DURHAM'S Freemen have given a cash boost to efforts to expand a former pit village's play park.

The Durham City Guild of Freemen dates back hundreds of years to the time when craftsmen and traders, such as masons, joiners, bakers and cordwainers ran the city's affairs.

Although the elected city council took over the reins in the 19th Century, the Freemen still hold four guild days each year and own land at The Sands, which they hire out for fairs and circuses.

Each year they give cash from the income they receive from The Sands to the charity appeal run by the Mayor.

But now they have branched out by giving £200 to the Coxhoe Community Partnership, which built a play park for local youngsters and is raising money to extend it.

The partnership's first project was Coxhoe Kids Zone, a play park used by children within a ten-mile radius and for which the group raised £242,000.

After realising that older children needed an area for biking, skateboarding and rollerskating, it decided to embark on an even more ambitious project.

It is now trying to raise £300,000 to build Coxhoe Skidzone - for rollerbladers and skateboarders - next to the existing facility.

It is the first time the Freemen have given money to a cause other than the Mayor's appeal - but it may not be the last.

Freemen vice-chairman Alan Atkinson said: "One of the freemen who lives at Coxhoe asked us to do it. We are going to do it each year for a different local charity.''

He said there were 66 freemen living within the city's boundaries although others live elsewhere in the country or abroad.

"If a man has served an apprenticeship within the city boundary, and they have an indenture, they can become a freeman.

"A freeman's son automatically becomes a freeman as does his daughter's husband."