A SIGN has been placed on Hurworth green telling of the village’s long and varied history: from its Anglo-Saxon beginnings to the 17th Century plague pit beneath the gently undulating grass, from the textile industry which once gave employment to so many of its residents to their long battle against the demon drink.
The sign has been created by parish councillor Lynn Wylie and designed by artist Jaime Westwood, who lives in the east end of the village. Chris Lloyd, who compiles Memories and has written extensively about Hurworth, assisted.
Artist Jaime Westwood, parish councillor Lynn Wylie and Chris Lloyd with the new history board on Hurworth Green
It concentrates on the part of the village from the Spar shop eastwards – the lost ancient heart of Hurworth, the large houses and Norman church clustered around the green, and then the east end where the poor linen workers lived, wove and drank in their riverside homes and pubs.
The parish council intends to make a second sign about the westward history of the Backhouse mansions of Hurworth Grange and Rockliffe, the railways and Hurworth Place.
Hurworth has an Anglo-Saxon name, meaning something like the “wood by the water”, and the focus of the ancient settlement was probably Chapel Green, opposite the village shop. Now only the Old Parsonage remains from those days: it is dated 1450 but its studded door is said to have come from the lost chapel.
It was replaced by All Saints church around the time that Bricteva lived in the village. According to Durham legend, before his death in 1170, St Godric of Finchale Abbey cured “a matron of Hurdevorde named Bricteva suffering from flying gout” – which must have been a very painful condition. This is the first written mention of Hurworth.
The east end of Hurworth, looking west towards the green
At the east end, those residents who survived the plague of 1645 – there are said to be scores, perhaps hundreds, of bodies buried beneath the village green – made a living in an area known as the “old barracks”. This seems to come from the French word “baraque”, which means a temporary hut or a shed, and these were dug into the riverbank. In the 1830s, 120 handloom weavers – all male – were at work in these dark, dank subterranean rooms, using river water in their operations.
A lovely study of the Bay Horse and the east end of Hurworth in the mid 1960s
There are still three pubs in the east end of the village, and some of the working classes were led astray by temptation – but there were plenty of people trying to keep them on the straight and dry. The largest monument in the churchyard is dedicated to the campaigners of the Hurworth Temperance Society, which was the successor to the Hurworth Teetotal and Prohibition Society; the village hall was built as a Temperance Hall, and the dentist’s surgery is in the Darlington area’s first cocoa palace which opened in 1878. Next to it, are the Teetotal Cottages.
All these stories, and more, are told on the sign with loads of information placed around Jaime’s lovely drawings, which also feature on information boards in the lychgate and grange orchards. They are great additions to the village, and we look forward to seeing the westward one!
The Oliver family tend a well somewhere in Hurworth - do you recognise where it might be?
Making hay in Hurworth in the late 19th Century
Looking west from Hurworth green towards the junction with Roundhill Road, which is today, on the right, the site of the village store. On the corner buildings directly in front of the photographer is the sundial seen below
One of the scores of sundials installed by Hurworth's most famous resident, mathematician William Emerson. This one was made by his pupil, John Hunter, in 1772, when Emerson was preparing his book on the making of sundials. Emerson tried out his theorems by making the sundials before publishing his book. This is one of about five that survive. It is still at this angle on a house near the village shop. This 1900 drawing is by the artist George Algernon Fothergill
The east end of Hurworth: the two buildings on the right have been demolished to enlarge the churchyard. The building in the centre with the large shop window is now the fish and chip shop on the end of the row
Looking west along Hurworth village green towards the church in the 1890s
Jack Tiplady "was perhaps the oddest of Hurworth's curios", according to a booklet written in 1908. He lived in "Rock Castle", an underground room dug into the riverbank behind Church Row in the east end of the village. He shared his home with his hens, his favourite being Old Napoleon which roosted every night on the oven door, and it was said that he used the body of a recently deceased hen as a pillow. The villagers gave Jacky - known as "the Hurworth Hermit" - odd jobs to keep him out of the workhouse. They even collected money to provide him with a new wheelbarrow, his most prized possession. He died around the turn of the 20th Century, well into his eighties, and villagers paid for a tombstone to be erected over his grave - can anyone tell us where it is?
The Rectory was built in 1876 in a field beside Roundhill Road, but it was sold by the church in 1949 when its upkeep became too expensive. It was bought by a Darlington solicitor, EHR Freeman, but the church authorities stipulated that he could not call it anything that might cause confusion with the new rectory. He jokily called it Friars Pardon. In 1964, when this picture was taken, the house was due to be demolished and replaced by a small residential development. Villagers expected it to be called something churchy like The Glebe or Rectory Lane, but the developers opted for Friars Pardon so now Hurworth has a little estate with a highly unusual name
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