There are a number of interesting old halls and houses located in and around Lanchester that reflect the desirability of the village and its surrounding countryside.

Some halls have since been demolished, but others remain as private residences. However, before we recall Lanchester's historic private homes we should mention that Lanchester has its share of public houses.

Front Street includes the Black Bull and Lanchester Arms that were once posting houses and the Queens Head, but the village's most imposing pub is the King's Head. Known to be a hotel by 1900, its date of origin is uncertain as it was previously the site of a private house belonging to an ornithologist called John Hutchinson who wrote a book called Birds of Durham in 1840.

Lanchester's prominent town houses include a late Georgian home called the Lodge near the village bypass. Standing near a 1930s school that is now a college, the Lodge belonged to the Ormesby family who lived in Lanchester from at least the 1500s. In 1798 they built Ornsby Hill House, north east of the village incorporating wells within its grounds. A funeral chute inside this house was used for moving deceased residents downstairs from their deathbeds.

From Ornsby Hill, a back road leads a mile north to the site of Greencroft Hall. A Greencroft manor was mentioned here in 1183 when the land was shared between the Roughead and Kellaw families. The Roughhead share passed to the Hall family in 1468 by which time Kellaw's land had already passed to the Claxtons.

The Claxtons had their land confiscated after the family supported Brancepeth Castle's Earl of Westmorland in the Catholic rebellion of 1569, but the Halls retained the land despite also revealing some Catholic sympathies. After the rebellion Katherine Gray, Westmorland's daughter, took refuge with the Halls at Greencroft. She had been hotly pursued for supporting and assisting banned Catholic priests like St John Boste who was executed at Durham's Dryburn in 1594.

Katherine was captured at Greencroft by a supporter of Toby Matthew, the Protestant Bishop of Durham and imprisoned at Durham Castle. In a letter to the High Treasurer of England, Matthew speculated that Katherine had been illegally married in a Catholic ceremony to a Hodgson of Lanchester Manor.

The Hall family survived the rebellion but during the Civil War, they supported the losing Royalist side and this led them into financial difficulties, forcing them to sell Greencroft to the Clavering family of Blaydon in 1670. Allegedly descended from a Norman Knight called Sergo De Burgh, the Claverings built a grand and spacious mansion with gardens, ponds, summerhouses and a deer park.

From 1794, Sir Thomas Clavering held the estate but was captured and imprisoned in France by Napoleon's troops and held for four years. After release he preferred to reside with his French wife at Cheltenham. Sir William Clavering succeeded Thomas, but around 1872 William's illegitimate son, John became the last male Clavering heir. John's two daughters married some Belgian barons and although their descendants owned the property until the 1930s Greencroft was leased to the Cochranes and then to the Johnsons who were respectively mine owners at New Brancepeth and Hamsteels.

In 1939 the army acquired the hall but it fell into disrepair and was finally demolished in 1960. An impressive Gothic tower in the grounds was demolished five years earlier.

Returning to Lanchester, part of the village opposite the Ornsby Hill road is called Fen Hall. Tenants here in the 1300s included one John Fenhall, but the Priors of Hexham were its owners in the 1400s. An L-shaped hall once stood in the area incorporating the arms of the Greenwell family. Greenwells purchased Fenhall in the early 1600s along with some land at Greencroft.

They also acquired a place called Ford near the River Browney, half a mile south of Lanchester and this was subsequently renamed Greenwell Ford.

Greenwells have lived near Lanchester (initially in the Satley area) since the1300s and are still important landowners hereabouts.

Canon William Greenwell who was born at Ford in 1820 was undoubtedly the most famous member of the family. Educated at Durham School and Durham University, he was vicar of St Mary's Church in the Bailey, Durham, from 1865 and eventually became canon and librarian of Duham Cathedral.

More significantly Greenwell was an accomplished antiquarian, noted for excavations of ancient barrows and cairns across Britain. Locally, he was President of the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Northumberland and Durham and his translation of ancient documents like the Boldon Buke made County Durham history so much more accessible.

In his spare time Greenwell was a keen angler and learned to fish in the River Browney. He is most famously remembered as the inventor of Greenwell's Glory fishing fly.

Greenwell Ford house has an eighteenth century faade and lies north of the Browney but a road called Bargate Bank leads south across the river to the hamlet of Bargate. A pub called the Greyhound Inn stood here until 1965 and a tollgate once existed nearby.

Greenwell Farm and Colepike Mill are a little further upstream and on the B6296, a mile to the west is Colepike Hall. This area was called Coldpigg, Cowpigg and Colpit in medieval times when it belonged to the sacrist of Durham Cathedral.

It later passed to the Scotts, Cocksons, Bowlbys and Robinson-Stoveys and by the nineteenth century belonged to Edward Taylor-Smith who built the present Regency style hall in 1859.

Taylor-Smith also built Broadwood Hall a further mile to the west, but it was sold to the Penman family in 1888 and they held it until 1958. In 1960 it was sold to Cowies of Sunderland and was demolished and replaced with an executive house.

If you have Durham memories 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: 07/05/2004