Spennymoor
Encyclopedia
Spennymoor is a town in County Durham
, England
. It stands above the Wear Valley
approximately seven miles south of Durham
. The town was founded over 160 years ago. The Town Council area, which includes the villages of Kirk Merrington
, Middlestone Moor
, Byers Green
and Tudhoe
, has a population of approximately 20,000.
district, Spennymoor has suffered severe economic depression since the decline of the coal mining
industry. Local schemes funded by the Single Regeneration Budget are aiming to re-establish the area as a location of economic competitive advantage.
Tudhoe
Cricket Ground was the victim of a rogue V1 flying bomb during the Second World War
. The blast was powerful enough to make a crater in the cricket ground, and blew out the windows of surrounding houses (including those of the local St. Charles' Church) as well as shaking a great many other buildings.
Anne Wood
, creator of the Teletubbies
and In The Night Garden
, was born and brought up in Spennymoor.
. From 1983 to 1997 it was part of the Sedgefield constituency
; the MP during this period was Tony Blair
, who was Leader of the Opposition for the last three years of his tenure as the town's MP. The town had been moved out of the constituency by the time he became Prime Minister
. Since 1997 it has been part of the Bishop Auckland constituency
, whose MP since 2005 is Helen Goodman
.
estate was owned by and home to the Shafto family for over 300 years, including County Durham MP "Bonnie Bobby Shafto
", made famous by the well known ballad
and nursery rhyme
. It is now the site of Whitworth Hall Hotel and the deer park for which the estate is famed is still well tended, as is the walled garden.
, "To encourage tolerant neighbourliness and voluntary social services and give its members opportunities for increasing their knowledge, widening their interests, and cultivating their creative powers in a friendly atmosphere". The Settlement was home to the town's first library, and amongst famous local people who were a part of its history were Norman Cornish, "the pitman painter" and Shildon
-born writer Sid Chaplin
. The building is a centre for the arts- mostly drama and music, but other community events take place here.
(The Big Meeting), representing 13 (former) local collieries. The banner was unfurled on the night before the big meeting, by MEP Stephen Hughes
and long-time trade unionist Rodney Bickerstaffe
, General Secretary of the trade union UNISON
from 1995 to 2001. Its first outing on the following day began with visits to 'The Tubs', a miners' memorial made from tubs once used underground in Ellington Colliery, Northumberland
, which honours the memory of all of the men and boys who lost their lives in the mines of Spennymoor and district, then went on to two war memorials, the main cenotaph
outside the leisure centre and a smaller memorial in Tudhoe Cemetery
.
estate of the Shafto family. Until World War II
there was a cannon from the Crimean War
on display in the park, this was taken away to be melted down for munitions. A Millennium
arch was erected in the park.
The leisure centre houses a swimming pool
, and offers swimming lessons
, football coaching, martial arts
tutoring, tennis
lessons, badminton
practice, a gymnasium
and gymnastic workouts and is also home to a new 'state-of-the-art' Regional Gymnasium Centre, made possible by funding from the National Lottery
, Sport England
and Sedgefield Borough Council
, and is amongst the most modern in the country.
There are also plans for a new regional arts centre to be added to the leisure centre, which stands at the junction of High Street and Cheapside in the town centre.
Spennymoor Town F.C.
are the main local football team.
Spenny Cinema, a monthly community cinema is run at St. Paul's Centre in the heart of Spennymoor and is run by Damascus Road Technical Services, in association with the centre.
County Durham
County Durham is a ceremonial county and unitary district in north east England. The county town is Durham. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is the town of Darlington...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. It stands above the Wear Valley
River Wear
The River Wear is located in North East England, rising in the Pennines and flowing eastwards, mostly through County Durham, to the North Sea at Sunderland.-Geology and history:...
approximately seven miles south of Durham
Durham
Durham is a city in north east England. It is within the County Durham local government district, and is the county town of the larger ceremonial county...
. The town was founded over 160 years ago. The Town Council area, which includes the villages of Kirk Merrington
Kirk Merrington
Kirk Merrington is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated between the towns of Bishop Auckland and Ferryhill.It is part of the Spennymoor township....
, Middlestone Moor
Middlestone Moor
Middlestone Moor is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated to the south west of Spennymoor.On 12 February 2007 there was a major gas leak causing homes in Spennymoor, Crook, Howden-Le-Wear and some in the Coundon area to lose their gas supply and 30 houses in westerton close to be...
, Byers Green
Byers Green
Byers Green is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated to the north of Bishop Auckland, between Willington and Spennymoor, and a short distance from the River Wear....
and Tudhoe
Tudhoe
Tudhoe is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated approximately south of the City of Durham. It lies just outside Spennymoor, a short distance to the west of the Great North Road. The village is now a quiet backwater, its green a cul-de-sac that runs down from the main road towards...
, has a population of approximately 20,000.
