Northumberland County Council

BRIGHT WATER LANDSCAPE PARTNERSHIP

HERITAGE AUDIT

Part 1: THE AUDIT REPORT

SEPTEMBER 2016

Prepared for: By: Durham Wildlife Trust The Archaeological Practice Ltd.

Project code: Stage: Compiled by: Control: Completion date: Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit

AP16/33-1 Draft AR RC 05/09/2016

2 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit

BRIGHT WATER LANDSCAPE PARTNERSHIP

HERITAGE AUDIT

Part 1: THE AUDIT REPORT

Prepared by

The Archaeological Practice Ltd

Frontispiece: The Grade II* dovecote at Manor Farm, Houghton-le-Side

Cover illustration: The boundary wall of Bishop Middleham Park running alongside Fourmarts Lane with the castle site on the promontory in the background.

Project Code: AP 16/33-1 Oasis Ref: thearcha2-262374

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

SUMMARY

1. INTRODUCTION

2. THE STUDY AREA

3. SOURCES FOR ASSESSMENT

4. PROTECTED HERITAGE

5. HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION

6. HERITAGE AUDIT

7. CONCLUSIONS

APPENDIX 1: Darlington – Skerne Corridor and Cocker Beck Visual Survey

REFERENCES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Archaeological Practice Ltd would like to thank Durham Wildlife Trust for commissioning the Heritage Audit and in particular Susan Hepworth, the Bright Water Development Manager for her invaluable support and advice throughout the project. David Mason, Durham County Archaeologist also provided much helpful advice, whilst the staff of DCC Archaeology Section supplied HER data and access to the aerial photographs and reports held in the Archaeology Section at County Hall. Jacqui Huntley, Historic England’s North-East Regional Scientific Adviser, helpfully discussed the suitability of particular environmental projects for Bright Water Partnership funding. Peter Carne and the other staff of Archaeological Services Durham University kindly made available the Durham University Department of Archaeology aerial photographic collection, whilst David Butler and Liz Bregazzi of Durham Record Office provided a summary of the archival material held there.

The bulk of the report was written by Alan Rushworth, with contributions by Peter Ryder, whilst the illustrations were prepared by Marc Johnstone. Information on the agricultural revolution in the Skerne catchment was contributed by Ian Roberts and LIDAR data and GIS support by David Astbury, all working on behalf of the Archaeological Practice.

Above all, thanks must go to the farmers, landowners, land agents and business proprietors of the Bright Water area who provided advice, access and information regarding farming and heritage along the Skerne. In particular grateful mention must be made of Robert Elders of High Farm, Bradbury, who provided a wealth of information on farming in the carrs over the last 50 years, notably the important 1978 drainage scheme; Gordon Sedgewick of Ricknall Grange who allowed access to the farm buildings there; Rob Wilkinson of Carrsides Farm who facilitated inspection of Great Isle; Alan and David Barker of Ketton Hall who enabled a visit to Peartree Farm and drew attention to the existence of the stone footbridge carrying the Salters Lane bridleway over Newton Beck, north of Ketton Bridge, and Mr Ord of Fir Tree Farm who kindly shared his knowledge of the area’s history; John Davison of Castle Farm, Bishop Middleham, who discussed the potential excavation project at Bishop Middleham Castle and the conservation issues relating to the associated park wall; Janice Brabban who provided access to Shackleton Beacon hillfort and windmill and discussed the management issues associated with the scheduled monument and Ralph Hull of Manor Farm, Houghton-le-Side, who generously allowed examination of the farm’s Grade II* listed dovecote and reproduction of an old photograph of the dovecote.

SUMMARY

The Bright Water Landscape Partnership has received Heritage Lottery Funding for a significant landscape project covering the catchment area of the River Skerne. This report represents a heritage audit of the Bright Water Landscape Area, and has been prepared by The Archaeological Practice Ltd, for and on behalf of the partnership, as part of the project’s Development Phase, which is led by Durham Wildlife Trust. The purpose of the heritage audit is to inform the delivery stage of the project.

The Heritage Audit report is organised in two parts. The detailed heritage audit, including the synthesis as well as the introductory and supporting sections, forms Part 1 of the report, whilst the project recommendations arising from the audit form Part 2.

The landscape context with its distinctive and varied components is described in Section 2. At the core of the area is the distinctive drained marshland environment of the lowland carrs, forming part of the broader Tees Lowlands, with lowland plain to the south and east and the more undulating Vale of Tees to the south-west. The northern and western margins of the Bright Water area rise up on to Durham Magnesian Limestone Plateau and Escarpment. Section 3 examines the various forms of protection offered to the area’s cultural heritage, whilst Sections 4 and 5 summarise the sources of evidence for the audit and the previous history of archaeological investigation into the area’s past.

Section 6 constitutes the period by period audit of the Bright Water Landscape Area. Highlights include one County Durham’s few, and certainly its most impressive, Iron Age hillfort, several Roman roads (Dere Street, Cade’s Road and perhaps Catkill Lane) and the village or small town (vicus) of East Park, Sedgefield. There are a large number of deserted medieval villages (e.g. Woodham, Archdeacon Newton, Preston-le-Skerne), plus small castles and manor houses (e.g. Bishop Middleham, Great Isle and Walworth Castle). The area has many fascinating, historic village communities, the larger ones being adorned by ancient parish churches. The large number of 18th/19th-century farmsteads, are distributed across the area including well-preserved examples at Ricknall Grange, Peartree Farm and Manor Farm, Houghton-le-Side. The Bright Water area played a prominent role in the agricultural revolution, particularly in the field of stock-breeding, and of course in the development of railways with the creation of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, symbolised by John Dobbin’s famous painting of Locomotion crossing the Skerne bridge at the head of the launch-day train. A wealth of built heritage still survives as a reminder of the early railways, including the Skerne bridge itself. During the 20th century Aycliffe served successively as one of the arsenals of democracy (Royal Ordnance Factory ROF 59) and, in the shape of Newton Aycliffe new town, as a model for the fairer world which the architects of the new welfare state hoped to build in post-war Britain.

Part 2 contains the detailed recommendations regarding the projects to be adopted by the Bright Water Partnership. A total of 19 projects are listed, grouped into five themes, namely 1) Investigating the settlement history of the Bright Water area, 2) Farms and farming along the Skerne, 3) The industrial heritage of the Skerne, 4) Environmental archaeology and the Skerne catchment, and 5) Village/community atlases. A variety of techniques are embraced by the projects including, community excavation (including geophysical survey), building recording, documentary analysis and oral history, environmental investigation, and building restoration (including the preparation of conservation strategies). The projects are prioritised according to significance and deliverability, within the likely budgetary scope of the Bright Water Landscape Partnership, with the two flagship projects comprising 1.6: Investigating the history of Great Isle Farm, and 1.7: Investigating Bishop Middleham Castle and Park.

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Heritage Audit

The Bright Water Landscape Partnership has received Heritage Lottery Funding for a significant landscape project in the catchment area of the River Skerne. This document represents a heritage audit of the Bright Water Landscape Area. It has been prepared by The Archaeological Practice Ltd, for and on behalf of the partnership, as part of the project’s Development Phase. The purpose of the heritage audit report is to inform the delivery stage of the project.

The Bright Water Landscape Partnership comprises: Durham Wildlife Trust, the Environment Agency, Groundwork North East, Durham County Council, Darlington Borough Council, Durham County Local Access Forum, Tees Rivers Trust, Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland, Durham Community Action. The Development Phase of the project is led by Durham Wildlife Trust (DWT) on behalf of the wider partnership.

1.2. Aims

The overall approach of the Archaeological Practice to the production of a Heritage Audit encompassing the ‘Bright Water’ project area has been guided by the following aims:

1. To inform the client of the archaeological and historical significance of the project area and the identified research themes/projects, including a chronology of known land use and consideration of the context of the area in the wider historic environment.

2. To provide a prioritised and actionable set of heritage projects which can be delivered by the Bright Water Landscape Partnership.

3. To seek out ways of maximising potential for community involvement in the heritage themes and their constituent projects, both previously identified and newly proposed.

1.3 Methods

The Heritage Audit report has been compiled by a team of specialists assembled by the Archaeological Practice and is organised in two parts. The detailed heritage audit including the synthesis as well as the introductory and supporting sections forms Part 1 of the report, whilst the project recommendations arising from the audit form Part 2.

1.3.1 Data Collection The data collection phase for the Heritage Audit examined a wide range of source material, including archaeological data contained in the Historic Environment Record (HER) documentary records, aerial photographic coverage and historic map evidence, assessing the scope of material available, to gain an overview of the potential dataset with a view to identifying significant sites and archival/documentary collections of particular relevance to the Bright Water Landscape Partnership’s heritage themes and projects. A summary of the available data is provided in Section 3.

1.3.2 Fieldwork A number of site visits were undertaken to the study area to verify HER and other assembled data. Key sites such as Great Isle Farm, Bishop Middleham Castle and Shackleton Beacon were examined. The main village settlements were also visited and photographed, including Sedgefield, Aycliffe, Heighington, Bishop Middleham, Bradbury and Mordon, as were representative examples of type sites such as deserted medieval villages, watermills along the Skerne and its tributaries, windmills, medieval grange farm sites and post medieval 18th/19th-century planned farms. These visits also provided an overview of the character of the Skerne catchment’s historic built environment.

1.3.3 Data Analysis and Reporting The different classes of assembled data were analysed and integrated to form a synthetic audit (Section 6). This identifies key sites and case studies and discusses the various significant themes in the historical development of the Bright Water Landscape. The selection of heritage projects set out in Part 2 of the report is in turn derived from the sites and themes highlighted in the detailed heritage audit.

2. LOCATION AND LANDSCAPE

2.1 Location and Topography

2.1.1 The Study Area 2 Bright Water Landscape covers an area of approximately 200km within lowland County Durham and Darlington, focusing on the River Skerne catchment from Hurworth Burn reservoir to South Park in Darlington (see Figure 1). The project area extends to the east, west and north of Darlington and incorporates the communities of Sedgefield, Fishburn, Bishop Middleham, Bradbury, Mordon, Brafferton, Barmpton, Sadberge, Newton Aycliffe, Heighington as well the northern part of Darlington, including suburbs such as Cockerton which were once rural village communities in their own right, plus many smaller hamlets and farmsteads.

2.1.2 Topography, relief and hydrology The topography of the study area exhibits considerable contrast and diversity. Most distinctive perhaps is the carr-land extending from Bradbury, and Nunstainton southward between Woodham and Mordon as far as Ricknall and Preston-le-Skerne. Formerly marshland, this flat low-lying plain, which originated as a glacial lake, is now intensively drained farmland, a mixture of arable and pasture, and forms the northern heart of the catchment. The area is traversed by multiple parallel watercourses, now canalised to form straight drainage channels, but with enduring relict channels largely infilled with silt yet still evident from the air and in some cases surviving as topographic and bureaucratic features (the former channel of Woodham Burn still forms the boundary between the two civil parishes of Great Aycliffe and Bradbury and the Isle). The watercourses include Woodham Burn and Rushyford Burn to the west of the main channel of the Skerne and numerous lesser streams to the east, all converging to a confluence just above Ricknall Grange and Preston.

