LAST week, we stumbled into Kirk Merrington, a hilltop village between Bishop Auckland and Ferryhill which, in ancient times, belonged to the Benedictine monastery at Durham City.

We, though, were looking at the pubs – particularly the one that used to stand on Coulton Terrace as we couldn’t make out its name.

Peter Howe and Chris Orton were among those who remembered that it was the Three Horse Shoes, as did Jean Armstrong, who added: “It was run for years by Billy Elliott and later by the infamous Jack Robinson.” Jean’s sister, Sheila Moore, ran another of the pubs pictured last week, the Greyhound, which is now the Village Inn.

Several people mentioned how many pubs this village once supported, and, fortunately, Ann Arthur in her 2014 book about Merrington mentions them all:

Fox and Hounds: it has definitely been on the road to Durham since 1768; it was probably there in the 16th Century, and may well have been there back into medieval times.

Sportsman and Half Moon: these pubs were in the same block of buildings since about the 1820s, with the Sportsman facing the road to Durham and the Half Moon looking onto the green, as it does now.

Bay Horse: opposite the Half Moon on the green, it ceased trading in 1934 and is now a private house. Reputedly a toppled headstone from the churchyard acts as a hearthstone due to a pub bet.

Three Horse Shoes: a beerhouse in the 1850s, it was closed by Vaux in 1998 and is now a private house.

White Hart: a beerhouse in 1861, it closed in 1933 – the closures in the 1930s were presumably a reaction to the contracting south Durham coalfield.

Greyhound: built in Richardson Place in the 1850s, now trading as the Village Inn.

Shamrock: halfway up the bank from Leasingthorne, this beerhouse was run by Cuthbert Stobbs in the 1860s, but later it was known as the Pit Laddie, changing to the Shamrock before the First World War. Now a private house.

GEOFF CARR in Aycliffe Village sent a lovely letter about moving to Merrington in 1952 from Baff Street, Spennymoor, when he was seven.

“It was a great village to be in as a child, only a handful of cars so lots of safe play, surrounded by lanes and fields, two excellent shops plus a post office, a quality fish and chip shop, lots of activities in the Church Hall, and most importantly a wonderful community,” he says.

“We had moved there from our terraced town house with an outside earth closet, a tin bath, no garden, into a brand new council house with an inside toilet, running hot water , a bath, and gardens front and back – absolutely the stuff of dreams.

“But my mam contracted TB at the age of 30 and spent six months in Wolsingham sanatorium, but she came out to this lovely home, and it really did give her a new lease of life – not just the house, but the amazing people who had helped my dad in difficult times.”