now on its site is still a damp, spongy area.

An Edwardian postcard of North Lodge Park showing the pond and the boathouse, which dated from the 1820s, and the bandstand which was new addition when the park opened in 1903

The Yellow Star of Bethlehem grows on what would have been the southern rockery of the pond, presumably still drawing on the pond’s moisture to help it thrive.

North Lodge Park, on the edge of the old lake, with clumps of Yellow Star underneath the tree - sadly they had gone over by the time we arrived

But how could it have got there?

John Askwith emails with a reminder of a story. “In Weardale,” he says, “we have a daffodil called 'Weardale Perfection' which was cultivated by William Backhouse from the banking family.”

Of course!

William Backhouse of Elmfield (1779-1844) founded the Newcastle branch of the family bank. As Quakers, the Backhouses had a profound interest in nature, and as businessmen, they knew that if they bought large, desolate tracks of Weardale, they could get government money to re-forest them.

William married the daughter of a mollusc specialist and bought Shull, near Hamsterley, where he became a grass and moss expert.

On his death, his estates were inherited by his son, William (1807-1869) (above), who didn't do much banking but became an entomologist, ornithologist, geologist, meteorologist and lepidopterist.

In 1860, he was the first president of the Darlington Naturalists’ Society – a forerunner of today’s field club – and he thrilled its early meetings with his collection of 347 dead birds, which he had shot near Darlington and stuffed, studied, measured and painted.

The front of Elmfield: you can see above the pizza extensions that there's quite a nice mansion behind

In 1855, William sold Elmfield, and moved to St John's Hall, way beyond Hamsterley, 900ft above sea level, about two miles from Wolsingham, so conveniently close to the Weardale Railway.

There, he became a daffodilologist. He was bored with bog standard yellow. He wanted more drama from his daffodils. He wanted more colours; he wanted a big trumpet that would give an enormous blast when spring was arriving.

In his sun porch at St John’s, each morning, he would work on hybridising his daffodils, meticulously noting every action, before riding to the station at Wolsingham for a train to Darlington and a hard day's banking.

Weardale Perfection (above) was regarded as his chief daffodilic delight. It is 24 inches tall, and has white perianth (outer petals) and a large primrose trumpet.

When William died in 1869, his collection was sold to the "Daffodil King", seedsman Peter Barr of Covent Garden in London. Barr counted 192 new distinct varieties of daffodil which made William one of the greatest daffodil pioneers.

William's eldest son Charles continued to work with the bulbs at St John's (still a private residence). His youngest son Robert moved to Herefordshire and wowed daffodil enthusiasts with his orange and red award-winning cups. In 1925, he astounded the horticultural world by finding the Holy Grail of the daffodils: a flower with a pink cup and white perianth. Obviously derived from Weardale Perfection, he named it Mrs RO Backhouse after his late wife who was herself a renowned daff-ist.

What more could you want? Railway history and daffodils: an NER boundary stone on the Weardale Railway and some daffs. Picture: John Askwith

In all, according to the Royal Horticultural Society, the Weardale Backhouses (there was yet another William, who went to live in Patagonia in Argentina where he bred red-trumpeted daffs, pink pigs and a new kind of wheat which revolutionised farming in South America) created 430 varieties of daffodil – a huge crowd, a veritable multicoloured host.

So could it be that William Jnr, the great bulb enthusiast, planted some Yellow Star of Bethlehem near his father’s lake in what is now North Lodge Park as some sort of bulbish experiment?

• With thanks to Fal Sarker, of the field club, and John Askwith, of Weardale Railway
• Weardale Perfection was too pale and unsophisticated for 20th Century tastes and so it fell out of favour. In 2007, the Weardale Society found some true Weardale Perfection bulbs growing in a garden in Wolsingham and started reintroducing them to the dale’s verges.