The main expanse of this carr-land lies between the 70m and 75m contours, but it is punctuated by two distinct elevations – ‘the isles’ of Great Isle and Little Isle (the latter actually a peninsula) – which rise up between watercourses, though Great Isle only exceeds a height of 85m at one point and Little Isle never even achieves that. It is noteworthy that no modern settlement is situated below the 75m contour in this area, though Great Isle Farm and both Little Isle and Swan Carr Farms, situated on the west and east sides, respectively, of the Little Isle peninsula, lie on or very close to that limit, which evidently marks a critical threshold above potential flooding. It is very likely that the same was true of settlement patterns here in the past.

The River Skerne and its tributary streams drain into the carrs from the higher ground of the Magnesian Limestone Plateau and Escarpment, which form the northern and western fringe of the Study Area. One important channel leads down from the Ferryhill Carrs, which fill the Gap in the Limestone Escarpment and provide perhaps the best impression of what all the carr-land may once have looked like, before its character was radically altered by modern drainage, containing pools of standing water, reed-beds and fringed with alder woodland. Since the pumps of the East Durham collieries were switched off the rising water table has led to the re-emergence of bodies of standing water in the transitional zone along the southern edge of the Limestone Plateau, around Bishop Middleham in particular.

To the north-west and west the study area is bounded by the Limestone Escarpment Ridge which forms a narrow extension of the Magnesian Limestone Plateau and Escarpment. The ridge initially extends westward from the main escarpment, which forms the western edge of the Limestone

Plateau. This east-west oriented stretch of the Escarpment Ridge is occupied by Ferryhill and the three villages known collectively as the Merringtons (Kirk Merrington, Middlestone and Westerton), and forms the watershed between the two major river drainage systems of County Durham, the Wear to the north and the Tees to the south. The gradient of southern dip slope of the ridge is noticeably less severe than the steep northern counterpart and soon gives way to the rolling landscape of the Tees Valley Lowlands. The southern escarpment ridge continues southward on low gently sloping ridge-tops between the villages of Coundon and Shildon. It is beyond this, towards the south-west corner of the Landscape Partnership Area, where it extends into the Pennine fringes around Heighington, West Thickley, Houghton Bank and Bolam, that the highest elevations are attained, where the area’s boundary follows 180m contour, though the ridge tops themselves have been deliberately excluded.

To the south of Ricknall and Preston, the Skerne continues to meander towards its confluence with the Tees, but here, where it winds through the gently undulating landscape of the Tees Lowland Plain, its course is incised in a narrow valley, notably where it passes Newton Aycliffe, Aycliffe village and Barmpton. After entering the built-up conurbation of Darlington and passing through the historic core of the town, the final stretch of the Skerne from South Park to its confluence with the Tees at Hurworth Place/Croft on Tees lies outside the Bright Water Landscape area.

2.1.3 Geology The underlying solid geology across most of the study area is composed of Magnesian Limestone laid down during the Permian era. In places the Permian mudstones of the Roxby and Edlington Formations form the immediate bedrock. In the northern part of the study area these Permian rocks are in turn underlain by the Lower and Middle Coal Measures (Westphalian period), comprising thinly bedded strata of coal, sandstone and mudstone which fall from the upland fringes of County Durham to the lowlands of the Wear and then dip under the Permian Limestone in the east. Only in a small part of the western fringe of the area do the rocks of the Lower Coal Measures constitute the immediate bedrock, however. In the south-western part of the study area the Carboniferous sandstones, siltstones and mudstones of the Millstone Grit series (Namurian period) form the bedrock.

The solid geology of the Bright Water Landscape Area is covered by a thick mantle of glacial drift, made up largely of boulder clay and morainic drift, with pockets of fluvio-glacial sands and gravels around Sedgefield and south of Ferryhill and Bishop Middleham. In the carrs the underlying Permian rocks are masked by a deep mantle of glacial drift of laminated and boulder clays which is overlain in the flattest areas by alluvium and shallow peat.

2.2 Landscape Character

The diversity of the study area is reflected in the overall character of its landscape, or perhaps better, landscapes. When analysing and assessing landscapes in England, the basic frame of reference is the National Character Area (NCA), formerly called the Joint Character Area. Originally developed by the Countryside Commission and recently revised by Natural England, the latter’s ultimate successor body, the National Character Areas represent a comprehensive set of 159 landscape areas encompassing the entire country assessed according to a single set of consistent criteria. Each possesses a distinct and broadly similar landscape character based, for example, on similar topography, field systems/patterns and other landscape features, woodland type and extent, landuse, human history and geology. They generally extend through more than one county.

Formulated by Natural England in parallel with the Joint Character Areas/National Character Areas, from 1993 onwards, was a second class/type of area designations, the Natural Areas – 120 tracts of land with similar types of wildlife and natural features – each with its attendant Natural Area Profile, or description of its ecological character. These provided the framework for much of Natural England’s work in the sphere of nature conservation and sometimes included more than one of the landscape National Character Areas. The Natural Areas have now been replaced by the newly revised National Character Areas which combine all relevant aspects of landscape, biodiversity, geodiversity and cultural and economic activity.

2.2.1 National Character Areas The bulk of the Study Area is divided between two of the National Character Areas, NCA 23: Tees Lowlands, and NCA 15: Durham Magnesian Limestone Plateau, both of which, however, encompass much more extensive areas than the Study Area itself. Of these two it is the Tees Lowlands which is the most important, encompassing all the eastern, central and southern parts of the study area, from Sedgefield in the north-east, and the areas of lowland plain and carr land in the east and centre respectively, through to Darlington in the south and the acres of lowland vale around Archdeacon Newton, Walworth and Denton to the west.

Tees Lowlands

The key characteristics of the Tees Lowlands are:

 A broad, low-lying and open plain of predominantly arable agricultural land, with low woodland cover and large fields, defined by wide views to distant hills.  A large area of urban and industrial development around the Tees Estuary, much of which is on reclaimed land, contrasts with the quieter rural areas to the south and west.  Major industrial installations around Teesmouth form a dramatic skyline, but are juxtaposed with expansive mudflats, sand dunes and salt marshes which are nationally and internationally designated for their assemblage of waterfowl.  Slow-moving rivers Tees and Leven meander through the landscape with steep, well-wooded banks.  A distinctive area of low-lying farmland with remnants of former wetland habitat in the flood plain of the River Skerne to the north-west.  Permo-Triassic red mudstones and sandstones are masked by glacial drift and alluvial material but can be seen outcropping at the coast in places.  Principal transport corridors, power lines and energy infrastructure are conspicuous elements in the landscape  Brownfield sites where semi-natural vegetation has started to regenerate on previously developed land.  Green corridors such as minor valleys and former railway lines provide links between urban areas and the surrounding countryside.

Durham Magnesian Limestone Plateau The Durham Magnesian Limestone Plateau embraces the northernmost parts of the study area from Hurworth Burn Reservoir at the north-east extremity through Fishburn and Bishop Middleham, and the zone around Newton Aycliffe, Middridge and Rushyford to the north-west. Its key landscape characteristics are:

 Open, large-scale landscape with big fields, low hedges and few trees on the plateau tops, incised with stream valleys along limestone escarpment to the west and denes running down to the coast to the east.  Dramatic coastline with exposed cliffs of limestone and boulder clay, undulating series of small, sheltered bays and headlands, flower-rich Magnesian Limestone grassland, steep-sided wooded coastal denes, and sand dunes and beaches that support large populations of waders and seabirds.  Striking west-facing limestone escarpment forming a series of spurs and vales, heavily quarried but still supporting a mosaic of limestone grassland, scrub and woodland.  Strong influence of historic mining industry on both local culture and the landscape, in the form of ex- coal mining towns and villages with distinctive surrounding areas of allotments and pony paddocks, reclaimed colliery sites, disused and existing railways, and industrial archaeology.  A productive farmed landscape with a high proportion of large arable fields and some pasture for sheep and cattle grazing.  Small, fragmented patches of limestone grassland supporting unique combinations of rare plant and invertebrate species.  Historic villages subject to a high degree of 20th-century expansion.  Widespread urban and industrial development in the north and major transport corridors throughout.

Durham Coalfield Pennine Fringe In addition, on its western edge, around Shildon, Newbiggin and West Thickley, the study area marginally intrudes into the south-east corner of NCA 16: Durham Coalfield Pennine Fringe., which exhibits the following characteristics:

 A rolling upland landscape of broad, open ridges and valleys with a strong west–east grain.  A transitional landscape with pastoral farming on higher ground in the west giving way to arable and mixed farming in the valleys and to the east.  A landscape heavily influenced by the mining and steel industries, in particular to the north and east, with scattered mining and industrial settlements of terraced and estate housing occupying prominent sites linked by a network of main roads.  Open cast coal workings forming intrusive features in some areas, and restored open cast areas giving a manmade feel to parts of the landscape. Early restoration sites are often lacking in character, topography and natural and historic features, while later schemes are of more value for wildlife and amenity.  Numerous small plantations of conifers or mixed woodland, as blocks or shelterbelts, on hillsides; in places more extensive conifer woodlands on ridgetops and hillsides.  Wide, open, windswept ridges of regular, large fields bounded by drystone walls and fences and crossed by straight roads, with isolated farmsteads.  Broad valleys of arable and mixed farmland with low hedges, with hedgerow trees, strips of broadleaved woodland following rivers and streams, and conifer plantations on valley sides.  Narrow, steep-sided river valleys sheltering fragments of ancient woodland.  Scattered small country houses, set within parkland and well-wooded estates.

It should be noted that boundaries of the National Character Areas were only loosely defined as broad dashed lines, rather than being tied to specific identifiable landscape features such as roads, railway lines or field boundaries. This reflects the reality that the boundaries between such broad landscape zones are often gradual and progressive and difficult to identify precisely on the ground. The dashed lines may be regarded as marking transitional zones between the different National Character Areas.

2.2.2 County Durham Character Areas and Darlington Character Areas

County Character Areas The three National Character Areas, produced as part of a comprehensive nationwide assessment, are supplemented by the more detailed County Durham Landscape Character Assessment, produced by Durham County Council. This covers those parts of the area now falling within the boundaries of the unitary authority of County Durham, but excludes the landscapes of the Borough of Darlington which is a separate unitary authority.

The County Character Areas are based on the National Character Areas, with the Tees Lowlands CCA corresponding to the Tees Lowlands NCA, the East Durham Limestone Plateau CCA to the Durham Magnesian Limestone Plateau NCA and the West Durham Coalfield CCA to Durham Coalfield Pennine Fringe NCA, for example. However their boundaries are much more precisely drawn than those of the NCAs, as they are based on a more detailed level of assessment, and follow identifiable landscape features such as roads or field boundaries. Furthermore, and partly as a consequence, they often differ significantly from the much more broadly defined NCA boundaries. It should be noted though that level of boundary precision in the County Character Areas was a consequence of the methodology adopted which necessitated clear and precise divisions between one area and another, whereas in actuality it is often difficult to identify a clear divide on the ground between different landscape areas, and the loosely defined boundary edges of the National Character Areas may better reflect the gradual transition between one landscape and another.

