The first two volumes of the Victoria County History of Durham appeared a century ago. Volume I (1905) dealt with the natural history and archaeology of the county to Boldon Book (the Durham equivalent of Domesday Book). Volume II (1907) covered the ecclesiastical history of the county, and gave an overview of political as well as social and economic history. Volume III, published in 1928, covered the City of Durham and Stockton Ward (the south-eastern quarter of the county). And there it stopped; those interested in other parts of the county have had to rely on earlier county histories, particularly Robert Surtees' History of Durham (1816–40). The first editor of the Durham VCH, William Page, noted that Durham was well served by county histories, particularly Surtees. A century on, there is a greater need for an up-to-date survey of the county's history, and the revival of the Durham VCH is a welcome initiative. This volume on Darlington is soon to be followed by one on Sunderland.

The Darlington volume provides a comprehensive and accessible history of the town from its origins in the early medieval period through to the present. There are four main chapters, outlining the ‘Growth and development of the town’; ‘Town government and politics’; ‘Trade and industry’; and ‘Religious and cultural life’. The history of medieval and early modern administration, and the relationship of the town to the bishop of Durham's estate, is dealt with in some detail (though the meaning of technical terms is not always explained). Equal attention to the medieval and modern history of the town throws up interesting insights into the transition between the two; the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries witnessed particular irritation at the obligations for street repair and the payment of tolls. The changing structure of the economy from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries is also clearly set out, and there are useful summaries of the significant developments in banking and railways in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is also consistent attention to architecture and the built environment – little of which survives from before 1700, and virtually nothing from before the great fire of 1585. The account of religion, however, does not really explain the disproportionate influence of Quakers in the administration and trade of the town in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Trade was always rooted in Darlington's strategic location on the Great North Road, and its role as a market centre for a large and prosperous agricultural hinterland. Access to the Tees ports was crucially important – Yarm and Hartlepool in the middle ages, then Stockton and later Middlesbrough, a venture of Darlington Quakers which was initially named ‘Port Darlington’. Cloth was a major trade in the late medieval period, but as the West Riding took a lead in cloth manufacture the leather trade gained greater significance in sixteenth-century Darlington. Seventeenth-century Darlington became a noted centre for linen-weaving, and in the eighteenth century was a national centre for the bleaching of textiles. The development of banks, railways, iron production and engineering works mark the industrial phase of the town's development. The Stockton and Darlington Railway justly occupies centre stage here. Established by Quaker entrepreneurs to connect the Auckland coalfield with the Tees ports, this railway was the first to serve a town directly and led the way for Darlington to become a centre for railway engineering and a world-leader in iron production. Darlington, however, remained a major market town for surrounding farmers, many of whom were in the vanguard of agricultural improvement in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and was particularly important for its cattle market, which the bishops of Durham regarded as an ‘illegal’ innovation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Gill Cookson and Christine Newman, the principal researchers and authors, have succeeded admirably in producing a coherent account of the town's development from its Anglo-Saxon origins through to twentieth-century cultural activities. There are authoritative accounts of medieval and early modern administration, religious life and the economic fortunes of the town through to the end of the twentieth century. The emphasis is upon empirical evidence, and a large body of source material has been woven in. Historical debate, however, is rather bleached out. But the general emphasis on empiricism will presumably only add to the shelf-life of the volume. More problematic is the referencing of secondary sources; the footnotes identify sources of information but do not always provide a guide to specialist works on particular subjects. But this is not merely a reference work. An engaging text with some very good illustrations means that the volume will be read and enjoyed by those interested specifically in the town, or in aspects of urban history more generally. The Darlington volume should please its funders, and act as an advertisement for what further funding could achieve in providing for the continuance of the Durham VCH.