Byers Green

Last updated

Byers Green
The green at Byers Green.jpg
The village green
Durham UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Byers Green
Location within County Durham
Population672  [1]
OS grid reference NZ223340
Civil parish
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town SPENNYMOOR
Postcode district DL16
Dialling code 01388
Police Durham
Fire County Durham and Darlington
Ambulance North East
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
County Durham
54°42′04″N1°39′11″W / 54.701°N 1.653°W / 54.701; -1.653

Byers Green is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Spennymoor, in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It is situated to the north of Bishop Auckland, between Willington and Spennymoor, and a short distance from the River Wear. It has a population of 672.

Contents

Byers Green Hall has been the home of the Trotter family since the 15th century. [2]

Thomas Wright, (1711–1786) a famous 18th-century astronomer, architect and mathematician was born and died here. Wright was educated in King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland before being apprenticed to a clockmaker in the town. By 1734, after various adventures, Wright had progressed to making a huge working model of the universe (an orrery) for an aristocratic London patron. This set him on his remarkable career that included the first accurate description of the Milky Way.

Professor Harold Orton, (1898–1975) a noted 20th-century linguist and English dialectologist was also born here. Harold Orton was the son of a schoolmaster at Byers Green and attended King James I Grammar School in Bishop Auckland followed by Merton College, Oxford. His 1933 book The Phonology of a South Durham Dialect, based on the dialect of the area, was re-published by Routledge in 2015. [3]

Sir Percy Cradock, GCMG, (1923–2010) a senior British civil servant, was born in Byers Green. He was educated at Alderman Wraith Grammar School, Spennymoor followed by St John's College, Cambridge, where he read law. Having trained as a barrister Cradock joined the Diplomatic Service and during his career held a number of senior diplomatic posts, including Ambassador to China. Later in his career he was labelled by the media as the 'UK's most senior spy' because he chaired the Joint Intelligence Committee (UK) under Margaret Thatcher's government. Cradock died in London on 22 January 2010, aged 86.

It is not known whether there was a village at Byers Green in the Anglo-Saxon period. The village name is quite late; it was first recorded in 1345 as Bires. It is probably the exact equivalent of the modern word 'byres'. The village name thus means '(the green by the) cowsheds'.

Byers Green remained a farming area throughout the medieval period and into the 16th and 17th century. Most people would have worked on the land.

Transport

Byers Green station, after closure in May 1965, looking north towards Spennymoor and Ferryhill. Photograph by Ben Brooksbank Byers Green Station 1958080 4c05c655.jpg
Byers Green station, after closure in May 1965, looking north towards Spennymoor and Ferryhill. Photograph by Ben Brooksbank

Byers Green railway station was opened in 1837 by the Clarence Railway, after it opened its Byers Green branch from Ferryhill in 1837. [4] From 1840 it became a junction station, between the Clarence and the West Durham Railway towards Crook. Passenger services were withdrawn on 4 December 1939, when the passenger service from Ferryhill was cut back to Spennymoor. Goods were handled at Byers Green until 2 June 1958.

Since the line was lifted in the late 1960s, the station buildings have been demolished, but the site is part of the Auckland County walking system.

Civil parish

Byers-Green was formerly a township and chapelry in the parish of Auckland St. Andrew, [5] from 1866 Byers Green was a civil parish in its own right, on 1 April 1937 the parish was abolished to form Spennymoor and Crook and Willington, part also went to Bishop Auckland. [6] In 1931 the parish had a population of 1962. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">County Durham</span> County of England

County Durham, officially simply Durham (/ˈdʌrəm/), is a ceremonial county in North East England. The county borders Northumberland and Tyne and Wear to the north, the North Sea to the east, North Yorkshire to the south, and Cumbria to the west. The largest settlement is Darlington, and the county town is the city of Durham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sedgefield (borough)</span> Former local government district in England

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Newton Aycliffe</span> Town in County Durham, England