Broad Landscape Types and Character Areas Subsumed within each County Character Area are a series of subsidiary Broad Landscape Types – landscapes with similar patterns of geology, soils, vegetation, land use, settlement and field patterns identified at a broad sub-regional level. Thus the Tees Lowlands CCA is composed of the following Broad Landscape Types:  Lowland Carrs  Lowland Plain (around Sedgefield and Newton Aycliffe)  Lowland Vale (west of Darlington)  Lowland River Terraces (along the course of the Tees)

The County Durham Landscape Character Assessment also identified a set of unique Broad Character Areas within each Broad Landscape Type – geographically discrete examples of a particular landscape type. For example two Broad Character Areas, divided essentially north-south, have been identified within the Lowland Carrs Broad Landscape Type:  Nunstainton, Mainsforth & Middleham Carrs. Narrow carrs of wet pasture fringed by low undulating farmland. The carrs are drained by the River Skerne and Mainsforth Stell. There are a number of shallow or seasonal ponds, and small areas of wet woodland in the carr fringe.  Bradbury, Preston & Mordon Carrs. An extensive area of open, largely flat, carrs east of Newton Aycliffe. The lower lying parts of the carrs are improved or wet grassland with large fields bounded by straight ditches. Slightly higher ground at the carr fringes and at Little Isle and Great Isle are mixed farmland of improved pasture and arable cropping with fragmented sub-regular field patterns, occasional hedges and few trees.

Darlington Landscape Character Areas The Darlington Landscape Character Assessment produced by LUC for Darlington Borough Council, the unitary authority for the town, covers that part of the study area which falls within the borough’s boundaries. Again this was a very detailed assessment with boundaries precisely defined down field

13 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit parcel level. Since all but the extreme north-west corner of the borough, around Royal Oak, Newbiggin and Houghton Bank, lies within the Tees Lowlands NCA there was little need in this case to differentiate landscape character in terms of the National Character Areas. Instead the District (excluding the urban core) was divided into 10 constituent Landscape Character Areas, the first seven of which are relevant to the Bright Water Landscape Area:

1. Houghton Bank 2. Red House Beck 3. Denton and Walworth Farmland 4. Whessoe and Dene Beck 5. Upper Skerne Valley 6. Great Stainton Farmland 7. Bishopton Vale 8. Middleton Farmland 9. Lower Skerne and Hurworth Moor 10. Tees Valley

Unfortunately these are not directly correlated to the adjoining County Durham Character Areas or their constituent Broad Landscape Types and Broad Character Areas. However a rough equivalence can be made between the Darlington Character Areas and the CCA Broad Landscape Types which will provide sufficient detail in terms of landscape analysis for the purposes of this study.

DCA 1: Houghton Bank = CCA West Durham Coalfield – Coalfield Upland Fringe DCA 2: Red House Beck = CCA East Durham Limestone Plateau – Limestone Escarpment DCA 3: Denton and Walworth Farmland = CCA Tees Lowlands – Lowland Vale DCA 4-9 = CCA Tees Lowlands – Lowland Plain DCA 10: Tees Valley = CCA Tees Lowlands – Lowland River Terraces

County Character Area Characteristics and Descriptions Because of the diverse nature of the Bright Water Landscape study area, which relates to no less than four of the County Character Areas, it is not possible here to describe all the County Character Area Key Characteristics/Descriptions plus all the particular constituent Broad Landscape Types and Broad Character Areas which are relevant.

The largest part of the Bright Water study area corresponds to the Tees Lowlands CCA, with three of the four Broad Landscape Types (see above list) being represented (the exception is the Lowland River Terraces). In addition, as noted above, the Broad Character Types can be roughly related to Darlington’s Landscape Character Areas.

With respect to the East Durham Limestone Plateau CCA, the Bright Water study area, encompasses part of the Limestone Escarpment Broad Landscape Type, extending west of the main plateau, specifically its central and southern Broad Character Area components, the Limestone Escarpment Ridge and Southern Limestone Escarpment respectively.

Much less significant in terms of total extent is the south-western part of the study area around West Thickley and Shildon, which extends marginally into the West Durham Coalfield CCA and the Dales Fringe CCA. In the first case this included small parcels of two Broad Landscape Types, the Coalfield Valley (Gaunless Valley BCA) and Coalfield Upland Fringe (Brussleton BCA), whilst in the case of the Dales Fringe CCA it intrudes into the eastern end of the Gritstone Vale BLT, around Bolam (Bolam, Hilton & Wackerfield BCA).

The descriptions below are those set out in the most relevant level of the respective County Character Assessments.

Tees Lowlands County Character Area

Key characteristics

 A broad lowland plain of gently undulating, occasionally flat terrain.  Carboniferous and Permian limestones and sandstones are masked by thick layers of glacial drift.  The meandering River Tees flows through the heart of the area on a narrow floodplain between low gravel terraces.  An open landscape of arable and mixed farmland on clay soils.  Sub-regular patterns of low clipped hedges, often fragmented by the amalgamation of arable fields, with scattered hedgerow oak and ash  Low lying ‘flats’ and ‘carrs’ with peaty or alluvial soils are drained by ditches and stells.  Occasional heavily wooded parklands – woodland cover is generally low elsewhere.  A nucleated settlement pattern of old villages connected by winding lanes and occasional larger towns. Older buildings are typically of sandstone with clay pan-tile roofs.  Numerous deserted or shrunken medieval villages. Relics of rigg and furrow cultivations.  A visually open and broad scale landscape with panoramic views to distant hills.  A predominantly rural landscape with occasional larger settlements, busy roads, railway lines and overhead transmission lines.

Description The lowlands of the Tees form a broad plain that merges with the gentle dip slope of the Magnesian Limestone escarpment and the low hills of the Pennine fringe in the north. The underlying geology of Permian limestones in the east and Carboniferous sandstones, mudstones and shales in the west is generally masked by deep glacial drift.

The topography is gently rolling or undulating with low lying ‘flats’ and 'carrs' and areas of more undulating terrain relating to pockets of fluvio-glacial sands and gravels. The River Tees falls very gradually to the North Sea; its meandering course incised between low terraces and flat gravel benches. It is fed by slow moving tributaries like the River Skerne which have been straightened and deepened in places. Water levels in the carrs are maintained by systems of ditches and stells. Soils are heavy drift-derived surface water gleys, with pockets of brown earths on gravels, and earthy peats in poorly drained carrs.

Agricultural land use is mixed but predominantly arable. Field systems are ‘sub-regular’ in pattern and largely date from the enclosure of open town fields in the 16th and 17th centuries. They have been heavily fragmented by the amalgamation of arable fields in the 20th century. Hedgerows tend to be cut low and regularly trimmed. Tree cover is generally low with scattered hedgerow trees, principally Ash and Oak, though some areas are rich in trees. In the carrs field boundaries are water-filled ditches, often supplemented by fences.

Woodland cover is sparse, being generally restricted to a scattering of small plantations although there are some heavily wooded areas associated with ornamental parklands. There are occasional narrow riverside woods along the Tees.

The settlement pattern is nucleated with small ‘green’ villages of Saxon or medieval origins connected by winding lanes. There are many deserted medieval villages, or shrunken villages reduced to single farms or farm clusters. The landscape is predominantly rural though with occasional larger settlements including, in Durham, the modern new town of Newton Aycliffe. The plain is crossed by a number of major roads (the A1(M), A66 and A68) and railway lines and by overhead transmission lines.

The landscape is generally open and broad in scale. The Cleveland Hills form a strong far horizon in the south and east. In flat or rolling areas views of the landscape tend to be shallow and skyline features such as hedgerow trees and woodlands become important in defining and articulating space.

Broad landscape types Landscapes of very similar character cover large tracts of the Tees Plain. A broad distinction can be made between the open arable landscapes of the Lowland Plain in the east, and the mixed farmland of the Lowland Vale with its frequent villages to the west. The flat Lowland Carrs of the River Skerne are distinguished by their peaty and alluvial soils, their wet pastures and boundary ditches: the Lowland River Terraces of the River Tees by their sand and gravel soils and their association with the meandering River Tees.

The Tees Lowland Plain BCA (adjoining Sedgefield, Windlestone and Aycliffe): Gently undulating or rolling farmland in the fringes of the lowland carrs. A patchwork of arable and improved pasture, but predominantly arable, with old pre-enclosure field systems which are locally fragmented. Field boundaries are hedges, usually clipped low, with scattered hedgerow trees. Tree lines follow small watercourses and ditches. Small broadleaved plantations are scattered across the area. There are more heavily wooded areas associated with parklands at estate farmland at Hardwick and Windlestone. The large new town of Newton Aycliffe lies in the west and the large village of Sedgefield in the east. Smaller villages and scattered farms are connected by narrow lanes. The area is crossed by the busy A167 and A689. There are occasional small limestone quarries and old sand pits.

County Durham Landscape Characterisation Assessment: The Tees Lowlands CCA/Lowland Plains BLT/Sedgefield, Windlestone and Aycliffe BCA

Limestone Escarpment Broad Landscape Type (East Durham Limestone Plateau CCA)

Key characteristics

 A low escarpment, deeply dissected in places to form a series of short valleys between well-defined spurs.  Occasional steep-sided incised valleys and glacial melt-water channels.  Gently rounded topography of soft magnesian limestones covered in places by glacial drift.  Thin calcareous soils over limestones with heavier clays on boulder clay and brown earths on glacial sands and gravels.  Open, predominantly arable farmland, with pasture on steeper slopes.  Remnants of limestone grassland on the thin soils of scarp slopes, spurs, ridge tops and incised valleys.  Varied limestone plant communities in abandoned limestone quarries.  Semi-regular patterns of medium and large-scale fields bounded by low, clipped hawthorn hedges.  Few trees – thinly scattered hedgerow ash.  Sparsely wooded – ancient ash woodlands and areas of hawthorn scrub on steep spurs and vale-sides.  Occasional small ‘green’ villages on ridge tops and valley floors. Scattered mining towns and villages.  Large limestone quarries often in prominent locations on ridges and spurs.  A visually open landscape with panoramic views across the surrounding lowlands.  Rural in character in places but with a semi-rural or urban fringe quality in settled areas.

Broad Character Area descriptions

The East Durham Limestone Escarpment Ridge: A low escarpment with moderately sloping scarp slopes and more gently undulating dip slopes, divided by the steep-sided gorge of the Ferryhill Gap. A patchwork of arable and improved pasture, predominantly arable in the east, with old pre-enclosure field systems which are locally fragmented. Field boundaries are hedges, usually clipped low, with few hedgerow trees. There are occasional limestone walls, notably in the medieval deer park of Bishop Middleham. An open landscape with little

woodland other than the young plantations of reclaimed colliery land, and ancient ash woods which line the gorge. Old green villages and hamlets on the ridgetop (Kirk Merrington, Westerton) and in the fringes of the carrs to the south (Bishop Middleham, Mainsforth) are connected by narrow winding lanes. Buildings are of local limestone or sandstone from the nearby coal measures with roofs of clay pan tile or welsh slate and are typically set around a central village green. Larger colliery villages lie on the ridgetop (Ferryhill, Cornforth) and the southern dipslope (Chilton, Fishburn). They are made up of buildings from a number of periods including Victorian terraced housing of red brick and slate, estates of the inter-war and post-war public housing and more recent private development. Settlement edges are abrupt or fringed by allotment gardens and pony paddocks. Large limestone quarries are found on the ridge in the east: the chimney of Thrislington Quarry is a prominent landmark. The ridge is crossed by the A1(M) and busy trunk roads. There are commanding views across the Wear Lowlands from higher ground. To the south the Cleveland Hills form a strong distant horizon.