History
Like much of the former SedgefieldSedgefield (borough)
Sedgefield was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district and borough in County Durham, in North East England. It had a population of about 87,000 . It was named after Sedgefield; but its largest town was Newton Aycliffe...
district, Spennymoor has suffered severe economic depression since the decline of the coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
industry. Local schemes funded by the Single Regeneration Budget are aiming to re-establish the area as a location of economic competitive advantage.
Tudhoe
Tudhoe
Tudhoe is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated approximately south of the City of Durham. It lies just outside Spennymoor, a short distance to the west of the Great North Road. The village is now a quiet backwater, its green a cul-de-sac that runs down from the main road towards...
Cricket Ground was the victim of a rogue V1 flying bomb during the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The blast was powerful enough to make a crater in the cricket ground, and blew out the windows of surrounding houses (including those of the local St. Charles' Church) as well as shaking a great many other buildings.
Anne Wood
Anne Wood CBE is a British children’s television producer.She was born in Spennymoor, County Durham, England and grew up in Tudhoe Colliery, a small coalmining village nearby.-Her Teaching Years:...
, creator of the Teletubbies
Teletubbies
Teletubbies is a BBC children's television series targeted at pre-school viewers and produced from 1997 to 2001 by Ragdoll Productions. It was created by Ragdoll's creative director Anne Wood CBE and Andrew Davenport, who wrote each of the show's 365 episodes. The programme's original narrator was...
and In The Night Garden
In the Night Garden
In the Night Garden... is a BBC children's television series, aimed at children aged from one to four years old. It is produced by Ragdoll Productions. Andrew Davenport created, wrote, and composed the title theme and incidental music for all 100 episodes. It was produced by Andrew Davenport and...
, was born and brought up in Spennymoor.
Politics
Spennymoor has elected Labour MPs for many years. From 1918 to 1950 it had its own parliamentary constituencySpennymoor (UK Parliament constituency)
Spennymoor was a county constituency centred on the town of Spennymoor in County Durham. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, elected by the first past the post system.-History:...
. From 1983 to 1997 it was part of the Sedgefield constituency
Sedgefield (UK Parliament constituency)
Sedgefield is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...
; the MP during this period was Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
, who was Leader of the Opposition for the last three years of his tenure as the town's MP. The town had been moved out of the constituency by the time he became Prime Minister
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
. Since 1997 it has been part of the Bishop Auckland constituency
Bishop Auckland (UK Parliament constituency)
Bishop Auckland is a county constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election. Since 1935 it has elected Labour MPs.-Boundaries:...
, whose MP since 2005 is Helen Goodman
Helen Goodman
Helen Catherine Goodman is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for Bishop Auckland since 2005, and was the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for in the Department for Work and Pensions until 2010 with responsibility for Child Poverty and childcare.-Early...
.
Whitworth Hall
Dating from 1183, the Whitworth HallWhitworth Hall, County Durham
Whitworth Hall which stands in Whitworth Hall Country Park, near Spennymoor, County Durham England, is a country house, formerly the home of the Shafto family and now a hotel. It is a listed building....
estate was owned by and home to the Shafto family for over 300 years, including County Durham MP "Bonnie Bobby Shafto
Bobby Shafto
Robert Shafto was an 18th-century British Member of Parliament , who was the likeliest subject of a famous North East English folk song and nursery rhyme "Bobby Shafto's Gone to Sea".-Biography:...
", made famous by the well known ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
and nursery rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
. It is now the site of Whitworth Hall Hotel and the deer park for which the estate is famed is still well tended, as is the walled garden.
Spennymoor Settlement
A local arts community founded in the 1930s by Bill & Betty Farrell with the aid of the Pilgrim TrustPilgrim Trust
The Pilgrim Trust is a London-based charitable trust. It was founded in 1930 by a two million pound grant by Edward Harkness, an American philanthropist. The trust's first secretary was former civil servant, Thomas Jones....
, "To encourage tolerant neighbourliness and voluntary social services and give its members opportunities for increasing their knowledge, widening their interests, and cultivating their creative powers in a friendly atmosphere". The Settlement was home to the town's first library, and amongst famous local people who were a part of its history were Norman Cornish, "the pitman painter" and Shildon
Shildon
Shildon is a town in County Durham, in England. It is situated 2 miles to the south east of Bishop Auckland and 11 miles north of Darlington. It is 13 miles away from Durham, 23 miles from Sunderland and 23 miles from Newcastle-upon-Tyne...
-born writer Sid Chaplin
Sid Chaplin
Sid Chaplin was a writer whose works are mostly set in the North East England of the 1940s and '50s.- Tribute to Sid Chaplin :...
. The building is a centre for the arts- mostly drama and music, but other community events take place here.
Miners' banner
A new banner was marched for the first time in the 2006 Durham Miners' GalaDurham Miners' Gala
The Durham Miners' Gala is a large annual gathering held on the second Saturday in July in the city of Durham, England. It is associated with the coal mining heritage of the Durham Coalfield, which stretched throughout the traditional County of Durham. It is also locally called "The Big Meeting"...
