THE magnificent Burn Hall lies on the eastern side of the A167 south of Durham City. It can be seen from the car, fleetingly glimpsed in the distance when heading north through Croxdale. It has a grand valley setting, almost encircled by the River Browney, which flows into the Wear close to this point.

The Browney passes underneath Browney Bridge, north of Croxdale's Bridge Hotel before entering the Wear a quarter of a mile to the east.

The Browney rises in the hills near Satley, ten miles to the west and skirts the villages of Lanchester, Langley Park, Bearpark and Langley Moor before its arrival at Burn Hall.

The Browney is one of two small rivers that enhance the environs of Durham City. The other is the Deerness, a tributary of the Browney and the two rivers merge a mile and a half north of Burn Hall at Langley Moor.

In times gone by, the Browney was called Brun Ea, meaning Brown River, but was often simply called the Brune.

From time to time, this name was inevitably confused with the word burn, meaning stream, as in reality the Browney is little more than a stream and is a river only in name.

A number of places take their name from the Browney. They include Burnigill, towards Brancepeth, across the river to the west of Burn Hall. The name is a corruption of Brunny Hill, or Browney Hill, and it overlooks the river. Then there is the former colliery village of Browney on the southern edge of Brandon and Meadowfield. It is reached from Croxdale by the B6300 road, known as Browney Lane.

Browney Colliery was located in sidings just off the main railway line and opened in 1871.

It was operated by Bell Brothers of Middlesbrough, a company involved in iron and steel production.

Coal was converted to coke at the colliery and transported by rail to Teesside for use in iron and steel works. Bell Brothers' concerns, including Browney Colliery, were eventually taken over in 1924 by another Middlesbrough steel firm called Dorman Long. Less than a decade later, this company became famous as the builders of the Tyne Bridge at Newcastle and Australia's Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Browney Colliery closed in July 1938 after serious flooding in the pit. Most of the early colliery houses have now been demolished, along with two Methodist chapels and a mission church that stood nearby. However, the Browney British School, now Browney Primary School, still stands.

Built by Bell Brothers in 1881, it is currently on a list of schools facing possible closure.

Further north of Browney village, alongside the main railway line, stood Littleburn Colliery.

It was opened in 1840 by the North Brancepeth Coal Company and operated until closure in December 1950. It lay north of Littleburn Farm, in an area now occupied by Meadowfield Industrial Estate.

Littleburn Farm, now almost lost amongst the bunkers and greens of Durham City Golf Club dates in part from the early 1600s and includes the remains of a moat.

There were probably buildings here in the medieval period when it was known as Burn Parva, meaning Little Burn, to distinguish it from Burn Magna or the manor of Great Burn across the river.

Both Great and Little Burn took their name from the Brune or Browney, with Great Burn being an alternative name for the lands of Burn Hall, presumably because they were greater in size than Littleburn.

The two places also belonged to different parishes, since Browney divided the parish of Brancepeth in the west from St Oswald in the east.

The present mansion at Burn Hall was started in 1821, but there was an earlier manor house of some kind. Early references to Burn Hall might however refer to the halh or flat haugh of land alongside the Browney, rather than a hall.

The earliest known owners of Great Burn were the Brackenbury family, mentioned in 1307, who leased the land from the powerful Nevilles, but in the 1380s it passed through marriage to Sir John Claxton.

In 1569, a successor, Robert Claxton supported the Nevilles in a rising against Elizabeth I and was fortunate not to lose the property and his life.

In the 1600s, the manor was sold to the Lawsons of Usworth but exchanged hands on a number of occasions during this period. Some owners may have been frustrated by a special tax on Burn Hall for the upkeep of the neighbouring highway - the Great North Road - which divided the estate in two. There was also a constant threat of horse and carriage theft in estates close to the road.

Sometime around 1800 Burn Hall was sold to Brian John Salvin of Croxdale, who employed the great Durham architect Ignatius Bonomi to design a great mansion house.

The house was completed to Bonomi's designs between 1821 and 1834 with work undertaken by a builder named Moody of Ushaw.

So impressive was the finished result that Queen Victoria is said to have described it as "the finest looking estate between the Humber and the Tweed".

The hall remained in the hands of the Salvin family until 1926 when it was sold to a Roman Catholic mission for the training of young boys destined to become missionary priests in foreign lands.

However, by 1995 the cost of maintaining such a huge building, with its sprawling 69acre estate, had grown too high and the mission sold the Grade II listed hall to a developer for a tasteful conversion into homes.

If you have memories of Durham including old photos or stories of people and places 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: 21/11/2003