The Southern Limestone Escarpment. The limestone outcrops along the edge of the Wear Valley in a landscape which is transitional in character between the Limestone Escarpment and the Coalfield Valleys. An open landscape of arable farmland in shallow valleys falling to the Wear or on low gently sloping ridge-tops between the villages of Coundon and Shildon.

County Durham Landscape Characterisation Assessment: East Durham Limestone Plateau CCA/Limestone Escarpment BLT/ The Limestone Escarpment Ridge BCA & The Southern Limestone Escarpment Ridge BCA

The West Durham Coalfield CCA

Broad Landscape Types The West Durham Coalfield can be broadly divided into those landscapes with an upland fringe character (parliamentary enclosures, dry stone walls, pastoral land use and conifer plantations) which are found on the high ridges and valley heads, and those with a lowland character (older field systems, hedgerows, mixed and arable farming) which are found in the lower reaches of the valleys. The settlement pattern of the coalfield with its scattered mining villages doesn’t relate strongly to this distinction – both upland fringe and lowland coalfield landscapes have densely settled and very rural areas.

The landscape assessment identifies Coalfield Upland Fringe and Coalfield Valley landscapes. Within the coalfield valleys the Coalfield Valley Floodplain landscapes, with their very different landform, soils and historical development, are identified as a separate landscape type.

Broad Character Areas Brussleton (Coalfield Upland Fringe BLT). The high ground of Brussleton Hill overlooks the Hummerbeck and Gaunless valleys and merges in the east with the limestone escarpment. The landscape is heavily wooded with ancient oak woods on its north facing slopes, and a dense network of more recent plantations associated with opencast coal mining and land reclamation. Agricultural landuse is mostly pasture. Field patterns vary in character with regular parliamentary enclosures to the north and west, and older enclosures to the east, both heavily disrupted in places by opencast mining. The area is crossed by the Roman road Dere Street, followed by a minor road in the south and a well-defined hollow-way in the north. There are pockets of naturally re- vegetating mining dereliction around the hilltop and a number of telecommunications masts.

Gaunless Valley (Coalfield Valley BLT). The River Gaunless meanders across a narrow floodplain, its banks lined with willow and alder. Tributary streams lie in narrow wooded denes. Ancient oak woodlands of Crag Wood lie on steep slopes overlooking the river. Agricultural land use is mixed with tracts of open arable farmland and improved or semi-improved pasture, and open moor of grass and bracken at Cockfield Fell. Field systems vary in character with areas of regular parliamentary enclosure, early post-medieval field systems around older villages, and large areas of restored opencast land with young hedges, shelterbelts and plantations. A settled rural landscape with old agricultural villages, enlarged during the industrial period, and numerous scattered farms and building clusters. The valley is notable for its mining heritage, and particularly on Cockfield fell where C19th railways lie alongside medieval bell pits and Iron Age settlements.

The Dales Fringe CCA

Gritstone Vale Broad Landscape Type – Key characteristics  Broad rolling vale, incised by the narrow denes of rivers and streams  Gently rounded topography of thinly bedded sandstones, limestones and mudstones overlain by glacial drift.  Mosaic of heavy, seasonally waterlogged clay soils and more fertile brown earths.  Mixed farmland of improved pasture and arable cropping.  Semi-regular, sometimes linear, patterns of old enclosures bounded by thorn hedges, with occasional dry stone walls.  Abundant hedgerow ash, oak and sycamore.  Ancient ash and oak woodlands in narrow denes. Scattered coniferous or mixed plantations.  Areas of old parklands and heavily wooded estate farmland.  Nucleated settlement pattern of small green villages centred on the historic market town of Barnard Castle. Scattered farms.  Buildings of local stone with roofs of stone, slate or clay pan tile. Farms of the Raby Estate painted white.  Narrow winding lanes and some busy modern highways.  Occasional disused army camps.  A well timbered landscape creating a high degree of enclosure in places, but with broad scale panoramic views across the vale from higher vantage points.  A tranquil settled rural landscape.

Bolam, Hilton & Wackerfield Broad Character Area. Gently sloping farmland on the edges of the Hummerbeck plateau overlooking the Tees Vale. A patchwork of arable and pastoral farmland with sub-regular patterns of clipped hedgerows and dry stone walls with scattered oak, ash and sycamore trees. Small agricultural villages and hamlets are connected by narrow winding lanes. The farms and farm buildings of the Raby Estate are painted white.

2.3 Historic Landscape Characterisation

The importance of past human action in shaping the landscape is recognised in the national and county landscape characterisation exercises discussed above and is specifically referenced in certain of the County Character Area key features and descriptions. However this approach is placed centre stage by Historic Landscape Characterisation, which recognises that ‘the whole landscape has a historic dimension, the whole landscape is of value and as such should be subject to characterisation’ (Rippon 2004, 54). Under the guidance and direction of English Heritage this process was developed and refined through a series of county-level projects throughout England, which now include all those in the North-East. These established a series of key principles (Rippon 2004, 54):

 the whole landscape is historic including semi-natural environments (such as unenclosed upland pasture)  the historic landscape is ever present, all around us and always changing  the basis for mapping is the modern landscape  the sources used should be systematic and region-wide  the methodology should be objective, transparent and repeatable

The first generation of HLCs made extensive use of earlier cartographic sources, such as 1st edition and subsequent Ordnance Survey series, as well as modern paper-based mapping, to gauge the degree of recent change in the landscape. Subsequently, the adoption of GIS-based methodologies,

18 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit enabled every parcel of landscape to be tagged with a set of ‘attributes’ (size, shape etc) to which an interpretation could then be added to define blocks of uniform ‘historic landscape type’ (ibid.) Initially this was achieved by digitising paper-based work, but more recently fully electronic base- maps have been used, allowing the potential of historic landscape characterisation to be much more fully exploited. This made possible the integration of data from other sources, such as historic maps and HER databases, and enabled the polygons to be tagged with an increasing number of morphological attributes, which could be interpreted in turn by further attributes. Notably, present and past historic landscape character are now distinguished where these differ significantly. The County Durham & Darlington HLC is an example of just such a ‘third generation’ study with direct relevance to the Bright Water Landscape Partnership Area.

2.3.1 County Durham & Darlington HLC (CD&D HLC) A programme of historic landscape characterisation for County Durham and Darlington was undertaken between 2006 and 2012, funded by English Heritage and Durham County Council. This formed part of English Heritage’s national programme of Historic Landscape Characterisation formulated in the 1990s and undertaken throughout England as a series of county-level studies over the past 20 years. The resultant County Durham and Darlington Historic Landscape Characterisation (CD&D HLC) comprises a report (Durham County Council and English Heritage 2013) alongside a geodatabase of information recording the character of the landscape of County Durham and Darlington over thousands of years. The HLC thus provides a very detailed account of the history of the Durham landscape and a basis for future programmes of conservation and interpretation. The results can then used to judge trajectory of change and guide decision-making in the future, in order to manage and retain the character of an area.

The project has created a body of spatial data with an underlying database which gives an historic landscape character to the entire area of County Durham and Darlington, using techniques and methods refined through two decades of HLC creation in England. This comprehensive geodatabase is in a GIS format (ESRU ArcGIS) and was created from numerous sources, mainly spatial data including historic mapping, modern mapping and aerial photographs. This forms an interactive map 'layer' consisting of thousands of interlinked 'jigsaw pieces' covering all of County Durham and Darlington. Each 'jigsaw piece' represents an area which has a specific historic character and has information on the current landscape character of that area. All the landscape characters have been classified using a hierarchical system of broadclass subdivided into two further, more detailed, levels of character labelled categories and classifications. Specifically this hierarchical typology comprises:

 10 Broadclasses (e.g. Coastal, Enclosed Land, Industrial, Infrastructure, Settlement, etc.)  34 Categories (e.g. Industrial/Manufacturing, Infrastructure/Railways, Settlement/Rural, Settlement/Towns and larger villages, Enclosed Land/Enclosed farmland (medieval), etc.) . 154 Classifications (e.g. Industrial/Manufacturing/Mills)

The geodatabase records both the current character types, with both a major and minor character type within that, and gives all previous visible (and when possible non-visible) historic characters of the area using the same classification system. The project framework recognises that landscape character is the product of landscape change over many centuries.

Spatial analysis of this data within the GIS was in turn used to create larger HLC Character Areas, which formed more extensive but unique combinations of landscape types. Three of these HLC Character Areas relate to the Bright Water Landscape Area. The bulk of the area falls within the Central/South Durham Enclosure Character Area comprising all the eastern, south-western and most of the southern parts (excluding the Darlington conurbation), including Sedgefield, the carrs and all

19 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit the rural environs of Darlington. The north-western quarter extending south from Windlestone through Middridge and Shildon to Newton Aycliffe falls within the Central Durham Scatter CA, whilst the built up area of Darlington was allocated to the South/East Conurbations CA.

The key features and summary descriptions of these HLC Character Areas are set out below.

1. Central Durham Scatter

Key features  Scattered mixture of Settlement, Recreational & Ornamental, Industrial and Woodland on a back drop of Enclosed Land  No one broadclass type (except the underlying Enclosed Land) taking precedence over the other  No pattern of relationship between different broadclass types  Both large and small areas of broadclass type prevalent in this character area

Description This area is seen as an area of Enclosed Land, with pockets of Settlement, Recreational & Ornamental, Industrial, or Woodland within this Enclosed Land „backdrop‟. While the pockets of other broadclass types appear both as large areas and small pockets, there is no clear relationship at this level between them: Recreational & Ornamental is often positioned on the edge of Settlement, as would be expected, but this is not always the case. With the exception of Settlement (of which there is clearly more), there seems to be a vaguely equal distribution of each broadclass type (by area).

2. Central/South Durham Enclosure

Key Features  Enclosed Land is the principal broadclass type in this character area  Woodland, Recreational & Ornamental, Settlement, Industrial and some outlying areas of Unenclosed Land exist in specific pockets within this character area.

Description This area has a comparable amount of Enclosed Land as ‘Central Durham Scatter’ Character Area. However, unlike ‘Central Durham Scatter’, the two other dominant broadclass types are Woodland and Unenclosed land. Areas of other broadclass types exist mainly as specific areas rather than scattered and discreet pockets, giving the impression that there are more examples of these broadclasses than is the case. As the Enclosed Land is less broken up, and other broadclasses are less scattered, it gives the impression of being a larger percentage of Enclosed Land than that of the ‘Central Durham Scatter’ Character Area.

3. South/East Conurbations

Key Features  Areas of continuous urban development  Industrial and Recreational facilities on the outskirts of the conurbations  Large sea and air ports representing international connections

Description

This area contains the two major areas of conurbation as shown through spatial analysis. Typically, this consists of large areas of settlement, with substantial and focused areas of industry on the outskirts of these settlements. Large areas of recreation, also near the outskirts exist, although some recreational areas stand alone from major settlement. These conurbations areas both have very important infrastructure associated; the Peterlee/Eastington/Seaham conurbation contains Durham’s main seaport at Seaham, and the Darlington conurbation area includes Durham Tees Valley Airport. The links between conurbation, communication networks, and industry are shown clearly through the distribution and percentage of broadclass types within this character area.

