LAST week, Memories told of death by dirigible – how, a few minutes after midnight on April 6, 1916, a Zeppelin airship came over the villages of the Dene Valley, to the east of Bishop Auckland, and dropped bombs on the civilians below.

Partly because of the amateurish nature of the raid and partly because of the rural nature of the Dene Valley, only one person was killed – Robert Moyle, nine, whose family home at 21, Halls Row, Close House, was destroyed.

During the 15-minute raid, the airship dropped 27 bombs, destroying six houses, seriously damaging 13 more and blowing out the windows in another 48 before it passed over Old Eldon at the head of the valley and flew for home.

“I was fascinated by your story because my brother, Ian, lives in Old Eldon, and a few years ago he was given a few pieces of a bomb from that raid,” says Geoff Carr of Aycliffe. “We can't be sure of their provenance, but a handwritten label on one of them looks to have been there for a hundred years – it's almost embedded itself into the metal.”

The label reads: “Fragment of bomb dropped from a Zepp on Eldon. Wed 12.20am Apr 5/6 (Thur)".

Whoever wrote it was factually correct: the raid took place on the night of Wednesday, April 5 going into Thursday, April 6.

It is an extraordinary souvenir – a very heavy one, for its size – of an extraordinary night in south Durham’s history.

THE theory in 1916 was that the Zeppelin was looking to bomb coalmines, and from a couple of thousand feet in the air, the burning pitheaps would have been visible in a way that the blacked-out houses were not.

The Zeppelin flew over the south of Bishop Auckland as if on a reconnaissance run. The furthest west it got was Railey Fell, which is above the villages of Ramshaw and Evenwood.

Coal had been mined on the fell since medieval times – there are records as far back as 1379 and 1383 – and when it came under attack 100 years ago, about 250 men were employed up there.

Because there were no air raid sirens and no telephones in 1916, a policeman on a bicycle was despatched from Bishop Auckland to warn the men of the danger.

However, the Zeppelin turned round over Railey Fell and began its bombing run – passing over the head of the policemen as he pedalled out towards the colliery.

“Railey Fell colliery was at the north end of Ramshaw,” says Colin Bennett. “My mother was eight years old at the time and attended Ramshaw school, and she used to say that the school windows were blown out that night.”

After Ramshaw, the Zeppelin’s attention was drawn by Randolph Colliery at Evenwood and it dropped 23 bombs, destroying 15 houses and damaging 70 more, before moving eastwards to the Dene Valley, where its target may have been the giant Auckland Park complex.

Colin takes us back to Railey Fell. He says: “The colliery was owned by Stobarts and consisted of a series of drift mines. It was connected to the rail network by a short spur which ran behind the houses at Ramshaw to the Haggerleases branch. Bricks with the Stobart name on them can still be quite often seen lying in the Gaunless riverbed along with some with the Pease name.

“I have also seen bricks in the river with the name John Hogg impressed in them – Hogg is a West Auckland name but who John Hogg was I have no idea.”

Can anyone help us out with information about John Hogg, and are there any more stories from the Zeppelin raid?