Langley Park Hotel is situated in the wide front street of Langley Park and is one of the village's most historic features. The pub dates from July 1875 and is built of the attractive stone used in Langley Park's oldest terraces. The pub was built and managed by Consett Iron Company, but in 1909 Newcastle Breweries took it over and through association with the company logo, it has long been known as the Blue Star Pub.

The pub's most remarkable feature is the old handball court to the rear. Consisting of high walls enclosing a yard, it is a listed building, protected by law. Handball, also called Fives is an energetic game resembling squash but played with hands rather than a racket. It is still played across the world today but players normally wear gloves. In Durham, where miners' hands were toughened from work at the coal face, they used bare palms, but some chose to pickle their palms.

Fives was extremely popular in Durham villages in times gone by and miners often risked money gambling on the outcome of games. Some successful players became local heroes, achieving widespread fame across the county. The idea of the game, which is said to originate in twelfth century France, is to hit the ball above a bar marked on the front wall so that the opposition cannot return it before the second bounce. How long it had been played in Durham is not known, but in the nineteenth century it was also played behind taverns as far south as London and Somerset. Despite its popularity with Durham miners it was not solely a working class sport and is perhaps most closely associated with public schools like Eton and Rugby.

For many years the Langley Park Hotel was the only drinking establishment in Langley Park, but energetic villagers could climb the silly steps to the Board Inn at Hill Top village or head east to the Station Hotel at Wall Nook.

The Board Inn was in existence long before neighbouring Ushaw College was built and is thought to date to the 1500s. In the 1800s the inn was a meeting point for huntsmen as hunting was a significant part of life in the area in times gone by. In fact north of Langley Park, the Lambton family owned much land and ensured that their hunting rights were protected after Langley Park colliery opened in 1874. In 1912 no less a person than King George V was a guest of Lord Lambton in a shooting trip to Kaysburn Wood, just north of Wall Nook.

The Station Hotel at Wall Nook served villagers and passengers from the nearby station. In later years it was rather innocently called the Gay Tavern until 1974 when it was renamed by its new proprietor, an army major who called it the Centurion Inn after a Centurion Tank. The inn served the community until quite recently but is now a private house.

There are other drinking places in Langley Park today however, including the Working Mens Club at the eastern end of Front Street and the Ram's Head Pub in Quebec Street. The Ram's Head was formerly a Butchers Shop established by a family called Coates in 1909 and the shop incorporated an off-licence with its own snug. It did not however become a pub until 1951 when the Westoe Brewery of South Shields purchased the building.

Though Langley Park colliery only opened in 1874, by the 1890s its population had risen from about a dozen farming families to 2,000 people, mostly employed in mining. This population had risen to 5,000 by 1914. Education is an important requirement for an expanding population and Langley Park's first school, called the British School opened north of Front Street in March 1878 with support from the Consett Iron Company.

However, Langley Park's population continued to expand and in 1907 a separate infant school was built in Wood View a little further south. In 1910 yet another school (the present primary school) was built in the south of the village just behind Front Street, for more senior pupils. Langley Park's first school was no longer suitable and closed at this time. It was used as a parochial hall for many years and became a youth centre in 1964. The former Infant School in Wood View is also no longer used as a school and is now the Wood View Community Centre.

Around twenty-two shops and trades were already in place at Langley Park by the 1890s rising to about thirty-seven in 1910. One of the first shops was the Co-operative store and its modern counterpart still trades today. Other features of the village built around the turn of the century included the Literary Institute and Library near All Saints Church in Quebec Street and not far south, an isolation hospital for infectious diseases. This was erected in 1895 in a location that was then slightly away from the village, but it is now a nursing home on the southern edge of the village.

From the 1880s Langley Park was well served by churches. All Saints Anglican parish church along Quebec Street dates from 1887, but probably replaced an earlier, temporary church. The two Methodist chapels were certainly in place by this time. The Wesleyan Methodist chapel in Front Street was built in 1881 and the former Primitive Methodists in Quebec Street dates from 1883. The two churches merged in 1977 and now both use the Front Street chapel. Also near here is the Baptist Church of 1895.

Esh Laude church near Esh village initially served the spiritual needs of Roman Catholics in Langley Park but before the 1930s and up until the construction of St Joseph's Church in the 1960s they used what is now St Joseph's Hall near the former Hippodrome Cinema.

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.

E-mail david. simpson@ nne. co. uk or telephone (01325) 505098