Sunderland Bridge and Croxdale

These are two villages a couple of miles south of Durham city. Towns and villages in country Durham fall into two categories - older established, that are quaint and picturesque; and colliery towns that... are not. Sunderland Bridge is the form, Croxdale the latter.

Sunderland Bridge is just off the A167, which was the Great North Road and A1 at one time. The building on the right of the photo is the church hall, and the retaining wall on the left has the church graveyard behind it.


The church itself is rather attractive. St Bartholomew's was built in 1843-46.


The church is the only communal building - there is no pub or shops.



At the far end of the one street, the road turns abruptly right, and on the corner is a large, imposing house. You can just see a turret on the left.


I assume the turret is a folly.


Back to the A167, and we cross the East Coast Main Line...


... And get to Croxdale.


Behind the terrace housing, the community centre, the only highlight, is hidden away.


The village continues south; I did not have time to get that far. Down the B6288 there are a further five rows of houses. As far as I can see there were only ever three pubs here, and two are still open - a surprisingly high proportion. First is the Croxdale Inn, formerly the Croxdale Colliery Inn. At the far end of Croxdale is the Dalesaide Arms, formerly the Nickynack Bridge Hotel. Rather sad it is no longer called that!

The only closed pub was the Station Hotel, at the north end of the village, obviously back where the road crosses the railway.


The station closed in 1938. This was the station house.


The colliery was on the west side of the A167, and the earthworks for the railway sidings are still obvious.


Heading back north, the A167 crosses the River Wear.


From the road bridge a rather older bridge can be seen. This is the actual Sunderland Bridge that the village takes its name from. Thought to have been built in the fourteenth century.



Further up river is the viaduct where the railway crosses the river.



Finally, back to the A167, just north of the river is the strangely-named Honest Lawyer Hotel, which is notable because that is where we stayed!


The hotel web site has an old portrait of presumably a lawyer, but nothing to indicate who it is. This was originally the Bridge Hotel, built between the wars.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Prague Part One, The River

Image
Prague is the capital of the Czech Republic, and former capital of Bohemia. I was there three days, and it is a fair-sized city, so this is the first of four parts. Other parts are here: Prague Part Two, East of the River Prague Part Three, West of the River Prague Part Four, Getting Around I was lucky enough to get a view of the city as my aeroplane came into the airport. So let us start with the river and its bridges. The Vltava is the longest river in the Czech Republic, and flows generally northwards to join the Elbe at Mělník, which in turn discharges into the North Sea northwest of Hamburg. It is crossed by 18 bridges in Prague. In the image above, you can see four of them. The one at the bottom is the most famous; the Charles Bridge. Above it is the Legion Bridge, then the Jirásek Bridge and at the top the Palacký Bridge. The Charles Bridge is the big tourist attraction, and was packed with people whenever we saw it. This is a view looking east along the bridge. Co...
Read more

Cardiff

Image
Obviously Cardiff is the capital of Wales, but it only achieved that status in 1955, and indeed only became a city in 1905. As this mile post makes clear, it was just a town in 1835. Indeed, in 1800 it was a rather small town, with a population on only about 2000, but over the course of the nineteenth century it became huge! The growth was due to the work of John Crichton-Stuart, Second Marquess of Bute; a Scotsman who owned a big chunk of South Wales, and saw an opportunity to make a lot of money by developing docks in Cardiff to serve the growing coal and steel industries in the valleys to the north. Todays the docks are a shadow of their former glory. though much of the area has now been redeveloped. This image is a good starting point, showing Cardiff bay. At one time this would have been the scene of intense industry, but today a barrage has been built across the entrance to the bay (centre of the photo), and no ships can enter. It is no longer tidal. To the left, you can see ...
Read more

Prague Part Two, East of the River

Image
We had two full days in Prague, and explored the area east of the river on the first day. The big tourist area is the Old Town Square. On the west side is the Old Town Hall, which features the famous Astronomical Clock. On the opposite side, towering over the other buildings is the Church of Our Lady before Týn. Slightly off the square are these colourful buildings. Wenceslas Square - as I understand it anyway - is anything but square, being some 700 m long, but only 60 m wide. I would call that a wide street. This was the setting for the Velvet Revolution, 17 November to 28 November 1989, the start of the end of communism in the country. This is the main tourist drag, and if you go here at night, expect to get offered all sorts of things... There was construction work going on, which did get in the way of some photos. This is to bring trams back into the square. At the top is the National Museum - a very impressive building. And in front of it, a statue of Saint Wenceslas. Th...
Read more