HOLMSIDE is located halfway between Burnhope near Lanchester and Edmonsley near Sacriston. It is a pretty location with little valleys hidden among the hills and consists of three distinct sites - all called Holmside.

A place with charm and history, there is little in the way of modern development here apart from a neighbouring wind farm.

Nearest to Burnhope is Little Holmside Hall, the most westerly of the Holmsides. It is a building of architectural significance but Holmside's early history is centred on another Holmside Hall, half a mile north-east, near Craghead.

Both halls are Grade II listed buildings and are private properties. In placenames, Holm' often describes land surrounded by water but although feeders for several little streams surround Holmside Hall, the site is first recorded in the Boldon Book of 1183 as Holneset.

This means Holly fold' or Holly stable' and is perhaps named from a Holm Oak tree that has holly-like leaves.

Early Lords of Holmside took the surname Holmeside, but the family died out.

By the late 1300s, Holmside belonged to the Umfravilles, a powerful northern family of Norman origin who probably built the hall.

It was a defended manor and there are still slight remains of a medieval moat.

This surrounded the whole collection of buildings including a chapel that stood nearby. The hall was seemingly built around a courtyard but underwent alterations in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries and little of medieval origin remains.

Holmside Hall passed through marriage from the Umfravilles to the Tempest family, but was seized from the Tempests after 1569, due to their involvement in a Catholic rising against Queen Elizabeth. The Queen gave Holmside to Sir Henry Gate in 1573, though he was the tenant of the new owner, the Manor of East Greenwich.

In 1595, Holmside passed to Henry Jackman and then Sir Timothy Whittingham in 1613. The estate was divided during ownership by Timothy's grandson, abother Timothy and the division resulted in the building of Little Holmside Hall in the later 1600s.

The older hall passed to the Spearmans and, as a result of a Spearman marriage, became the property of Thomas Wilkinson, of Witton Castle, who owned it in the early 19th century.

Little Holmside Hall, built in about 1668, was initially the property of John Hunter of The Hermitage, near Chester-le-Street. It was described by the architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner, in the 1950s, as "one of County Durham's best small country houses", but he also criticised the building's pitiful state of decay.

Fortunately, a local solicitor acquired the hall in the late 1980s and received a Durham County Council environment award for what was described as the "heroic restoration" of the property.

Eastward from the two halls towards Edmondsley, we find the pretty little village of Holmside nestling in a tiny valley formed by Wardles Burn.

In the late 19th century, miners who worked at neighbouring collieries such as Craghead, Edmondsley and Sacriston inhabited the village.

In fact, the mine at Craghead was often called Holmside Colliery.

There is no church in the village because Holmside parish church, dating from 1869, is situated in the village of Burnhope two miles to the west. An inconvenience perhaps, but before 1869 Holmside was part of the parish of Lanchester and people had a much longer journey to make.

There was, apparently, a school at the northern edge of Holmside village from 1844 but this closed before the end of the 19th century.

Despite the distant church and lack of school, Holmside saw further growth in the early 20th century but is still a tiny village by Durham standards.

To the south of the hall is a 19th century hamlet of uncertain history called Peartree, and another neighbouring hamlet called Warland Green.

This was first mentioned under the name Warlandes way back in 1311 and its medieval name means taxable land, belonging to a villein or feudal tenant.

Warland Green was already well-developed by the 1850s when its buildings clustered around the Wardles Bridge Inn that still exists today.

Wardle probably may derive its name from the Wardel family who owned nearby Edmondsley in the 17th and 18th centuries.

West Edmondsley Cottage and West Edmondsley Farm were part of the Warland hamlet.

The Eller Burn and Whiteside Burn meet at Warland and become the Wardles Burn, but half a mile east it becomes the Cong Burn after further streams feed it from Holmside Hall and Wheatley Green.

The Cong Burn ultimately joins the River Wear in Chester-le-Street near the site of a Roman fort called Congangium.

Just north of Holmside is a house called Wheatley Green, part of a farm described by Surtees, the early 19th century historian, as a village of neat tenements. It is situated on Wheatley Green Burn, a tributary of the Cong.

Known as Whitley and Whetlay in earlier times, the manor was held by the Umfravilles in the 1300s, and later belonged to the Earls of Westmorland. In the early 1900s, relatives of mine farmed here, but only a private house remains today.

A quarter of a mile north, the road from Wheatley Green joins the Edmondsley- Craghead road known as Black House Lane. A Black House Inn was shown at this junction on the 1850s map but this is now the Charlaw Inn.

A hamlet of houses called Blackhouse clusters around the inn but Blackhouse was also the name for a village of 164 houses that stood in a field near Edmondsley further to the east from 1925.

The village was demolished in 1978 due to dampness in the properties and the residents were relocated to Edmondsley.

Charlaw is incidentally the name of the fell to the south of Holmside.

The summit can be reached by car from Sacriston or Witton Gilbert and there are great views of all the surrounding land.

● Holmside and other villages are featured in a book by David Simpson entitled The Durham Villages (ISBN 1 901888 51 7), priced £12.95 and available from all good bookshops.