Wolsingham sits at the confluence of the River Wear and Waskerley Beck. It is a small settlement and one of the first market towns in County Durham, potentially deriving its name from the legendary Germanic family the Waelsingas, or from the personal name "Wolfsige".[2][3] The earliest known record of the town is to be found in Reginald of Durham's Life of Godric where it is stated that the saint lived there for almost two years about 1120 AD with Elric the hermit.
Wolsingham was then a thriving community, holding land by servile tenure. There were shepherds, plough-makers, beekeepers, forest keepers, wood turners, carters, etc. They toiled for two purposes – producing corn and other foodstuffs for themselves and supplying the larder of the Bishop's Castle. The bishop and his friends indulged in hawking, but hunting for red deer in the parks of Wolsingham and Stanhope was their principal pastime. The bishops' hunting forest in Weardale was the second largest in England after the New Forest.
The oldest houses in Wolsingham are at Whitfield Place on Front Street. There are three cottages, the left-most dated 1677 and with the initials 'DM'.
Cottages in Wolsingham
The other properties here have an even longer history. They are said to have been converted from the former Pack Horse Inn where Edward III may have rested on returning from his unfruitful encounter with the Scots in Weardale in April 1327. Another king, Charles II, is said to have ridden his horse up the internal staircase of the house in the 17th century and it still has an impressive staircase today.
In 1615 a market charter was granted to the bailiff and inhabitants of Wolsingham, and in 1667 the charter was confirmed with the allocation of a piece of land to hold the market and fairs. This market was of considerable importance and offered many facilities to the surrounding district. There were several looms in the town; table linens, draperies, weaving materials and clothes were always in demand. Drapers from Yorkshire and Newcastle upon Tyne frequented the market, as did hatters from Hexham and Barnard Castle. Spices and gingerbread were also on sale.
A memorial to the Roman Catholic priest John Duckett marks the spot where he was arrested before being taken to Tyburn in London, where he was executed in 1644. There is a Roman Catholic church and convent (now converted to housing) in the town, along with large Church of England, Baptist and Methodist congregations.
Wolsingham Grammar School was established in 1614, and in 1911 a new building was opened. It is now part of a split-site comprehensive school with another part built from 2014–2015 and opened in 2016 by the Duke of Gloucester. Wolsingham Grammar School is also home to the oldest world-war memorials in the country. The trees surrounding the field leading from the historical Bell Tower have names and were planted by the Head Teacher for each of the pupils of the school that had fallen during the war. The pupils and staff of Wolsingham Grammar School hold a service every Remembrance Day to remember the pupils who fell during the wars.
John Wesley, cofounder of the Methodist Church, made many visits to Weardale and preached in Wolsingham several times between 1764 and 1790 from a rough stone pulpit at the rear of Whitfield House. The first Wesleyan meeting house was built in 1776 for the Wolsingham Methodist Society and John Wesley preached there. The building was later used as an undertakers and is now part of the outbuildings of Whitfield House. Two further Wesleyan chapels were constructed in 1836 and 1862 and a Wesleyan school was built in the High Street in 1856. People attended from all over the dale and the numbers grew when the Wolsingham steelworks opened. In 1885 a Primitive Methodist chapel was built but went out of use in 1983 when its interior fittings were moved to the USA. St Thomas of Canterbury RC Church was built in 1854 and an associated school in 1864.[4]
The Victorian industrialist Charles Attwood[6] built an ironworks on the edge of the town, a major employer from 1864, producing steel from Weardale iron ore. Steel castings were produced for use in both shipbuilding and munitions, industries of major importance to the North East. The works made a major contribution to the war effort in both World Wars. Electric arc furnaces were installed around 1950 but trade declined and the works closed in 1984. Manufacture continued for a time on a smaller scale run by a workers cooperative until it closed for good in 2008. Film of the works in operation in 1962, when it still employed 500, can be seen at https://www.yfanefa.com/record/25719 Your Heritage - The River Wear. There are plans to fully develop the area after the site was levelled and decontaminated in 2009.
On the north hillside of Wolsingham Attwood built his home, Holywood Hall. After his death it became a hospital. This was the regional sanatorium for the treatment of tuberculosis, but by the early 1960s there were so few cases that it was virtually redundant although the open verandah rooms were still in use. In 1962 the decision was made to transfer elderly patients from Sedgefield Mental Hospital to this beautiful setting. The patients were mainly elderly long-term residents of impaired mental faculty who had no living relatives to care for them, were institutionalised and would have been unable to cope with independent living. When the hospital closed it was redeveloped into four dwellings and the land surrounding the Hall was developed to contain a number of luxury homes.
Culture
Wolsingham Agricultural Society
Wolsingham Agricultural Society holds its annual show on the first weekend in September, with a daily attendance of more than 30,000. Established in 1763 it is one of the oldest shows in the country and brings in animals and visitors from a wide area. A funfair is held in the town the same weekend with many streets closed to traffic to cope with the crowds.
Weardale Railway
Wolsingham is served by the heritage Weardale Railway, which runs to Stanhope, including special steam services. First built in 1847 by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, it was closed to passengers in 1953, before the Beeching railway review closures of the 1960s. It continued to be used for freight before being finally mothballed in 1993. After much work and investment by new American owners, the heritage railway reopened in 2010 with a special train event running direct from London Kings Cross.