2.3.2 Rural Settlement Analysis A different approach to differentiating and characterising regional and local landscape territories, focussed principally on the rural settlement pattern, has been developed by Brian Roberts and Stuart Wrathmell, again with the support of English Heritage (An Atlas of Rural Settlement, English Heritage, 2000; Region and Place: A Study of English Rural Settlement, English Heritage, 2002). Covering the entirety of England, the base maps for this study were, on the one hand, a full national settlement map created by combining two separate distributions – namely of nucleation and dispersion – derived from the 19th-century Ordnance Survey Old Series one inch to one mile maps, and, on the other, a national terrain map assembled from a wide range of sources (Roberts and Wrathmell 2000, 9).

On this basis three fundamental national zones, labelled provinces, were defined, the South-eastern Province, the Northern and Western Province, and, most relevant here, the Central Province. The latter extended from the Tweed southward in a broad band, encompassing the entire eastern side of northern England between the North Sea coast and the Pennine uplands, continuing southward through Lincolnshire and the East Midlands, Central England and the Cotswolds to the western counties of Wessex (Gloucestershire, Somerset and Dorset). This province was characterised by an overall high degree of nucleation and relatively low dispersion and represented, in historic terms, a ‘champion’ landscape with a relatively high proportion of arable cultivation in open, communally cultivated, townfields, subdivided into separate strips by farmers dwelling in compact nucleated villages (Roberts and Wrathmell 2002, 1-3). The common waste or moor associated with these communities was generally limited, but, in a crucial regional difference, was much more extensive in the northern counties.

E ach province in turn comprised a series of sub-provinces and subsidiary local regions. The Bright Water Landscape Area falls within the Central Province’s Humber-Tees sub-province (CHUTE). In turn the principal, constituent local regions of the sub-province, which embrace the River Skerne catchment were the East Durham Plateau (CHUTE 1) and Tees Valley (CHUTE 2), which, it is interesting to note, broadly correspond to the Tees Lowlands and Durham Magnesian Limestone Plateau National character Areas and the related County Character Areas. The description of the Humber-Tees sub-province set out in the Atlas of Rural Settlement is reproduced below (Roberts and Wrathmell 2000, 46):

The Humber-Tees sub-province (CHUTE)

A vast corridor between the uplands of the Pennines and the North York Moors comprises a great fertile lowland and includes the Vale of York and the Tees Lowlands. CHUTE includes many local variations caused by slight differences in terrain. It is a fascinating and complex landscape. Moving northward from the Humber the alluvial wetlands gradually give way to lacustrine clays and sands and gravels, flanked by other varied drifts and eventually the vale is crossed by low morainic ridges.

Further north the vale gradually acquires a central ridge, which reaches a summit north of Northallerton, before descending to the wide plain of the Tees. The northern boundary is seen along the scarp of the Magnesian Limestone in Durham, whose drift covered dip-slope grades southward to the Tees.

A landscape generally dominated by market towns, villages and hamlets, in detail the pattern reflects both the local variations in soils and – in no small measure – the impact of depopulation. Counts of the numbers of nucleations per 25 by 25 km square in both the northern and southern portion of this province produce scores of just over 70, directly comparable with those of the Midlands. Recorded deserted villages cluster thickly in the vale, and must represent as much as 15-20% of the potential total of nucleations once present. Only in the southern quarter do they tend to be more scarce.

The pattern of dispersed farmsteads intercalated between the nucleations is mainly of post-medieval date, created by the movement out of the villages and onto newly consolidated holdings following enclosure. Some, however, are more ancient dispersals, the results of manors, granges and other farmsteads being moved out of villages in the Middle Ages; others have become isolated by the process of village depopulation which has had a substantial impact … This dispersion is generally of low or very low density, although a distinctive patch of high density scores is to be found in local region CHUTE 5 (Vale of York – North). In contrast, moated sites are more common in the clays of the southern half of the vale, with significantly fewer in the northern Vale of York and the Tees Valley.

This is a complex zone in which the geomorphology is so intricate that no two published studies agree, making generalisation difficult. In many ways this is an area characterised by the classic features of the great village belt of the Midlands: strongly nucleated settlements, once supported by communal townfields, with secondary intercalated dispersion. The economic forces bringing dispersion have had a marked impact. How then does it differ from the English Midlands proper? First, there is clear evidence for a crucial phase of deep-seated discontinuity after the devastation of 1069-70; this is associated with – but did not necessarily cause – differences in manorial arrangements; second, the northern location, together with proximity and access to significant uplands are important elements of the region’s historical geography.

3. PROTECTED HERITAGE

3.1 Statutory Protection

Several types of official designation provide different degrees of statutory protection to particular sites and monuments. These include Scheduled Monuments, Listed Buildings, Conservation Areas and Registered Parks or Gardens of Historic Interest, all of which are represented within the Bright Water Landscape Area. However, there are no UNESCO World Heritage Sites nor any sites on Historic England’s Register of Historic Battlefields within the study area. It should be emphasised that these represent only a small part of the area’s full heritage resource, most of which is only protected through the planning process (see below).

3.1.1 Scheduled Monuments The scheduling of an archaeological site by the Secretary of State under the provisions of the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 denotes it is of at least national significance and provides statutory protection over a defined area. There are 11 Scheduled Monuments within the Bright Water Landscape Area. These include the multivallate hillfort at Shackleton Beacon near Redworth which is probably Iron Age date, several well-preserved deserted or shrunken medieval villages (DMVs & SMVs) – Archdeacon Newton, Coatham Mundeville, Preston-le-Skerne, Sadberge, Ulnaby and Walworth – and the higher status Bishop Middleham Castle & Manor. More recent monuments include parts of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, including the Skerne railway bridge (also known as the Five Pound Note Bridge), and most recent of all the WWII ‘Starfish’ bombing decoy site at Great Burdon. Also relevant is the early medieval boundary cross shaft, Legs Cross, which located beside Dere Street Roman road, just outside the boundary of the study area.

Although scheduling confers considerable statutory protection on designated monuments, it does not eliminate all the potential threats. Continued deep ploughing, rabbit infestation and soil erosion due to the action of livestock are amongst the issues which sites may face, particularly in cases where the current land management regime is unsympathetic to the cause of historic site preservation. The problems are epitomised by the case of Shackleton Beacon hillfort, which is on the Heritage at Risk Register maintained by Historic England. Planted with trees since the late 18th century, the hilltop has a covering of mature trees, but this has been supplemented by abundant sapling growth in recent years, which threaten to wreak substantial damage unless cut down soon. Rabbits are also present on site, whilst the ruins of the 18th-century windmill tower are vulnerable to further damage resulting from the action of frost on the unconsolidated magnesian limestone walling. It is hoped that liaison with the new landowner will help to alleviate some of these problems. Components of the Stockton & Darlington Railway at Etherley, Shildon and West Auckland are also on the HAR register.

3.1.2 Listed Buildings The listing of structures by the Secretary of State denotes special historical or architectural interest, but does not necessarily include all buildings of significance or local importance. Buildings may be designated under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as either Grade I. Grade II* and Grade II, in descending order of significance. Listing applies to structures for the most part still capable of occupation or economic use. Such designation does not prevent owners from altering the buildings but any modifications other than regular maintenance requires consultation with Historic England or the local planning authority and approval in the form of ‘Listed Building Consent’, which may impose conditions on the final appearance or the materials used and stipulate a programme of recording work. A large proportion of listed buildings within the Bright Water

Landscape are concentrated in the area’s many attractive villages and hamlets such as Heighington, Bishop Middleham and Walworth, or in the market town of Sedgefield, which represents the best- preserved pre-industrial small town in the area with a clearly defined historic core and a fine medieval parish church at its centre. Others comprise more isolated farmhouses, dating from the 17th century onwards, whilst industrial buildings, associated with the Stockton and Darlington Railway for example, plus a wide range of more recent buildings, particularly in Darlington itself.

Grade I and II* Buildings may be entered on the Heritage at Risk register. Those currently on the register include the Grade II* dovecote at Manor Farm, Houghton-le-Side, plus Windlestone Hall and its associated clock tower/stables gateway (both Grade II*).

3.1.3 Conservation Areas Conservation Areas are designated by local authorities and are defined as areas with ‘special architectural or historical interest, the character or appearance of which it is desirable to preserve or enhance’. Conservation area status provides a measure of protection to all buildings and trees within the area boundary by giving control over demolition and should form the basis for policies to ensure the preservation and enhancement of the area’s character and appearance. A conservation area may well contain a number of listed buildings, but by no means everyone of its constituent structures will be listed. In addition Planning Policy Guidance Note 15 directs local authorities to provide Conservation Area Character Appraisals and Management Plans. These appraisals are intended to define clearly why the area is significant and offer guidance to owners and developers regarding design issues and choice of materials relating to construction of new or repair of existing buildings within the area.

There are a total of 16 Conservation Areas within the Bright Water study area. Five of these lie within the conurbation of Darlington, including Cockerton village, whilst most of the remainder are located in villages or small towns, in the wider area, such as Aycliffe, Bishop Middleham and Sedgefield. Ten of the conservation areas are supported by appraisal documents, including all five in Darlington.

Three of the conservation areas are currently designated as being ‘at risk’ – Mordon, Northgate (Darlington) and Windlestone Park, the latter two being assessed as in ‘very bad’ condition.

3.1.4 Registered Parks or Gardens of Historic Interest Historic England also maintains registers of ‘Historic Parks and Gardens’ and ‘Historic Battlefields’. There are no registered battlefields in the study area but there are three examples of the kind of designed landscapes covered by the Historic Parks and Gardens register, namely Ceddesfield Hall Gardens and Hardwick Park, located within and adjacent to Sedgefield respectively, and Windlestone Park, between Chilton and Coundon. Inclusion in the register does not confer any direct legal protection on these landscapes, but it does give them added weight, strengthening the local planning polices which support their preservation and conservation in the face of any development which might impact on them.

3.2 Cultural Heritage Protection and the Planning System

The categories of site noted above represents only a small proportion of the archaeological sites, historic buildings, landscapes and related features which make up the cultural heritage resource of an area like the Skerne catchment. Protection for the bulk of the sites is provided, instead, by local authorities through the planning process. Planning Policy Guidance Notes (PPGs) 15 and 16, in particular give local authorities the power to request information, surveys, studies and investigations

24 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit by geophysical survey or evaluation trenching from developers concerning any site or building considered to be of interest which is affected by development proposals. Conditions may subsequently be imposed on the development, whether these are full-scale mitigation excavations or design alterations which would mitigate the potential impact of the proposed scheme.

3.2.1 County Durham & Darlington Historic Environment Record (HER) Crucial to this process are the Historic Environment Records (HERs), maintained by county councils or other equivalent local authorities (sometimes combining to achieve county scale where no county level local authority presently exists), comprising archaeological sites historic buildings, the statutorily designated sites, past excavations and other archaeological surveys and interventions, historic landscapes including the Historic Landscape Characterisation. This data is held on a computer database linked to a geographical information system (GIS) – a powerful computerised mapping system. This enables the professional archaeological officers employed by the local authority to determine whether any particular planning application or development proposal is likely to impact on any part of the cultural heritage resource. The County Durham & Darlington HER, maintained by County Durham unitary authority covers the entirety of the Bright Water LP area in the Skerne catchment, with hundreds of entries being encompassed by the designated area.

In addition to the listing of events in the HER – archaeological excavations or other forms of recording or investigation –a library of reports and other documents submitted in fulfilment of archaeological planning conditions, or in some cases overview studies directly commissioned by the county council (e.g. Ryder 2005-2006), is also maintained in the office of the local authority archaeologists.

