Execution most horrid of 'insolent fellow'

It is one of the larger mining communities of the valley and is often described as a mining village, but there is no longer a colliery here and with its own market place it is more like a small town. Its nearest neighbours are Waterhouses and Hamilton Row just along the valley to the west.

Hamilton Row is the most westerly of the three settlements and is virtually a western extension of Waterhouses. Its colliery was the last of the three to open and the most short-lived. It was a small-scale drift called Ivesley Colliery just north of the village near Ivesley Farm.

Ivesley is the site of a deserted medieval village.

An avenue of trees leading to the farm is said to have been planted in the 1300s to commemorate its plague victims.

Ivesley Colliery was established in 1871 by a Weardale businessman called John Kellet who named his mining settlement Hamilton Town calling its street Hamilton Row. It was named after the Hamilton-Russells of Brancepeth Castle who leased the land to Kellet. After Kellet's death the lease passed to Joseph Walton of Middlesbrough, but the mine was abandoned in 1896.

Esh Winning's story begins at Waterhouses, since the Waterhouses colliery preceded the colliery at Esh Winning.

Both collieries were established by the same mining company and both places have strong links with Roman Catholicism.

Waterhouses was originally a collection of three farmhouses but the original Waterhouse, now gone, was named because of its location near the river.

Its exact site is unknown but in Elizabethan times it belonged to the Claxtons, retainers of the powerful Nevilles of Brancepeth Castle.

Like the Nevilles, the Claxtons remained staunchly and secretly Catholic long after Henry VIII's religious reforms.

Waterhouse was a meeting place for local Catholic nobility where meetings were held in secret because of Catholic persecution.

In the 1580s, an Appleby-born priest called John Boste arrived in England. Educated at the French Catholic college of Douai and ordained at Rheims, he entered the country at great risk.

News of his activities reached the ears of the Protestant authorities but Boste managed to evade capture in Yorkshire.

He performed Mass at many places across the North, including venues on the Brancepeth Castle estate.

In the meantime, some of Boste's close friends and supporters were captured and during severe interrogation it was revealed that the Waterhouse was one of Boste's meeting places.

The building was watched and in 1593, after Boste performed Mass in the house, Protestant searchers burst into the building and broke down its walls, revealing Boste hiding in a secret place.

William, the head of the Claxtons, was not there. He was already imprisoned for his Catholic activities. His wife, Grace, was present along with Lady Margaret Neville.

Both women were found guilty of treason, but escaped punishment. Grace was spared when it was proved she was pregnant, while Lady Margaret was pardoned after the Bishop of Durham rather dubiously claimed she had converted to Protestantism.

Boste was not so lucky. He was transported to London and displayed before Queen Elizabeth who wished to see the "insolent fellow". He was imprisoned and tortured in the Tower of London before returning to Durham for trial in 1594. Sentenced on the morning of July 23, a crowd assembled for his execution at Dryburn on Durham's western outskirts.

Witnesses claimed the hanging, drawing and quartering took place with great speed and brutality.

Many in the crowd mourned his loss.

Boste's bravery and determination was not forgotten, however, and nearly 400 years later, in 1970, he was canonised by the Pope as St John Boste.

Despite its early links with Catholicism, Waterhouses colliery owes its origins to the enterprise of members of a quite different Christian faith.

They were the Pease family, chief amongst the Quaker fraternity of Darlington.

Edward Pease had funded the Stockton and Darlington Railway and his son Joseph Pease established the town and port of Middlesbrough on the banks of the Tees.

Joseph Pease and Partners already owned several collieries in the Billy Row area of the Wear Valley known that were collectively as Peases West.

The Peases leased several hundred acres of Deerness valley land from the owners of Brancepeth Castle and began working coal in the Valley opening the first pit of the new Waterhouses Colliery in 1855.

The pit was called Mary Pit after a member of the Pease family but the colliery was initially called Peases West Brandon Colliery.

More importantly Pease built a new railway line called the Dearness (sic) Railway, which officially opened in 1858.

Commencing at Waterhouses, it ran east along the valley before linking up with the Bishop Auckland line at Relly near Langley Moor. South of Waterhouses an incline linked the line with the Peases West collieries. The whole railway now forms the Deerness Valley walk.

The railway truly opened up the potential for coal mining in the Deerness Valley and the Peases followed up the opening of Waterhouses Colliey with the establishment of the colliery at Esh Winning in 1866.

In next week's Durham Memories we will see how the Peases developed Esh Winning and Waterhouses into model colliery villages and how they strived to improve the education and welfare of their workforce.

If you have memories of Durham you would like to share with The Northern Echo, write to David Simpson, Durham Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF. E-mail David.Simpson@nne. co. uk or telephone (01325) 505098.

If you have memories of Durham you would like to share with The Northern Echo, write to David Simpson, Durham Memories, The Northern Echo, Priestgate, Darlington, DL1 1NF. E-mail David.Simpson nne.co.uk or telephone (01325) 505098.