No one really knows for sure how the village of Pity Me, north of Framwellgate Moor received its intriguing name. One theory derives it from miserere me, a phrase chanted by pilgrims who walked this way.

Another suggests the deceased St Cuthbert somehow whispered pity me, when monks dropped his coffin at the site. Others say it was a pilgrim's inn, or the protests of a prisoner taken to a gallows that perhaps stood on the site. Even 'Pitty' a reference to abundant coal pits has been suggested.

However most theories incorporate water of some kind. The French Petit Mare or 'little sea' is often suggested, but the English word mere (a lake) seems more likely.

Variations on the water theory include 'pitted swamp' or 'peaty lake. It was certainly a marshy area and the boggy land called the Carrs still located to the west is a likely setting for a mere. Another possibility was a large medieval fishpond that stood north of Pity Me. You may remember from our visit to Kimblesworth that an embankment called a 'stank' created this pond and is remembered in Stank Lane near Pity Me Nursery.

Place-name experts are however unmoved by these suggestions and see Pity Me as a wry name given to an exposed or desolate locality. Such names often arose after land enclosures in the 1600s or 1700s when farm buildings were erected on newly enclosed fields.

At least four localities in Durham were called Pity Me and there were others in Northumberland. Durham examples stood at Bradbury Carrs near Ferryhill, at Dubmires near Houghton-le-Spring and just south of Escomb. All were single buildings featured on the first Ordnance Survey map around 1850. All have been demolished, but were still standing in the mid-twentieth century. Most significantly all were in boggy locations.

Two factors contributed to the particular fame of Framwellgate Moor's Pity Me. Firstly it was on the Great North Road and secondly it developed into a mining village some time after 1840. If it had remained a hamlet or a farm it might have gone unnoticed. In fact, before the miners came it was not consistently called 'Pity Me' . Borough House and Red Briar were preferred names for the hamlet.

Pity Me had no colliery of its own. Its first miners worked at Framwellgate Moor Colliery that opened just across the Carrs in 1841. The colliery stood on the edge of bogs near an isolated house called Peewit Mires (later Tewit Mires). In the 1880s this was home to a man employed as a whipper of foxhounds. The house has now gone but Raby Road on Newton Hall housing Estate occupies the site. Perhaps Peewit Mires, named from the call of a Lapwing, is linked to the name Pity Me.

Pity Me itself clustered around the crossroads (recently made into a little roundabout) at the junction of Potterhouse Lane and Front Street. Some buildings predated the nineteenth century, including the Lambton Hounds, a former coaching inn once called The Fox and Hounds. The inn is at least 250 years old and in the 1750s the inn sign depicted a fox chased by hounds. A diarist suggested this was the inspiration for Pity Me. It became The Lambton Hound (singular) the late nineteenth century but is now The Lambton Hounds (plural). The recently installed pub bar comes from the sister ship of the Titanic.

Other Pity Me pubs existing in the nineteenth century included the Red, White and Blue, the North Durham Beer House and the Coach and Horses. Only The Lambton Hounds survives. Just across the road from this pub is the well-known North East firm of J.G Paxton and Sons, agricultural engineers, whose firm started their business in Pity Me back in 1853. It is a strong reminder of Pity Me's rural origins.

Potterhouse Terrace joins the old crossroads from the west. It is part of Potterhouse Lane, a footpath of medieval origin linking Finchale priory to monastic sites at Bearpark and Sacriston. East of the crossroads, the old lane to Finchale is now Abbey Road, home to an Industrial Estate on land reclaimed from the Carrs. It is tucked behind Arnison Shopping Centre. Regular readers will remember this is named after 14-year-old John Arnison, killed in an accident in 1926 during the demolition of the Georgian mansion called Newton Hall.

Potterhouse Terrace is detached from the rest of Potterhouse Lane by the A167 bypass road that diverts traffic on the Great North Road behind Pity Me Front Street. The rest of Potterhouse Lane is now a road reached from the big roundabout north of the village. It leads to a civic amenity site at a spot called Folly Bridge. Further along is Potter House itself. First mentioned in the 1620s it once belonged to a Mr Potter.

Pity Me was still a small hamlet a decade after the opening of Framwellgate Moor Colliery in 1841. Potterhouse Terrace was in existence by the 1850s, but two terraces called Old Rows, built for Framwellgate Moor miners, came later. Demolished in the 1960s they were located west of Front Street where Folly Terrace now stands.

In Queen Victoria' s jubilee year of 1897, the owners of Kimblesworth Colliery, (opened 1873), built houses for their miners in front of the rows along Front Street. Called Jubilee Terrace and Victoria Terrace they are now part of Front Street. Jubilee Terrace was in front of the old rows with Victoria Terrace to the south.

A Reading Room and Institute opened in 1897 near Jubilee Terrace. Available to miners for a penny a week, the fee was automatically deducted from the Kimblesworth miners' wages.

Unfortunately Framwellgate Moor and Kimblesworth Collieries closed respectively in 1924 and 1967, but Pity Me is still a thriving community that has increasingly developed as a suburb of Durham City.

Published: 26/09/2004

If you have any memories of Durham City, Chester-le-Street, Derwentside or the Durham coast, including old photos or stories of people and places you would like to share with readers of The Northern Echo, write to David Simpson, Durham Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF or email David.Simpson@nne.co.uk. All photos will be returned.