A VILLAGE with a more famous US "big brother" is being pinpointed on the local road network.

Traffic engineers yesterday erected signs on the main routes in and out of the former pit community of Philadelphia, Wearside.

Not only will it help hapless motorists, baffled where the village starts and ends, but it will also ensure cricket matches start on time at the local club.

For when Philadelphia Cricket Club left the Durham Senior League after more than a century last year, and joined the fledgling North-East Premier League, other clubs found difficulty not just finding the Bunker Hill ground, but also the village itself.

Calls were made by the club to have signs erected pinpointing Philadelphia to aid baffled road-users.

Their pleas were answered, but only after an appeal to local experts to locate exactly where the village starts and ends.

Local history buffs Brian Gold and Geoffrey Milburn put their knowledge to good use to help draw up the accepted village boundaries.

Mr Gold, whose father-in-law Jack Pow is the oldest living century-maker for the cricket club, and Mr Milburn also shed more light on the history of the village and how it acquired its distinctive name, shared with the large metropolis in Pennsylvania, in the US.

They revealed that unlike most cases where US towns and cities gained their name from original British places, it was the opposite situation with Philadelphia.

Sunderland City Council spokesman John Bailey said: "In this case Philadelphia, in what is now Tyne and Wear, took its name from the United States location.

"During the War of Independence in 1776-83, an important battle was won by the English at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the local mineowner in County Durham, England, decided to name the pit in honour of the battle.

"In the battle of 1777 General Howe, commanding one of three British regiments, led his troops north from the port of New York.

"After overcoming stubborn resistance from George Washington's forces at Germanstown, he apparently quartered his army comfortably in Philadelphia."

A brief summary of the explanation is given on the signs, one of which was erected on Philadelphia Lane, at one of the now accepted entry points to the village from nearby Newbottle, yesterday.