Durham Memories: Village with an abundance of rural trades

Northern Witton Gilbert is the part of the village that almost merges with Sacriston and developed almost entirely in the 20th Century.

It consists of council houses and private housing estates that developed most significantly during the later decades of the 20th Century and only a little of Witton Gilbert's history is concentrated here.

At the end of the 19th Century there were only two isolated houses in what is now the northern part of the village.

One was called Witton Cottage and the other was the White House. Both houses could be reached from Witton by a quiet country lane called Back Lane running from the village Front Street towards Sacriston.

This lane is now a built-up road called Sacriston Lane and along with Front Street forms part of the B6312. At the very southern extremity of Witton Gilbert lies the oldest part of the village, featured in last week's Durham Memories.

This part of the village is along a lane that runs in a north to south direction towards the Browney valley, but few people live in this part of Witton Gilbert today.

Buildings in this part of the village include the church, the rectory and Witton Hall Farm, formerly the ancient leper hospital founded by Gilbert De La Ley. The hospital closed during the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1500s.

Although it is still the home of Witton Gilbert church, the old part of the village ceased to be the focal point of Witton Gilbert many centuries ago.

In fact, since the completion of the long-awaited Witton Gilbert bypass road in 1996 it has become rather isolated from Front Street and the rest of the village.

The bypass keeps the busy traffic on the A691 Durham to Consett road out of Witton Gilbert's Front Street, but the cutting formed by the bypass runs between Front Street and the old part of the village and breaks the village into two.

Villagers in Witton Gilbert had campaigned for the bypass for many years, but not everyone was happy with the chosen route. Some would have preferred an alternative course between Sacriston and Witton.

Nevertheless, despite its division of the village, the bypass is barely visible in Witton Gilbert, except where it is crossed by the new bridge that links the lane in the old part of the village with the Front Street.

Front Street forms the middle part of the village and until the late 20th Century was home to the majority of Witton Gilbert's population.

This street was built in an east to west direction adjoining the lane in the older part of the village.

Precisely when Front Street came into being is uncertain but its construction seems to have brought about a complete change in the orientation and focus of Witton Gilbert village.

Front Street is certainly of considerable age. Some buildings in the street date from the early 1600s, but the street probably came into being long before that and is certainly much older than colliery streets in neighbouring villages such as Sacriston and Langley Park.

Some buildings in the street date from the early 1600s and by the 1700s there was a turnpike, or toll, where Norburn Lane climbs towards the summit of Charlaw Fell.

Of course, those were the days of horses, coaches and carts and the village residents were yet to begin their campaign for a bypass.

Witton Gilbert was very much an agricultural village in origin and even in the late 19th and early 20th Century there was a predominance of rural trades in the village.

There were farmers and farm labourers, masons, carpenters, cartwrights, shoemakers, weavers, a hatter and a tailor.

Much of Front Street still retains the feel of the pre-industrial age and this is especially noticeable at the western end of the street where we find Snook Acres Farm, a lovely stone building dating from 1620.

Snook is an Anglo-Saxon word that can either refer to a pointed piece of land or to a snake.

Either way, the reference is almost certainly to the course of the River Browney near here.

The river's course was apparently once much more snake-like than it is today.

Next door to Snook Acres Farm is another attractive old building that was formerly a blacksmith's shop.

Now a listed building, it was still in use during the early 20th Century and during the First World War horseshoes were forged here for use by the Army.

Bicycles were also occasionally made here. The building is a charming reminder of Witton Gilbert's rural past.

Towards the eastern end of Front Street is an area called the Fold that was once the site of a market in the village. The market, where both coals and rural produce were traded, was seemingly in existence before the 1800s and continued trading until the early part of the 20th Century.

Despite its agricultural background and lack of a colliery, miners would become a significant feature of Witton Gilbert's population in the later half of the 19th Century.

The development of neighbouring colliery villages brought an increase in Witton Gilbert's population and although most miners in Witton worked in these villages, small numbers worked at drift mines near the village.

Some residents of Witton Gilbert almost certainly swapped their traditional rural employment for working in the mines since wages were often better.

Agricultural labourers in particular found coal mining a more desirable form of employment, in financial terms at least.

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. Send an e-mail to david. simpson@nne. co. uk or telephone (01325) 505098.