NEWTON Hall estate on the northern outskirts of Durham City is one of the largest private housing estates in Europe. It is situated on the hills formed by the moors of Framwellgate and is clearly a recent addition to Durham's ancient skyline.

However, the name of Newton Hall is deceptive and goes back to at least the 12th Century.

Newton is first mentioned in the Boldon Buke of 1183. This was Durham's equivalent of the Domesday Book and it records that Newton was a farmhouse or settlement belonging to William, a former abbot of Peterborough.

It became Newton Hall in the 18th Century when a Georgian mansion was built in 1730 for Sir Henry Liddell, Lord Ravensworth.

His successor, Thomas, sold the house in 1812 to William Russell, the son of a Sunderland banker and the richest commoner in England. He owned Brancepeth Castle and was also a coal owner.

By the 1830s Newton Hall had passed to the Spearman family and in the 1880s belonged to the Maynards, a Yorkshire family who made their fortune from ironstone mining. The Maynards virtually owned the town of Skinningrove on the east Cleveland coast.

In the later part of the 19th Century, Newton Hall ceased to be a private residence and was taken over as a branch of County Durham's hospital for mentally ill patients, based in Sedgefield.

The fate of the hall in the early part of the last century was similar to that of many historic houses. It was used as a barracks during the First World War and then fell into disrepair.

The hall was knocked down in 1926 and a tragic incident occurred during its demolition when a joist thrown by a workman accidentally killed 14-year-old John Arnison. He had left school only three days earlier and his first job was cleaning the bricks removed from the hall for recycling.

In 1988, the teenager was immortalised in the name of a neighbouring retail development - the Arnison Centre. His name was chosen as the result of a competition to name the site.

The main body of Newton Hall was located about where Brancepeth Close stands today, although the hall and its walled gardens covered a wider area.

A tower-shaped gazebo was on the edge of the gardens, where Eggleston Close is today. Some old cottages incorporating part of the hall's stable block remain and the ditch of a picturesque avenue that was part of the garden can be traced in places.

A driveway linked the hall to Framwellgate and Durham to the west and more or less followed the course of Carr House Drive, the present estate's principal road.

The wooded section of this road is a remnant of the hall's gardens while a community centre nearby is in a former farmhouse.

Work on building the housing estate started in the mid-1950s but the earliest properties in the Bek Road and Langley Road area were local authority houses.

A major stimulus for the growth of the estate was the relocation of the Post Office Savings Certificate Office to Durham from London.

When The Northern Echo interviewed several Newton Hall residents in the mid-1960s a surprising number came from outside the North-East. The private houses were built mainly in the late 1960s and early 1970s with developments continuing into later decades. These properties have attracted people from all over the region and many have splendid views of Durham cathedral, the same views that inspired the builders of the original hall.

Special thanks to the staff of Newton Hall and Durham City libraries.

Published: 28/02/2003

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.