The Weardale Railway also used to transport up to 150,000 tonnes of high-quality coking coal per year from the Park Wall North surface mine 4 miles away using a new transload facility in Wolsingham, which opened in 2011. There was strong local opposition to the coal depot but planning permission was finally approved as the lorries avoid the town. Trains ran to a Scunthorpe steelworks, keeping alive the towns connections to steel making. This run ceased in 2015 following the collapse of UK Coal.
The Weardale Railway is an independently owned British single-track branch line heritage railway between Bishop Auckland, Witton-le-Wear, Wolsingham, Frosterley and Stanhope. Weardale Railway began services on 23 May 2010, but decided to run special trains rather than a scheduled service for the 2013 season. The line was purchased by the Auckland Project in 2020 with a view to restarting passenger services. In 2021, a bid was submitted to the Restoring Your Railway fund. In October 2021, the Department for Transport allocated funding for the development of a business case.
Crook is a market town in the Durham County Council unitary authority and ceremonial county of County Durham, England. It is located on the edge of Weardale and sometimes referred to as the "Gateway to Weardale".
St John's Chapel is a village in the civil parish of Stanhope, in County Durham, England. It is situated in Weardale, on the south side of the River Wear on the A689 road between Daddry Shield and Ireshopeburn. The 2001 census reported a population of 307.
Weardale is a dale, or valley, on the east side of the Pennines in County Durham, England. Large parts of Weardale fall within the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) – the second-largest AONB in England and Wales. The upper dale is surrounded by high fells and heather grouse moors. The River Wear flows through Weardale before reaching Bishop Auckland and then Durham, meeting the sea at Sunderland.
Frosterley is a village in the civil parish of Stanhope, in County Durham, England. It is situated in Weardale, on the River Wear close to its confluence with Bollihope Burn; between Wolsingham and Stanhope; 18 miles (29 km) west of Durham City and 26 miles (42 km) southwest of Newcastle upon Tyne. In the 2001 census Frosterley had a population of 705.
Stanhope is a market town and civil parish in the County Durham district, in the ceremonial county of Durham, England. It lies on the River Wear between Eastgate and Frosterley, in the north-east of Weardale. The main A689 road over the Pennines is crossed by the B6278 between Barnard Castle and Shotley Bridge. In 2001 Stanhope had a population of 1,633, in 2019 an estimate of 1,627, and a figure of 1,602 in the 2011 census for the ONS built-up-area which includes Crawleyside. In 2011 the parish population was 4,581.
Westgate is a village in the civil parish of Stanhope, in County Durham, England. It is situated in Weardale between St John's Chapel and Eastgate. In the 2001 census Westgate had a population of 298. Westgate is also the entrance to Slitt wood and an old abandoned lead mine. Other features of the village include a caravan site and a football and basketball court.
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.
The Consett Iron Company Ltd was an industrial business based in the Consett area of County Durham in the United Kingdom. The company owned coal mines and limestone quarries, and manufactured iron and steel. It was registered on 4 April 1864 as successor to the Derwent & Consett Iron Company Ltd. This in turn was the successor to the Derwent Iron Company, founded in 1840.
The Stanhope and Tyne Railway was an early British mineral railway that ran from Stanhope to South Shields at the mouth of the River Tyne in County Durham, England. It ran through the towns of Birtley, Chester Le Street, West Stanley and Consett. The object was to convey limestone from Stanhope and coal from West Consett and elsewhere to the Tyne, and to local consumers. Passengers were later carried on parts of the line.
The Derwent Valley Railway was a branch railway in County Durham, England. Built by the North Eastern Railway, it ran from Swalwell to Blackhill via five intermediate stations, and onwards to Consett.
The Hownsgill Viaduct is a former railway bridge located west of Consett in County Durham, England. It is currently used as a footpath and cycleway.
The Lanchester Valley Railway was an English railway line that was developed by the North Eastern Railway to run between Durham to Consett. Extending 12 miles (19 km) along the valley of the River Browney, it opened on 1 September 1862. Closed under the Beeching Axe, it has been redeveloped by Durham County Council as a foot and cycle path as the Lanchester Valley Railway Path.
Eastgate railway station, also known as Eastgate-in-Weardale, served the village of Eastgate in County Durham, North East England from 1895 to 1953 as a stop on the Wear Valley Line.
Harperley railway station served the Harperley Hall Estate and the nearby hamlet of Low Harperley, close to the village of Fir Tree in County Durham, North East England between 1861 and 1864 and again from 1892 to 1953 as a stop on the Wear Valley Line.
Wear Valley Junction railway station primarily served as an interchange between the Wear Valley Line and the Weardale Extension Railway (WXR) between 1847 and 1935. It was the closest railway station to the village of High Grange in County Durham, North East England.
Etherley railway station served the village of Witton Park in County Durham, North East England, from 1847 to 1965 on the Wear Valley line. It was briefly reopened during the summers of 1991 and 1992 as Witton Park.
The Weardale Iron and Coal Company, established in the 1840s, produced iron and steel at Tow Law and Tudhoe in County Durham in England, where it also owned collieries.
Stanhope is a railway station on the Weardale Railway, and serves the town of Stanhope in Weardale, England. The station is served by regular services on selected days throughout the year, mainly during weekends. The station is currently the terminus of the line as the section from here to Eastgate is out of use. The station is situated 16 miles (26 km) from Bishop Auckland.
↑ Harris, Penelope, The Ironmaster, the Architect and the Priest: Building the Church at Wolsingham (Northern Catholic History No.54 ISSN0307-4455 2013)
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