Spennymoor Parish - 1910
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Spennymoor is a market town, with a station on the Bishop Auckland Ferry Hill branch of the North eastern railway, and is 4 miles west from Ferry Hill, 5 ½ north-east from Bishop Auckland, 6 south from Durham and 249 from London, in the Bishop Auckland division of the county, north-west division of Darlington ward, petty sessional division and county court district of Bishop Auckland, Auckland Union, and rural deanery and archdeaconry of Auckland and diocese of Durham. The town, which from July, 1864, was controlled by a Local Board, is now governed by an Urban District Council of twenty-one members, formed under the provisions of the “Local Government Act, 1894" (56 & 57 Vict. C. 73). Spennymoor Urban District was extended 31 December, 1894, and comprises the civil parishes of Tudhoe, Whitworth, Low Spennymoor and Merrington Lane; and likewise contains the following ecclesiastical parishes, viz.,:- Holy Innocents of Tudhoe, St. Andrew’s of Tudhoe Grange, St. Paul’s of Spennymoor and part of Whitworth. This place has rapidly advanced in importance, wealth and population, owing to the product of coal and the establishment of the Weardale Steel, Coal & Coke Co. Ltd., who employ many hundred men: in a few years it has risen from an obscure township into a wealthy town. It is lighted with gas and by electric light and supplied with water from the Weardale & Shildon Water Works. By Local Government Board order No. 32,175, parts of the civil parishes of Ferryhill, Merrington, Tudhoe and Whitworth were, in 1894, added to the Urban District. The ecclesiastical parish of St. Paul’ was constituted from Whiotworth, October 29th. 1875. The Church of St. Paul erected in 1857 and enlarged in 1876 and again in 1890, at a total cost of one thousand and sixty pounds, is a plain building of stone, in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, south porch, and western tower, containing tubular bells; there are several memorial windows, including one erected by the parishioners December, 1878, to the Reverend Charles carr B. A. vicar of Whitworth, 1848-81; there are sittings for 482 persons. The register dates from the year 1858. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value three hundred pounds, with residence, in the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Durham, and held since 1900 by the Reverend Joseph Short B. D., D. C. L. of Durham University. There are Baptist (English and Welsh), Wesleyan Methodist, Primitive Methodist, United Methodist and Welsh Calvinistic Methodist Chapels, a Christian Lay church and Salvation Army Halls. The Town Hall, in High Street, chiefly used for concerts and other public entertainments, is 70 by 34 feet, and has a platform at one end 31 by 16 feet, and private entrances. There is also a theatre, Masonic Hall, the Hedley Memorial Hall, and two market halls, one in Spennymoor proper and the other in Tudhoe Grange adjoining. The Assemble Hall, in Duncombe street holding 900 people, is now used as an auction sale room. The market is held every Saturday. The North Eastern hotel, adjoining the railway station, was erected in 1894. The Urban District Isolation Hospital in Merrington lane parish, was erected in 1902 at a cost of six thousand five hundred pounds, and will hold twelve patients. Victoria park, 16 acres in extent, was opened to the public in 1889; it is laid out with flower beds and walkes, and contains a band stand and artificial lake; it is now under the control of the Urban district Council. The area of Spennymoor Urban District is : Low Spennymoor, 237; Tudhoe parish, 1,853; Merrington Lane parish, 315; Whitworth parish, 983; total, 3,388 acres; assessable value in 1910, thirty six thousand one hundred and thirty four pounds; the population in 1901 was, Low Spennymoor, 1,175; Merrington Lane 1,598; Tudhoe, 7,652; Whitworth, 6, 240; total, 16,665. The population of the Urban District Wards in 1901 was, Ferryhill, 2, 773; Spennymoor, 6, 052; Tudhoe, 7, 840 Merrington Lane is a civil parish, formed in 1894, by Local Government Board Order No. 31, 709, from that part of Merrington civil parish in Spennymoor Urban District. The area is 315 acres; rateable value, three thousand seven hundred and thirty pounds; the population in 1901 was 1, 598. Here is a Mission Church, which is served from St. Andrew’s Tudhoe. |