COATHAM MUNDEVILLE is a fascinating place on the northern edge of Darlington, surrounded by plenty of strange earth shapes in the fields which suggest there was once a sizeable medieval village here.
The first word of its name means “cottage settlement” but the more exotic second word comes from the Amundeville family who were given land there by William the Conqueror as a reward for their part in his conquering.
The village’s major property is the Hall Garth, now a hotel to the east of the A167. Its name means “meeting hall in a field” and here Bishop Antony Bek, one of the most powerful and militaristic prince bishops of Durham who was on the throne from 1283 to 1311, had a hunting lodge – to this day, an 18th Century deerhouse is a feature of the hotel’s golf course.
There is another substantial property in the village, this time to the west of the A167 from which it is hidden by a tall wall. This is Coatham Hall, which has early 18th Century beginnings.
Several people have suggested that in our reporting of the Belgian refugees who sought sanctuary in south Durham at the start of the First World War, we have confused Coatham Hall with Hall Garth.
They are not wrong.
About 20 refugees came to Mundeville, where Henry Hardinge allowed them to stay in Coatham Hall rent-free, and Robert Bradley Summerson, of Hall Garth, agreed to pay for their upkeep.
The Summersons were the growing power in Mundeville.
Thomas Summerson had been born in South Shields in 1810, but by 1825, he was in the Darlington area being employed to drill stone blocks to be used as sleepers on the new railway. He was paid 8d a day and was expected to drill 24 blocks a day.
He was present at the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, and rose to become manager of the Hopetown Foundry in Darlington before setting up his own foundry on Albert Hill in 1869, to make points and castings for the railways.
His son, Robert, took on the Albert Hill foundry which he expanded hugely during the First World War.
We think he also expanded his interests in Mundeville, buying Coatham Hall during the war to go with his home of Hall Garth.
Most of the south Durham Belgians moved north in 1915 to live in the specially created town of Elisabethville, near Birtley, where they worked in a new munitions factory. However, the Summerson family's papers in Darlington library say that a Monsieur Kerkhofs remained and was working in the kitchen garden at Coatham Hall in the summer of 1917.
Their papers also contain a death notice from a Belgian newspaper dated October 19, 1918, which tells how Madame Veuve Kerkhofs, 72, had died in the small town of Harfleur, in Belgium.
Someone has written on the cutting: "Mme Kerkhofs was one of the Belgian refugees who stayed at Coatham Hall."
When a trainee reporter in 1988, probably the first interview Memories ever conducted with a politician involved the Conservative MP for Walthamstow in London, Hugo Hawksley Fitzthomas Summerson, 38, who had just been named the Mills & Boon Most Romantic MP of the Year for the manner in which he had proposed to his fiancée and Commons secretary, Rosie Pitts, whose mother came from Darlington.
Hugo had spent the first 26 years of his life in Hall Garth, and his first girlfriends came from Middleton Tyas and Heighington.
"It is something to do with the air in the North-East," he said. "I started my romantic career falling in love with North-East girls."
However, the Thomas Summerson & Sons foundry had gone into liquidation in 1972 and Hugo’s parents had sold Hall Garth in 1976 – it was converted into a hotel in 1977 – and moved to Scotland.
"I was very sorry indeed that links with County Durham should be cut like that, but I return quite frequently to visit friends and relations and I have very fond memories of my homeland," he said.
We think the Summersons kept Coatham Hall into the 1980s.
MEMORIES 692 told of the efforts of enthusiasts and volunteers to restore the headstone of Fr John Francis Krajicek, the Roman Catholic priest from Witton Park, who championed the cause of the Belgian refugees who fled to sanctuary in south Durham in the early days of the First World War.
Fr Krajicek died of Spanish flu immediately after the war and was buried in the Victorian churchyard at Escomb. The churchyard was abandoned to nature in the early 1970s when its church was demolished, and his headstone became damaged and overgrown.
Readers were so moved by his story that the £288 needed to restore the stone has been surpassed. It is hoped work will begin soon – more details in future Memories.
READ MORE: THE STORY OF FR JOHN KRAJICEK AND THE BELGIAN REFUGEES OF WITTON PARK
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