3.2.2 National Monument Record Historic England also maintains the National Monument Record which may be accessed conveniently by the Pastscape website (www.pastscape.org.uk). This contains fewer site entries than the County HER, but those sites included tend to be relatively important and the NMR record may contain more information on a particular site than the HER.

4. SOURCES OF EVIDENCE

4.1 Archival Material and Secondary Sources

The following accessible regional and national archives, libraries and record offices contain documentary, cartographic, pictorial and published material relevant to study of the Skerne catchment:

 Durham Historic Environment Record (DHER)  Durham County Record Office (DRO)  Durham University Library Special Collections (DUL)  Durham Library Local Studies Section (DL)  Darlington Library Local Studies Section (DARL)  National Monuments Record (NMR)

4.2 Types of Evidence

There is a wide range of available source material relevant to the area covered by the Heritage Audit.

4.2.1 Documentary survey The information contained in this documentary summary was provided by staff of Durham County Record Office and principally relates to the DRO holdings, but gives a clear impression of the range of material available. Most of the archival holdings in Durham Record Office and other relevant repositories are described with reference to a parish (or township – the administrative unit within a parish). The main parishes are Auckland St. Andrew, Great Aycliffe, Bishop Middleham, Coniscliffe, Darlington, Denton, Gainford, Haughton-le-Skerne, Heighington, Sadberge and Sedgefield. Since the project boundary does not fit precisely with the parish boundaries, some parts of the above parishes fall outside the project area, and smaller portions of other parishes, such as Bishopton, Embleton, Great Stainton, Kelloe, Kirk Merrington and Trimdon Chapelry, are included.

In terms of mid-19th century land ownership (extracted from the 1856 Whellan Directory), the major landowners in the project area whose records are held in the DCRO are the Eldon, Brancepeth, Londonderry and Surtees Estates. All the catalogues of the estate records can be searched on-line on the DCRO website, and a detailed check for all the records within the project boundary was not undertaken as part of the research for the heritage audit, but would be practical with respect to the detailed research that may be undertaken in relation to the individual heritage projects.

The Eldon Estate records (D/El) are largely title deeds, and although there are maps and plans with some of those deeds, there is no collection of estate plans. However, there are deeds for the manor and estate of The Isle, 1684-1823 (D/El 47/1-28).

The Brancepeth Estate (D/Br) again consists of a large collection of title deeds, but there are also estate papers, including estate accounts and rentals, deeds and other documents relating to the estate’s colliery interests, and a collection of estate plans including the Bishop Middleham, Sedgefield and Trimdon areas.

The Londonderry Estate (D/Lo) also has many title deeds, but also estate accounts and estate correspondence, however, none of the surviving estate plans appear to relate to the project area.

The Surtees of Mainsforth Estate records are not held as a single unit, but have come to the DCRO at different times. The main collections which are relevant are D/X 317 and D/X 1022. Both these groups contain title deeds, but there do not appear to be any surviving estate plans.

Thomas Bell was a surveyor operating in the North-East in the first half of the 19th century. His plans and other records are held in two collections, the Bowes Museum (D/Bo/G) and Clayton and Gibson, solicitors (D/CG). The Bowes Museum section includes plans and other papers for most of the relevant parishes, but the Clayton and Gibson section does not appear to be relevant to the project.

For those parts of the project area – specifically the northern and north-western edges - that fall within the Durham coalfield, the NCB records are relevant, with records relating to Fishburn, Bishop Middleham, Mainsforth, Chilton, Dean and Chapter (Ferryhill) and Leasingthorne all being of interest.

Durham Record Office also holds the extensive records of the Newton Aycliffe Development Corporation (NT/Ay) which managed the New Town until 1978 and its industrial estate until 1987.

There is also an extensive collection of records for the Aycliffe Young People’s Centre (DC/SS/Ay), which includes log books and administrative records, which may be useful for the development of the site. Because of their nature these records are subject to a closure period.

Medieval documents County Durham is fortunate in being well covered by early documentary material. This is the result of its distinctive history with much of the county being held directly by the church in the Middle Ages, either by the bishop of Durham or by the Benedictine priory attached to the cathedral. Many of these documents have been published in volumes produced by the Surtees Society (see below), for example, or by Robert Surtees himself in his county history (History and Antiquities … 1816-40) though there is still a great mass of charters and Priory accounts material which is unpublished – fuel for future PhDs and other academic research. The related documentary archives are both, in the main, now curated by Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections. Durham Record Office holds some original medieval documents, notably those contained in the Greenwell Deeds, which include charters and deeds relating the Trollops of Thornley Hall who held Mordon as one of their principal manors.

4.2.2 Historic Maps A wide range of historic mapping is available for the Bright Water Landscape Area. These fall into several categories:  County maps  Tithe maps and apportionments  Ordnance Survey editions  Other surviving detailed mapping e.g. privately commissioned estate maps and coalfield maps.

The county maps commence with Saxton in 1576 and are very numerous. They may be conveniently examined online at www.dur.ac.uk/picturesinprint/. The description below focuses on several particularly important examples, each representing a distinct improvement in the level of detail provided, namely Saxton (1576), Speed (1611), Morden (1695), Maire (1711/20), Armstrong (1768), and Greenwood (1820).

The earliest of these maps was compiled by the Yorkshireman, Christopher Saxton, in 1576. This is distinguished by extremely careful use of symbols used to denote different types of settlement. Parochial centres, such as Sedgefield (‘Sedgefelde’), Aycliffe (‘Acle’) and Bishop Middleham (‘Mydlam’), are depicted by a symbol of a church with tower and spire. Most of the other settlements in this part of the county are each depicted as a gabled building with what appears to be a wheel attached, perhaps signifying a watermill. Rather than directly signifying that there was a watermill associated with each of these villages or townships, it may represent a shorthand denoting the village was the seat of a manor, since ownership of a mill was a typical lordly attribute. Four other villages or settlements within the study area are shown as crenellated towers, namely The Isle, Hardwick, Greystones (‘Grayston’) and Thornton. Again these appear to have a wheel attached. It is not clear whether the difference between these two symbols is significant, though given the identity of the four sites, a tower may indicate that the settlement in question was just an isolated manorial residence and farm, whether fortified or not (larger castles like Raby are depicted with a symbol showing with two linked towers). It is not clear there was ever a proper village settlement on The Isle, whilst Greystones seems to have been and individual farm or small hamlet probably carved out of the waste. Hardwick and Thornton were probably the site of nucleated village settlements originally, but these may conceivably have been depopulated by the later 16th century.

Parks attached lord’s residences are depicted as palisaded enclosures capable of holding deer, cattle or other livestock, are shown, but none of these lay within the Skerne catchment, Auckland Park, opposite Bishop Auckland, and Brancepeth Park, on the west side of the Wear, being the nearest. Roads are only indicated by the presence of the occasional bridge, those over the Skerne and the Cocker Beck at Darlington being depicted, the latter doubtless the bridge which carried the Great North Road.

By contrast John Speed adopts Saxton’s parish centre symbol indiscriminately for virtually all the rural settlements he depicts on the county maps he published in his Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine, which appeared in 1611. Speed’s maps were not based on a systematic resurvey. Instead he adapted the county maps of Saxton, Norden and others, acknowledging ‘I have put my sickle into other men’s corn’. However he did add features such as town plans, including one of Durham itself (probably based on Matthew Patteson’s map of 1595, engraved by Christopher Schwytzer) and a vignette and description of the battle of Neville’s Cross in 1346, for example.

Both Saxton and Speed depict a rural world characterised exclusively by nucleated villages or hamlets. This was perhaps still broadly accurate, although a few isolated manorial, or ‘grange’, farms are already known to have existed in the area during the Middle Ages.

Over the course of the 17th and early 18th centuries the county maps provide relatively little additional information, since they often recycle earlier material, although the reality of rural settlement was changing rapidly. Some roads are shown from the late 17th century onwards – see Morden’s map of 1695 and Maire’s map of 1711/20 – benefiting from Ogilby’s itinerary maps, which included one strip showing the Great North Road from Darlington northward to Ferryhill. Morden not only marks the Great North Road, but also the southern section of Dere Street, from Piercebridge to Bishop Auckland, and the Durham to Stockton road via Sedgefield. Maire adds rather more detail, including more roads and a number of never before depicted hamlets such as Copelaw and ‘Rushy Ford’, where the Great North Road crossed Rushyford Beck, a tributary of the Skerne, south of Ferryhill and Chilton. Also shown for the first time is Walworth which had been accidentally omitted by Saxton and all his successors up to that point

The next step forward in the level of detail depicted is represented by Armstrong’s County map. This responded to the initiative launched by the newly founded Society for the Encouragement of the Arts, Manufactures and Commerce which was offering premiums for the production of maps at a more detailed scale of around one inch to one mile (Butlin 2003, 247). Armstrong’s map shows a fuller network of roads, including the Great North Road, the latter clearly defined as a turnpike by being highlighted in a deeper tone and bounded with thicker lines to make it stand out. The mileage along the route is also noted and the position of turnpike toll-bars occasionally marked. Similarly defined as turnpikes in this way are the Darlington to Stockton road via Haughton and Sadberge, the Darlington to West Auckland route, Dere Street from Piercebridge to Bishop Auckland and Durham, the Durham to Stockton highway via Sedgefield and another north-south route from Piercebridge to Durham via Heighington and (Kirk) Merrington. This shows how extensive the network of improved toll roads was in and around the Skerne catchment by the mid to late 18th century. Also making their appearance for the first time are many dispersed farmsteads, a clear indication that the shift to a more dispersed settlement patter was already well underway by this stage.

Greenwood’s map of 1820 is interesting above all because it depicts the Skerne catchment on the eve of industrialisation. It shows an essentially rural settlement pattern of villages, hamlets (the remnants of once larger medieval villages in some cases), and dispersed farmsteads established since the medieval era. It also shows the township boundaries, providing the earliest cartographic record of these in some cases, though it’s accuracy in this regard may be questioned in some instances. One of the most striking aspects of Greenwood’s map is the great undrained expanse of carrs which it depicts between Mordon, Preston, Woodham and Bradbury.

Useful for gauging pace of industrialisation in the early to mid-19th century are John Bell’s maps of the Great Northern Coalfield, specifically the 1843 map of the Hartlepool District (DRO D/Lo/P 242) and the 1952 map of the Auckland District (DUL/ASC CCB/MP/508), though these only cover the northern and north-western parts of the study area.

There are a number of estate maps covering the Bright Water LP area. Amongst the earliest and potentially most interesting is the 1754 survey of Great Aycliffe township – part of the Dean and Chapter’s estates – by Richard Richardson (DCD E/AA/15), held in Durham University Library. It includes a table showing proprietors of separately numbered town houses. The plan itself includes names of lessees/owners, together with acreages, plot numbers (possibly corresponding with numbers from the Inclosure Award), and current proprietors.

Tithe maps and apportionments, compiled under the Tithe Commutation Act, 1836, and usually dating between 1837 and 1852, were prepared for most townships, and these will provide details of land occupancy and ownership, and, in most cases, field names. The tithe maps and their accompanying apportionments are held at Durham Record Office and in Durham University Library Archives and Special Collections. Details of the tithe maps can be found on DCRO Subject Guide 5 – http://www.durhamrecordoffice.org.uk/Pages/InformationLeafletsItem.aspx?LeafletRef=5

The field names recorded in the associated apportionment schedules can provide clues to much earlier land use. Although the tithe maps are broadly reliable, it should be noted that the surveyors who prepared these maps were not working to the same level of accuracy as implemented in the slightly later Ordnance Survey maps, particularly with regard to the precise details of settlement morphology, as it was not necessary for their purposes. It was not unusual for the tithe commissioners to make use of an old survey prepared by the noted local surveyors such as Thomas Bell, as occurred in the case of Thrislington, for example.

