An appeal has been made for any old photographs, documents and memories of a village's former almshouses.

Plans to rebuild the Sir John Duck's Hospital Almshouses in Great Lumley, near Chester-le-Street, were stopped in their tracks by the onset of the Second World War.

After the war, the plans could not be revived due to lack of funding, and the buildings, by then considered beyond repair, were demolished in 1961.

Although the houses are gone, the body which funded them survives as Lumley Hospital Charity.

The charity's has become best- known in recent years for the distribution of food parcels to the elderly and bereaved of Great and Little Lumley and neighbouring villages of Bournmoor and Fencehouses.

It is keen to discover more about the almshouses and is appealing for information from older residents, or anyone with old pictures or documents referring to them.

Jill Stephenson, secretary to the charity trustees, said: "None of our trustees really knows a great deal about them.

"It's unlikely that there's anyone in the village old enough to have remembered them being used, although there may be some with a relative who had something to do with them."

Anyone who can help should contact Mrs Stephenson on 0191-388 6289.