(The Big Meeting), representing 13 (former) local collieries. The banner was unfurled on the night before the big meeting, by MEP Stephen Hughes
Stephen Hughes (politician)
Stephen Skipsey Hughes is a Member of the European Parliament for the Labour Party for the North East England. Representing the Durham constituency between 1984 and 1999, Hughes was elected to its successor constituency in 1999 and re-elected in 2004 and 2009...
and long-time trade unionist Rodney Bickerstaffe
Rodney Bickerstaffe
Rodney Bickerstaffe has been president of the UK National Pensioners Convention and was leader of Britain's largest trade union, UNISON until 2001....
, General Secretary of the trade union UNISON
UNISON
UNISON is the largest trade union in the United Kingdom with over 1.3 million members.The union was formed in 1993 when three public sector trade unions, the National and Local Government Officers Association , the National Union of Public Employees and the Confederation of Health Service...
from 1995 to 2001. Its first outing on the following day began with visits to 'The Tubs', a miners' memorial made from tubs once used underground in Ellington Colliery, Northumberland
Northumberland
Northumberland is the northernmost ceremonial county and a unitary district in North East England. For Eurostat purposes Northumberland is a NUTS 3 region and is one of three boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "Northumberland and Tyne and Wear" NUTS 2 region...
, which honours the memory of all of the men and boys who lost their lives in the mines of Spennymoor and district, then went on to two war memorials, the main cenotaph
Cenotaph
A cenotaph is an "empty tomb" or a monument erected in honour of a person or group of people whose remains are elsewhere. It can also be the initial tomb for a person who has since been interred elsewhere. The word derives from the Greek κενοτάφιον = kenotaphion...
outside the leisure centre and a smaller memorial in Tudhoe Cemetery
Tudhoe
Tudhoe is a village in County Durham, in England. It is situated approximately south of the City of Durham. It lies just outside Spennymoor, a short distance to the west of the Great North Road. The village is now a quiet backwater, its green a cul-de-sac that runs down from the main road towards...
.
Facilities
The main attractions in Spennymoor are the local leisure centre, and Victoria Jubilee Park which was given to the people of the town by Queen Victoria to celebrate the jubilee of her reign, and is sited on land which was once part of the Whitworth HallWhitworth Hall, County Durham
Whitworth Hall which stands in Whitworth Hall Country Park, near Spennymoor, County Durham England, is a country house, formerly the home of the Shafto family and now a hotel. It is a listed building....
estate of the Shafto family. Until World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
there was a cannon from the Crimean War
Crimean War
The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...
on display in the park, this was taken away to be melted down for munitions. A Millennium
Millennium
A millennium is a period of time equal to one thousand years —from the Latin phrase , thousand, and , year—often but not necessarily related numerically to a particular dating system....
arch was erected in the park.
The leisure centre houses a swimming pool
Swimming pool
A swimming pool, swimming bath, wading pool, or simply a pool, is a container filled with water intended for swimming or water-based recreation. There are many standard sizes; the largest is the Olympic-size swimming pool...
, and offers swimming lessons
Swimming lessons
Swimming lessons is the process of learning to swim. In most countries there is a definition of a number of swimming levels that is reached in the process of the curriculum. The respective certificates of swimming tests are required for further training in aquatic abilities...
, football coaching, martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....
tutoring, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
lessons, badminton
Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
practice, a gymnasium
Gym
The word γυμνάσιον was used in Ancient Greece, that mean a locality for both physical and intellectual education of young men...
and gymnastic workouts and is also home to a new 'state-of-the-art' Regional Gymnasium Centre, made possible by funding from the National Lottery
National Lottery (United Kingdom)
The National Lottery is the state-franchised national lottery in the United Kingdom and the Isle of Man.It is operated by Camelot Group, to whom the licence was granted in 1994, 2001 and again in 2007. The lottery is regulated by the National Lottery Commission, and was established by the then...
, Sport England
Sport England
Sport England is the brand name for the English Sports Council and is a non-departmental public body under the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
and Sedgefield Borough Council
Sedgefield (borough)
Sedgefield was, from 1974 to 2009, a local government district and borough in County Durham, in North East England. It had a population of about 87,000 . It was named after Sedgefield; but its largest town was Newton Aycliffe...
, and is amongst the most modern in the country.
There are also plans for a new regional arts centre to be added to the leisure centre, which stands at the junction of High Street and Cheapside in the town centre.
Spennymoor Town F.C.
Spennymoor Town F.C.
Spennymoor Town F.C. is an English football club based in Spennymoor, England, and playing in the Northern League Division One in the English football league system....
are the main local football team.
Spenny Cinema, a monthly community cinema is run at St. Paul's Centre in the heart of Spennymoor and is run by Damascus Road Technical Services, in association with the centre.
External links
- St. Paul's Spennymoor - Parish Church
- Picture Spennymoor History - Historical Pictures & Information
- Spennynews - The Community Newspaper for Spennymoor & surrounding villages
- Spennymoor United Football Club (2006)
- Spennymoor Town Council
- Spennymoor Town Band
- Spenny Cinema - Community Cinema in the heart of Spennymoor