The most comprehensive map coverage is provided by the County Grid Ordnance Survey maps at 1:10,560 and 1:2,500 scales. These maps are available in four editions at DRO – c.1856, c.1896, c.1915 and c.1946. The First Edition Ordnance Survey, surveyed about twenty years after the tithe maps, constitutes the earliest comprehensive evidence for the study area, and provides a consistent base which can be used to analyse village plans, field patterns and more extensive landscape features for instance.

Quarter Sessions Deposited Plans (Q/D/P) were prepared, from 1793, to accompany applications for Acts of Parliament for public schemes such as railways and turnpikes. These provide very detailed plans of the proposed routes, with lists of the owners and occupiers affected. However only the route and the narrow band of the ‘limits of deviation’ are shown. A list of Deposited Plans can be found on the Record Office website.

Only one enclosure document for the area is held at DCRO, and that is for Sedgefield in 1634, but does not include a map (D/Ph 1/4).

4.2.3 Published Syntheses and published collections of sources The fundamental works of reference begin with County history syntheses e.g. Hutchinson (1794), Mackenzie & Ross (1834), Fordyce (1857), the Victoria County History (Page (ed.) 1905-1928) and especially Vol IV: Darlington (Cookson 2005), and the relevant sections in the four volumes of Robert Surtees History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham (1816-1840)

Published collections of medieval and early modern documentary sources published by the Public Record Office, Surtees Society (SS) and others, or reproduced in works such as Surtees History and Antiquities. Collections which are useful in the study of the Skerne catchment include:  Historia de Sancto Cuthberto, ed. J. Hodgson Hinde in Symeonis Dunelmensis Opera et Collectanea, Surtees Society 41 (1868), Durham, London & Edinburgh  Boldon Buke, ed. W. Greenwell, Surtees Society 25 (1852), Durham, London & Edinburgh/Boldon Book Northumberland and Durham (ed. & trans D. Austin (1982) Phillimore: Chichester  Bishop Hatfield’s Survey, ed. W. Greenwell, Surtees Society 32 (1857), Durham, London & Edinburgh  Durham Cathedral Priory Rentals I. Bursars Rentals, ed. R. A. Lomas and A. J. Piper, Surtees Society 198 (1989), Newcastle upon Tyne  Feodarium Prioratus Dunelmensis, ed. W. Greenwell, Surtees Society 58 (1872), Durham, London & Edinburgh  Halmota Prioratus Dunelmensis, ed. W. H. D. Longstaffe, Surtees Society 82 (1889), Durham, London & Edinburgh  The Greenwell Deeds preserved in the Public Library of Newcastle upon Tyne, ed. J. Walton, Archaeologia Aeliana 4 ser, 3 (1927)  Durham, Cursitors Records: Inquisitions Post Mortem etc., Appendix to the 44th and 45th Reports of Deputy Keeper of Public Records  Wills and Inventories from the Registry at Durham (4 vols., SS 2 (1835), 38, (1860) 112 (1906), 142 (1929)).  Durham Hearth Tax, Lady Day 1666 (Green et al. 2006)

There is a wide range of relevant historical/archaeological published material concerning all aspects of the Bright Water area’s heritage, scattered in national and regional journals and individual monographs, everything from excavation reports on specific sites to synthetic studies of particular periods or themes. Those used in the preparation of this report are included in the bibliographic

30 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit section at the end of the document. The HER and Pastscape site entries contain full referencing of bibliographic sources, including unpublished reports, as well as site inspector/surveyors’ comments. An invaluable regional overview encompassing the entire North-East of England is provided the research agenda report Shared Visions: North East Regional Research Framework for the Historic Environment (Petts & Gerrard 2006).

4.2.4 Archaeological Survey The main archaeological dataset containing all known sites in the study area is the Durham County Historic Environment Record (HER) – see 3.2.1 above. The National Monument Record, maintained by Historic England and accessible via the Pastscape website (www.pastscape.org.uk), also contains much useful information on particular sites, notably the study area’s many deserted/shrunken medieval villages (see 3.2.2 above).

4.2.5 Air Photographic & LIDAR coverage Aerial photographic coverage for the Bright Water area is held by Durham University (ASDU offices), the Durham & Darlington HER and the NMR. Durham Record Office also holds four sequences of aerial photographs which cover much, but not all, of the county, taken in 1946-1948 (CC/X 172/1-36), 1968-1969 (CC/X 172/37-63), 1971 (DC/Env 1271/1-44) and 1991-1992 (DC/Env 1268/1-45B). Colour satellite imagery provided by Google Earth is also now readily accessible. The aerial photographic coverage extends right back to series of vertical runs made by the RAF in the mid 1940s and these are in themselves now a valuable historical record of features which, in some instances, have been damaged by more recent agricultural practices and activities such as quarrying. Coverage of much of the Skerne catchment was systematically examined for the ALSF report (Hewitt 2011). Oblique and vertical views of specific sites contained in the Durham University and HER collections were found to be the most useful in preparing this audit report.

LIDAR coverage of much of the Skerne catchment is also available and is a valuable resource particularly when combined with aerial photography, enabling slight surface features to be detected (see the coverage of Ricknall Grange included here revealing the possible traces of very denuded village toft enclosures next to the present farm).

5. HISTORY OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION

5.1 Origins – the early antiquaries

Serious historical and archaeological enquiry in Count Durham really begins with the antiquaries, such as Leland and Camden, who passed through the region from the 16th century onwards. One of Leland’s itineraries in the years between 1535 and 1543 took him from Darlington to Bishop Auckland (‘8 good miles by reasonable good corne and pasture’) and on another journey he may have travelled along the Great North Road. He recorded details relating to Darlington (‘the best market town in the bisshoprick, saving Duresme’), including the triple arched bridge, the collegiate parish church with its fine marble altar piece and the Bishop of Durham’s ‘pretty palace’ in the town (Leland’s Itinerary 1: 69). Leland also noted the ruins of Roman Binchester, where the ploughed fields hard by the ‘poor village’ had yielded Roman coins and ‘other many tokens of antiquite’ (ibid. 1: 71), whilst Camden and Cotton, at the end of the 16th century, recorded inscriptions which had been found there. More Binchester inscriptions were recorded by Horsley (1732), but it was not until the appearance of the first detailed county histories, from the late 18th century, that significant amounts of detailed information – still useful today – relating to the various localities of the Skerne catchment were recorded.

5.2 County histories and learned societies

The first of these county historians was William Hutchinson, a careful observer who was the first to identify the hillfort on Shackleton Beacon, for example, noting its multiple ramparts (despite the later doubts of Surtees). His three volume work, History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham (1785-1794), set the pattern for these county histories in being organised by parish and constituent township. Robert Surtees identically titled work (1816-1840) was even more substantial, comprising four large volumes, the final one published posthumously, yet was still unfinished, omitting much of the SW quarter of the county. Nevertheless it includes virtually all of the Bright Water area (only a few of the townships on the west side, such as Middridge, Windlestone, Eldon and Thickley, all falling within Auckland Parish, are not covered). There is considerably more detailed research in these volumes, though Hutchinson’s earlier work should not be ignored. Much of it concerns the tenurial history of the various landed estates and the genealogy of the landowning families, a matter of great interest to the local gentry who were the principal audience for these histories. Nevertheless they remain fundamental for any understanding the medieval history of the various manors and townships of the Skerne catchment and reproduce many of the relevant charters held in the archives of the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral.

Other antiquaries produced more focussed studies with relevance to the Bright Water area, notably John Cade’s 1785 work identifying a possible north-south Roman road situated to the east of Dere Street and the Great North Road. Cade suggested this crossed the Tees at Sockburn passing through Sadberge and Great Stainton before heading toward Bradbury, Old Durham and Chester-le-Street (Cade 1785). Although Cade’s general concept has found widespread favour his analysis of the detailed course of the road has not and, particularly with the discovery of the settlement at East Park, the road is now generally considered to have taken a more easterly course through the northern part of the Bright Water area, skirting past Sedgefield rather than crossing the carrs and passing through Bradbury.

The later county historians, Mackenzie and Ross (1834) and Fordyce (1857), contain less original material than Hutchinson’s and Surtees’ works, often extensively paraphrasing passages from those earlier publications. More valuable is the contribution by Darlington’s 19th-century historian, W H D Longstaffe, who produced the first history devoted to the town and its surrounding parish – The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Darlington – in 1854. The burgeoning expansion of Darlington in the mid to late 19th century resulted in chance archaeological discoveries, in particular the 6th/7th-century Anglo-Saxon cemetery at Greenbank in 1876 (Miket & Pocock 1976). This discovery epitomises the problems of archaeological discoveries of this period. The circumstances of discovery were related primarily in newspaper reports, though the antiquarian Canon Greenwell did become involved and identified the objects found with the burials as being Anglo-Saxon. These finds were however dispersed, with no full inventory being made at the time, and many are now lost. It was not without some difficulty that Miket and Pocock have more recently itemised what was found (ibid.).

Another 19th-century development was the founding of regional societies dedicated to the study of the history and archaeology of the North-East, with the foundation of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1812 and the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Durham and Northumberland in 1862. Like the county histories, these societies responded to the growing interest in the region’s past, not only amongst the gentry and aristocracy but also amongst the wider public, and in turn did much to further expand and popularise research in these fields, holding regular lectures, publishing annual journals and organising visits to monuments of note in particular areas. This provided fora for eminent researchers such as Canon William Greenwell to publish their findings.

5.3 The 20th century

The first inventories of significant sites and monuments were compiled in the later 19th and early 20th centuries. The surveyors working for the Ordnance Survey began to record the field monuments which were visible as upstanding earthworks on each map sheet or in some instances the findspots of notable discoveries. Thus the ramparts of Shackleton Beacon hillfort is first shown on the 3rd edition sheet (revised 1913/14, published 1923), providing the first comprehensive record of the hillfort’s surviving earthworks. By the mid-20th century the surveyors’ descriptions, plans and, in some instances, photographs were recorded on index cards which were to become one of the original data sources for the current county Historic Environment Records (HERs). Publication of the three initial volumes of the Victoria County History of Durham (Page 1905-1928) in the early 20th century provided an inventory of historic sites and monuments in the county organised on a ward and parish basis, which was more accessible to the general public.

The work of the regional societies continued throughout the first half of the 20th century, adding to the corpus of knowledge concerning the Skerne catchment and other areas of County Durham, but it is really in the aftermath of WWII, and particularly in the later 20th century that the level of research and investigation began to increase markedly.