Newton Aycliffe is a town in County Durham, England. Founded in 1947 under the New Towns Act of 1946, the town is 5 miles to the north of Darlington and 10 miles to the south of Durham. It is the oldest new town in the north of England. Together with the bordering Aycliffe Village and the north part of School Aycliffe, it forms the civil parish of Great Aycliffe. The population of the town at the time of the 2011 census was 26,633.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferryhill</span> Town and civil parish in County Durham, England

Ferryhill is a town in County Durham, England, with an estimated population in 2018 of 9,362. The town grew in the 1900s around the coal mining industry. The last mine officially closed in 1968. It is located between the towns of Bishop Auckland, Newton Aycliffe, Sedgefield, Shildon, Spennymoor and the cathedral city of Durham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">North West Durham (UK Parliament constituency)</span> Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom

North West Durham is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 12 December 2019 by Richard Holden of the Conservative Party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bishop Auckland railway station</span> Railway station in County Durham, England

Bishop Auckland is a railway station that serves the market town of Bishop Auckland in County Durham, North East England, 11 miles 77 chains (19.3 km) north-west of Darlington. The station is the Western terminus of the Tees Valley Line, which links it to Saltburn via Darlington. It is owned by Network Rail and managed by Northern Trains.

Harold Orton was a British dialectologist and professor of English Language and Medieval Literature at the University of Leeds.

Spennymoor was a county constituency centred on the town of Spennymoor in County Durham. It returned one Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system from 1918 to 1950.

Mid Durham was a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elected one Member of Parliament (MP) by the first past the post system of election from 1885 to 1918.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clarence Railway</span> Former railway company in England

The Clarence Railway was an early railway company that operated in north-east England between 1833 and 1853. The railway was built to take coal from mines in County Durham to ports on the River Tees and was a competitor to the Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR). It suffered financial difficulty soon after it opened because traffic was low and the S&DR charged a high rate for transporting coal to the Clarence, and the company was managed by the Exchequer Loan Commissioners after July 1834. An extension of the Byers Green branch was opened in 1839 by the independent West Durham Railway to serve collieries in Weardale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Byers Green railway station</span> Disused railway station in England

Byers Green railway station was one of three railway stations that served in the village of Byers Green in County Durham, Northeast England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ferryhill railway station</span> Former railway station in England

Ferryhill railway station was located in Ferryhill, County Durham, Northeast England. It was located on what became the East Coast Main Line between Darlington and Durham, close to the junctions with several former branches, including the extant freight-only Stillington Line to Norton-on-Tees and Stockton.

Spennymoor railway station served the town of Spennymoor, County Durham, England from 1845 to 1952 on the Byers Green Branch of the Clarence Railway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coundon railway station</span> Former railway station in England

Coundon railway station was a railway station that served the villages of Coundon and New Coundon in County Durham, North East England from 1885 to 1939. It was located on the Bishop Auckland to Ferryhill of the North Eastern Railway (NER), an extension of the earlier Byers Green Branch of the Clarence Railway (CR).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">County Durham (district)</span> Unitary authority area in England

County Durham is a local government district in North East England. It is governed by Durham County Council, a unitary authority. The district has an area of 2,232.6 km2, and contains 135 civil parishes. It forms part of the larger ceremonial county of Durham, together with boroughs of Darlington, Hartlepool, and the part of Stockton-on-Tees north of the River Tees.

References

  1. ↑ Settlement Summary Sheets.xls Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
  2. ↑ "Trotter of Byers Green Hall".
  3. ↑ Routledge page for The Phonology of a South Durham Dialect by Harold Orton
  4. ↑ "Clarence Railway". Durham History. Retrieved 18 March 2013.
  5. ↑ "History of Byers Green, in Sedgefield and County Durham". A Vision of Britain through Time . Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  6. ↑ "Relationships and changes Byers Green CP/Tn/Ch through time". A Vision of Britain through Time. Retrieved 6 August 2023.
  7. ↑ "Population statistics Byers Green CP/Tn/Ch through time". A Vision of Britain through Time. Retrieved 6 August 2023.

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Byers Green at Wikimedia Commons

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.