Q I AM trying to discover the history of my birthplace, Whitwell, near Sherburn, in Co Durham. My family moved from the village in the 1930s. - Miss M Simpson, Garforth, Leeds.

AWhitwell village was historically located in an extra-parochial parish called Whitwell House. Whitwell House itself is built on the site of a settlement that goes back to medieval times. It certainly existed at the time of the Boldon Book, Durham's Domesday Book that was compiled in the 12th century.

Whitwell House is named after a neighbouring well or spring. The house was owned by Thomas Bullocke and later, in the 1600s, by Thomas Brass and the Teasdale family in the 18th century.

Whitwell House parish was linked to the neighbouring parish of the medieval Sherburn Hospital, now a care home for the elderly. The whole of the parish was enclosed by a loop formed by the Whitwell and Chapman becks and was crossed by two railway lines. One of these was the Leamside line (which still exists) and the other was a colliery wagonway on which were the colliery villages of Whitwell Grange in the north and Whitwell Colliery to the south.

The coal mined in this area was known as Whitwell Wallsend and most of the people who lived in the parish were employed in mining. The parish had a population of 210 people in 1891 but had been at its peak a decade before when it was home to 285 people. A coal mine was opened here in the 1830s with the A pit sunk in 1836, followed by the B pit in 1838 and C pit in 1855. Coal mining had ceased by 1875.

Whellan's Topography and Directory of Durham in 1891 reported that the village of Whitwell Grange was almost deserted and the colliery plant and buildings had fallen into ruin, with the few inhabitants who remained working at Sherburn House Colliery. The depopulation of redundant colliery villages, such as Whitwell Grange and Whitwell Colliery, continued into the 20th century and it is possible that members of your family were among some of the last inhabitants of the village.

For information on Whitwell Colliery and other collieries in County Durham I would recommend the website Durham Mining Museum at www.dmm.org.uk

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