In the 1850s the area now occupied by Langley Park village consisted of empty fields and scattered farmhouses on the south side of the River Browney. A mile to the east lay the village of Witton Gilbert, tracing its origins back to Norman times and nearby, the newly built village of Sacriston, which was then only about ten years old.

There was not yet a village called Langley Park, but alongside the River Browney, the small hamlet or village of Wall Nook (now on the western outskirts of Langley Park) was already in existence.

Wall Nook is thought to commemorate a wall at the northern corner of Beaurepaire Park, one of a number of enclosed parkland estates that once existed in the area. Wall Nook Mill, dating to at least 1720, was the village's main feature and became a farmhouse after World War One.

Another place that existed before Langley Park, was the tiny village of Hilltop that still stands, not surprisingly, on a hilltop south of Langley Park. Here there are superb views of Langley Park nestling in the valley bottom at the foot of the hill. Hill Top is reached from Langley Park by two rapidly ascending roads that approach it from both the east and west in virtual hair pin bends.

The gradient is too steep for the two villages to be linked directly by road, but a direct uphill route can be taken on foot via what are known locally as the silly steps. They emerge rather rewardingly near Hill Top's Board Inn pub. It is said that you cannot be a true Langley Park local until you have climbed the silly steps.

Hill Top, known historically as Esh Hill Top lies about three quarters of a mile east of the little village of Esh and owes its origins partly to drift mining that was taking place here from the nineteenth century. However, more significantly it seems to have developed as a kind of service village for Ushaw College which lies just to its south. In the 1850s the Durham historian Fordyce describes Hilltop as being principally occupied by tailors and tradesmen employed by the students.

Returning down the slope to the valley bottom, the farmhouses of Blackburn and Biggen House have a long history and still lie in open country to the west of Langley Park's housing. Furthest west is Biggen House, close to Quebec and Hamsteels Hall. It looks north across the Browney towards Burnhope and in the 1600s, Biggin as it was then called, was home to a family called Burnop who took their name from the locality. Blackburn farm lies a little further east closer to Langley Park and in the 1300s was the property of a man called Robert Carlisle.

The Carlisles owned Blackburn and a neighbouring farm called Mauldunderside until about 1488 when the property was sold to the Thirkelds. Mauldunderside is thought to have been named after a tenant called Maud, but by the nineteenth century the farm was simply called Underside and lay beneath the Hill Top slopes called Groove Bank. The last remnants of the farm and two neighbouring farms called Finings and High Finings were demolished in the second half of the twentieth century. The Finings belonged in the 1850s to the Hedley and Wigham families. All of the aforementioned farms stood close to the nursing home (formerly an infectious disease hospital) that stands on the southern edge of the village.

One other farming settlement that should be mentioned was Low Side, a small collection of farm buildings with a pond and well to the north east of Underside. It was swallowed up by Langley Park's expansion in the early twentieth century and became part of Woodside Terrace.

All the farms were within easy reach of two adjoining rather clarty country lanes that crossed this low-lying land on the south side of the Browney. One of these lanes had two little streams flowing along each side and would later become Langley Park's Front Street. An adjoining lane leading to Quebec Farm would become Quebec Street, Langley Park's other major thoroughfare.

The colliery that gave rise to Langley Park's development did not come into being until the 1870s and stood on the immediate northern side of the Browney. However, we will leave the colliery's development for next week because this northern side of the river encompasses a much earlier period of Langley's history.

The land on the climbing slopes of this northern side of the Browney have long been known as Langley as this is demonstrated by names like Langley Mill and Langley House. Langley is Anglo-Saxon name meaning long woodland clearing, and in later centuries much of the history of the area was concentrated in and around Langley Hall. This is now a ruinous and sadly inaccessible fortified Tudor house hidden amongst woodland on a lane ascending the slopes that form the fells of Burnhope and Charlaw. Fantastic views of Durham Cathedral, Langley Park, the Cleveland Hills and Newcastle can be found in this locality but frustratingly only a fleeting glimpse of the hall can be seen amongst the woodland beyond the barbed wire.

This was the Langley of historic times and belonged in the 1100s to Arco, the steward of the Bishop of Durham, but other subsequent medieval owners included the Lisle family of Wynyard, the Percys and from the 1300s, the Scropes. It was one Henry Scrope (the name is pronounced Scroop) that built a huge fortified hall complete with a moat during the reign of Henry VIII. One way or another his descendants held the estate up until the 1750s but the hall had fallen into ruin by that time. It is currently included on English Heritage's Buildings at Risk Register and may not be long before it crumbles to the ground.

If you have memories of Durham you would like to share with The Northern Echo, write to David Simpson, Durham Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF.

E-mail david. simpson@ nne. co. uk or telephone (01325) 505098

Published: 30/07/2004