Most of the village is located in a wooded valley bottom, straddling a single road which follows the stream that runs through what is left of Cold HesledonDene. Where the road rises to meet the original path of the old A19, there is a small but very fine medieval church hidden from the old A19 in a dip. In the opposite direction where the village road to Seaham crosses the stream is Dalden Tower, a pele-tower, the most prominent part of the remains of what was a large medieval manor house complex. The site is a Scheduled Ancient Monument and the tower is Grade II* listed on the National Heritage List for England.
St Andrew's Church
The church viewed from the south.
The existence of a church in the village is first attested in 1155.[4] The present building dates mainly from the late 12th and early 13th centuries; it is mostly Early English in style, except for the north door (which is Norman and heavily ornamented) and the south porch (added in the 15th century).[3] The church was restored and reordered in 1907 by C. Hodgson Fowler; it is a Grade II* listed building.[5]
The building sits in a subcircular churchyard, which may suggest pre-conquest origins. A late 8th or early 9th-century cross shaft is visible within the stonework of the south wall of the nave.[3] Inside the church is a chest tomb topped by a recumbent alabaster effigy of Sir William Bowes (died 1420).[5] The font is 13th-century.
The vicarage (parts of which may have dated from the late 14th century) was demolished in 1962.[3]
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