I would like to say that as a youngster my fishing was inspired by the great writers like Richard Walker and Bernard Venables, however it would be a lie. This wasn’t a conscious snub, it was simply due to having no angling heritage, I simply didn’t know they existed. Books were bought on the subject of course, but in a very random fashion so much so I can’t really remember any of them, save one. Ironically this was a Crabtree-esque cartoon strip book, and it was by far my favourite, even if it didn’t have the enduring charm of its illustrious predecessor. Unfortunately it wasn’t built to last, being long and thin with pulp pages and a soft cover it was doomed to disintegration. I suppose cartoons are appealing to the young, they were to me at any rate, normally in the ‘Wizzer & Chips’ or ‘Beano’ but a fishing cartoon was even better. While it lasted that book was my escape to another idealised world, a world where success was guaranteed, and usually in less than three frames.

THE GHOST OF SIR ARTHUR?

First I’d like to indulge in a short history lesson, I think it’s necessary so please bear with me.

In 1875 a guy with the wonderful name of William Randolf Innes Hopkins had the gothic style mansion of Grey Towers built in 77 acres of parkland at Nunthorpe near Middlesbrough. And of course in this park land there was a lake. In 1895 the mansion passed on to Sir Arthur Dorman co-founder of the famous Dorman – Long steel company. Sir Arthur was not only a great industrialist he was also a keen horticulturist; building great terraced rock gardens in his new home, planted with rhododendrons, and azaleas.

He had the woodland extended, and it boasted an example of every kind of tree it was possible to grow in this country at the time. He even gave the lake a covered boathouse. Sir Arthur lived at Grey Towers until is death in 1931, when it was passed onto Alderman T Gibson Poole, who in turn presented the mansion and grounds as a gift to the Middlesbrough Corporation in 1932 as a hospital and sanatorium for the people of the town suffering from tuberculosis. So grateful were the Corporation that the new hospital was named Poole Hospital, the name it kept until its closure in the early 1990’s. As you can imagine the gardens soon became over run, and the lake forgotten about.

Well, not quite forgotten, because in the 1970’s Middlesbrough, and Stokesley Angling Clubs jointly took over Poole Hospital Lake, and what a lake it was. Although it was may have been smaller, and probably a century younger than lakes created by Capability Brown, it was in all other respects a typical estate lake, shallow and rich, with dense lily pads, thick weed beds, and an over grown island. It was very much different from the other ponds the club owned, surrounded by it’s woods and dilapidated gardens, yet still in the early season the rhododendrons bloomed, now left to run riot they sent swathes of shocking pink through the trees. It was the kind of place you’d expect to find Chris Yates brewing up a pot of finest Ceylon on his Kelly Kettle, in fact when I read Chris Yates book ‘The Secret Carp’ – which I do quite regularly – in my mind’s eye Poole Hospital Lake is where it’s set.

A place full of mystery
It was a place full of its own mystery; the boathouse had long lost its roof, and was now just a square inlet of uneven slippery stones. On the far side of the island when the weed growth wasn’t too bad you could just make out the shape of the sunken boat it once housed, never again to return home. I could only speculate if it had come to grief on some dramatic last voyage, or more likely did this once loved vessel just become forgotten, left to drift until time and rot overtook it.

To me the lake was many things, when I was young it was the place I was guaranteed to catch, and in the Autumn where I was guaranteed a huge bag of conkers. When I was older and obsessed with match fishing it was the place I’d go to get my confidence back after a bad run, which was most of the time. And when I was old enough to be some use at club work parties it was a place to be proud of, many hours of hard work was spent there keeping the lake fishable for the members, but also making sure it retained its ‘lost lake’ charm.

Like all good estate lakes Poole Hospital had a few carp, but not many. Now and again you might just catch a glimpse of a dark shadow hovering in the leafy shade, even more rarely a monster would be hooked and lost. The presence of carp may not sound surprising, but in the research I’ve done on the place it appears the lake was originally a trout lake!

What may be more surprising is that no one, at least that I knew, fished for these carp, but then I didn’t know anyone who had the gear to do it. Then again the way I looked at it was why should anyone want to spend time trying to catch fish that would take day’s or even weeks to even see never mind try to take a bait, especially when you consider the lake brimmed over with nearly every other species you could think of, but not trout. Brimming over was the right word; there were thousand upon thousand of little tench, dark green almost black bars of soap. These fish due to their numbers were no doubt stunted; if you got one over a pound it was a ‘good ‘un’. The same was true with the perch, roach and rudd, multitudes in miniature. Having all these fish made it a wonderland for the youngster, given the choice between quantity or quality – keeping in mind I’d doubtlessly lose the quality before landing it – I went for quantity every time. It’s no exaggeration, but after making your first cast if you hadn’t had a bite within twenty seconds your bait had come off.

Haunted
There was one more thing Poole Hospital Lake had in common with other estate lakes it was reputedly haunted, I think when these places are built a ghost comes with the set. Actually it was the house that was haunted, but surely even ghosts like a walk in the woods. The ghost in question here was a Grey Lady, not exactly top marks for originality, if you take away all the Grey Ladies, hooded Monks, and a sprinkling of Cavaliers away from all reported apparitions you’d be left with precious few. This doesn’t mean I don’t think ghosts exist, I’m sure they do.

What ghosts are is a different matter, if pushed I’d say the term ghost covers a whole number of phenomena, most of which has nothing to do with disincarnate souls. Still as far as I’m concerned the lake, woods and house were one big ghost, and at times the atmosphere could get extremely eerie, not particularly frightening, more forlorn. At these moments the air would seem to become thick, and the hairs on the back of your neck would start to stand up. No doubt the sceptical would say it was all in the mind, after all when you’re alone in the remnants of the ornamental gardens of a reputedly haunted house that looked like it could be the Adam’s Family’s country retreat it’d be all too easy to spook yourself. They would be right.

There was one occasion late on a summers evening when I sent myself into a right dither when I thought I could hear whispering. After a while I even thought the whisper was saying my name. A few fearful minutes passed before I realised the ‘whispering’ was nothing more than the leaves of the yellow iris’s that grew in water edge. In the dead quiet of dusk I could here their serrated edges being rubbed together by the slightest breeze, my imagination had done the rest.

However, there was another time, which befell my father, a man normally level headed almost to a fault. It was another summer’s evening and we were the only anglers on the water. There was still a good thirty minutes of light left, so I was surprised to see dad – who’d been fishing the other end of the lake – packed up and walking round towards me.

He told me he’d been forced to move when the intense feeling of a presence behind him, and being watched became too much to stand. Of course I ribbed him unsympathetically, and called him a ‘big Jessie’ but he always stuck by his story, and I did notice he never fished that swim again. Maybe, just maybe, the Grey Lady wasn’t alone, and Sir Arthur still takes the opportunity to look around his beloved gardens.

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