Whessoe's 15 minutes of election fame

Whessoe is at the north end of town, and it straddles the boundary between the Darlington and Sedgefield constituencies.

On May 7, the parish hall served as the polling station for voters in both constituencies. There were five candidates standing in Sedgefield and six standing in Darlington – someone, though, seems to have thought that the ballot papers should have been the same length and so trimmed Darlington down. This was very unfortunate for the sixth candidate who found himself on the cutting room floor.

The parish hall (which may be booked for all kinds of community activities) is administered by Whessoe Parish Council which is celebrating its 70th anniversary next year.

The name Whessoe is, though, much older. It comes from the Old English “Hwessa’s hoh”. A hoh was a hill, and hwess meant sharp.

But there is no steep hill at Whessoe, so perhaps Hwessa was the name of the person who lived there.

Perhaps Hwessa’s descendants lived in the old village of Whessoe, near the A1(M), until it was deserted in the 16th Century leaving only intriguing lumps and bumps in farmland.

When the parish council was created in 1946, it acquired a surplus Second World War Nissen hut – possibly from the Harperley Hall Prisoner of War camp near Crook – and installed it behind the White Horse Hotel in Harrowgate Hill as a parish hall.

A half-cylindrical Nissen hut is quite a cramped space, so in 1988 the council replaced it with a proper brick one, which is now used for community activities five-days-a-week.

Because Whessoe straddles the two constituencies, the hall was opened by representatives from them both: the mayor of Darlington, Beatrice Cuthbertson, and the MP for Sedgefield, Tony Blair.

It is that straddling which, 27 years later, made the hall the talk of election day 2015.

With thanks to parish clerk, Alan Macnab. For details of the parish hall, go to whessoeparishcouncil.org.uk