The potential of aerial photography for archaeological purposes was first appreciated in the interwar period but it was after World War II that it really began to have an impact. From the mid 1940s onwards the RAF and subsequently the Ordnance Survey began taking overlapping sequences of vertical photographs for mapping purposes. Though not specifically taken for archaeological purposes, these did inadvertently record a considerable number of cropmark sites and earthwork features, including extensive patterns of ridge-and-furrow which have now been destroyed by more recent ploughing, and these photographs, held in the National Monument Record in Swindon,

33 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit constitute a resource which is still exploited today. In addition aerial photographs were increasingly being taken specifically for archaeological purposes. J K St Joseph was the most active archaeological flyer, taking photographs of sites right across the country, including many within the Bright Water area (a good selection of St Joseph prints, archived by civil parish being held by Archaeological Services Durham University on behalf of the Department of Archaeology), whilst Norman McCord, based in the Newcastle University Department of History, also made an important regional contribution. The result of this endeavour is numerous high quality photographs, usually oblique views, often of newly identified cropmark or earthwork sites, as well views of as known monuments. This work has been continued by regionally based archaeologists, such as Tim Gates and Blaise Vyner, and by the English Heritage National Mapping Programme’s systematic national survey. Most recently this has been supplement by LIDAR – radar images- with coverage in flood prone areas provided by the Environment Agency.

The work of the region’s two university archaeology departments also began to have an impact during the second half of the century. Haselgrove’s study of the prehistoric and Romano-British settlement of East Durham (Haselgrove 1982), is notable in this regard, whilst it was the Durham University Department of Geography which has housed Brian Roberts’ long term research on historic village morphology from the 1970s to the present day (cf. Roberts 1972, 1977b, 1987, 2008 for instance).

The investigation of deserted medieval villages (DMVs) and moated manorial sites was a particularly fashionable subject of inquiry during the 1960s and 1970s. However, within the North-East region, the bulk of this work occurred just outside the bounds of the Bright Water area, notably David Austin’s excavations at Thrislington, just to the north, in 1973-1974, still the most extensive excavation of a medieval rural settlement in County Durham, plus number of pioneering interventions on moated sites as well as villages were also undertaken in the lower Tees Valley by Leslie Still and others from the 1960s onwards (Pallister 1990; Daniels 1988). These included excavations at West Hartburn village to the east of the study area, (Still & Pallister 1964; 1967; Pallister & Wrathmell 1990), but the rescue excavations in advance of housing development carried out at East Red Hall Moat (HER 308), opposite Haughton-le-Skerne, in 1966 (Still & Pallister 1978) did fall within the Bright Water area. More recently detailed survey work was undertaken at Ulnaby DMV, right on the edge of the study area, involving detailed earthwork survey and analysis combined with documentary research. This was accompanied by a small excavation by Time Team, with the result that Ulnaby is now probably the best understood of any of the villages in and around the Bright Water area.

Another field which has seen substantial progress is the study of vernacular buildings. Particularly important in the respect has been the work of the North-East Vernacular Architecture Group (NEVAG), essentially a group of volunteer building recorders operating under the guidance of Martin Roberts. In the professional sphere, the historic building researches of Peter Ryder, a native of Darlington, have been crucial in improving our understanding of whole categories of structures in the Skerne catchment area and beyond, from ancient parish churches, or medieval defensible buildings and manor houses with their ancillary structures to 18th- and 19th-century non-nonconformist chapels.

5.4 Archaeological investigation today

Several pioneering studies undertaken in the 1970s laid the foundations for the current framework of local government based archaeological curation and supervision, and in particular for the establishment of the Historic Environment Record which provides the baseline record of the archaeological resource in the Bright Water area as well as other parts of the county. The seminal, multi-authored report Archaeology in the North (Clack & Gosling 1976), encompassing the entire North-East of England and Cumbria, represented an assessment of the current state of knowledge, identifying key threats and proposing strategies to fill in the gaps in that knowledge. It involved many of the senior figures then responsible for investigating and curating the region’s archaeology, and, critically, was accompanied by a gazetteer volume listing all the archaeological/historical sites identified by that stage. Bowes Museum’s preliminary survey of the archaeology of the Coal Measures and Magnesian Limestone Escarpment in 1977-78 (Turnbull and Jones 1978) was a more focussed area study, similar to some of the area studies included in Archaeology in the North, which embraced much of the northern and western margins of the Bright Water area. It was prepared to inform the Durham County Council Local Plan for the Magnesian Limestone Escarpment since archaeological remains in that area were threatened by a National Coal Board opencasting programme. This desk-based project, using existing inventories, plus examination of available aerial photography, represented one of the first extensive programmes of archaeological analysis devoted to any part of the Bright Water Landscape area. In the same period, a similar programme, covering Darlington and its environs, was undertaken by the Northern Archaeological Survey team, based in the Department of Archaeology Durham University. This trebled the number of known sites in the area examined (HER E43654).

Another official project of some significance was the Durham Magnesian Limestone Survey undertaken by the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England (RCHME) a little later on, in 1983-84 (HER E58990). This comprised a series of analytical earthwork surveys completed at a scale of 1:1000, including eight DMVs and a number of other sites. Many of these lay within the Bright Water area, including Shackleton Beacon hillfort, Great Isle, Coatham Mundeville SMV, Woodham DMV, Houghton-le-Side and East Thickley near Shildon.

Undoubtedly the most important development which has advanced our knowledge of the past in the last 25 years has been the introduction of developer-funded archaeology, fostered by planning policy guidance notes (PPG 15 and 16). These have placed the onus on the developer to fund work to mitigate the potential damage to any archaeological features likely to be impacted by their schemes, based on a ‘polluter pays’ principle. One especially key site, discovered and excavated as a result of such developer-funded investigation within the Bright Water area, is the Romano-British settlement and possible villa site at Faverdale, on the northern edge of the Darlington conurbation (cf. Proctor 2012). Important discoveries of Iron Age and Romano-British settlement sites and agricultural activity have also been made in the area immediately to the south and east of Sedgefield. However, despite its huge impact, the limitations of developer-funded archaeology must be acknowledged. Above all this type of work does not provide a uniform sample across the landscape but is inevitably concentrated in those areas most attractive to industrial, commercial or residential development, in particular the urban settlements of Darlington, Newton Aycliffe and their immediate environs or the perimeter of a mid-sized community like Sedgefield, which appears destined for expansion. Rural areas away from those poles of development are less likely to see much investigative effort as are sites so important as to warrant scheduling. This leaves many potentially important archaeological sites identified as cropmarks vulnerable to gradual degrading through intensive agricultural practices.

The completion of the North-East Regional Research Framework for the Historic Environment – NERRF (Petts & Gerrard 2006) – has provided an overarching framework of research questions which

35 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit any development-led excavation may address, thereby maximising the research potential of that work. Nevertheless the fact remains that such excavations are not driven primarily by research questions, but instead to mitigate by record potential damage to the archaeological resource. There remains clear need for a greater degree of research driven investigation, particularly as more recently the interest shown in the archaeology of County Durham, by the region’s university departments has been somewhat sporadic.

To some degree, community excavations, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, have helped to fill this gap in research-led investigation. These excavations can be framed to address specific research questions rather than responding to development and can be targeted at important sites which would otherwise be unlikely to be examined due either to their protected status or to the lack of any direct development threat. Significant examples of such work include the investigations exploration through geophysical survey and excavation of the Roman roadside village or small town at East Park, Sedgefield, and the Iron Age settlement at Great Chilton, respectively within and immediately adjacent to the Bright Water landscape, as well as Binchester Roman fort and vicus, further west.

Finally, one further, relatively recent source of new data is provided by the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS), managed by the British Museum. Through a network of county-based Finds Liaison Officers this scheme collates information on the findspots of artefacts recovered by metal detectorists. This has generated a mass of data , the implications of which are perhaps not fully understood, though some clusters of finds do hint at the existence of significant and otherwise unknown sites.

6. AUDIT OF THE BRIGHT WATER’S HISTORIC RESOURCE

6.1 Prehistory – site overview

The bulk of the sites within the Bright Water landscape which are identified in the HER as being of Prehistoric date (50,000 BC – AD 43) fall into two main categories – cropmarks identified through aerial photography and scatters stone artefacts, principally flint, revealed by chance discoveries, antiquarian activity and in a relative few instances by systematic fieldwalking. However, in a majority of cases both the cropmarks and the flint scatters are not dated any more precisely than prehistoric or late prehistoric (4000 BC – AD 43)

Indeed most of the cropmarks are not assigned to any period at all. It is only those with the most diagnostic morphology that lend themselves to such periodisation. Thus rectilinear and trapezoidal enclosures are generally interpreted as belonging to the Iron Age or Romano-British era. However other relatively coherent forms have been identified at various sites which cannot immediately be pigeon-holed by period in this way. For example, D-shaped enclosures have been noted at Barmpton (HER 997) and Willow Beds Plantation, Walworth (HER 1001), whilst a curvilinear enclosure has been recognised at Mordon Southside (HER 3490), a roughly circular enclosure, c. 60m in diameter, at Low Copelaw (HER 1494) and an oval example, measuring c. 50m by 30m, at Barmpton (HER 668). These might belong to an earlier period, perhaps representing a Bronze Age form of enclosed settlements, for example, or in some cases ritual monuments of the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age, but it is equally possible that the Iron Age tradition of enclosed settlement incorporated greater diversity of form than generally appreciated.

Individual hut circles have also been identified at Redworth (H3796), and Heighington (HER 3798- 3799), but these could potentially belong to any period from the Bronze Age (at least to the early Romano-British era.

In the case of the flint scatters, most are likely to belong to either the Mesolithic era or the succeeding Neolithic period when farming and herding of domesticated livestock first appeared in the region (though it should be noted that stone tools continued in use in the Bronze Age and beyond). Even so, most of the assemblages recorded in HER are not assigned to either of these main periods. In some cases the original circumstances of discovery are unclear and the material has often been lost in the intervening time so it is not possible to analyse the assemblage and assign it to a more specific period. One striking feature worthy of note is the large number of finds from the area around Newton Ketton (HER 322-4, 60346). Most of these were found in the 19th century and the precise circumstances are unclear and three of the entries in the HER (H322, H323 & H324) may relate to the same assemblage. The finds, comprising hundreds of flint implements, arrowheads, scrapers, knives and flakes’, are usually said to have come from the line of Catkill Lane (HER 323-4), but they are also reported to have been found in two sand pits north of Newton Ketton (HER 322). Perhaps the pits lay close to the line of Catkill Lane. The character of the assemblage, however, gives the impression of one which was built up over a period of time, probably from more than one location, for it includes both leaf-shaped arrowheads of probable Neolithic date and barbed and arrowheads of the Late Neolithic/Early Bronze Age. Beads of amber and jet and of white and deep blue glass (Iron Age/Romano-British?) are also included in the assemblage as well a lead spindle- whorl of Romano-British type. It does not seem that the material is likely to derive from a single closely dated site assemblage, rather it may have been built up a period of collecting from the locality and the recorded provenances may conceivably only apply to some of the finds.

6.2 Early prehistory – The Palaeolithic (before 10,000 BC) and Mesolithic eras

6.2.1 After the ice The area was doubtless occupied by small groups of Stone Age hunter-gatherers on numerous occasions in the intervals between the successive Ice Ages. However any traces left by such Neanderthal and earlier populations of the Palaeolithic era, or Old Stone Age, were obliterated by the ice sheets and glaciers which covered the region and scoured away landscape features during successive Ice Ages.

An auger survey and geoarchaeological/palaeoenvironmental investigation involving sediment coring and radiocarbon dating established that the area of Mordon, Preston and the southern part of Bradbury Carrs was occupied by a glacial lake between c. 8000 BC and 6000 BC (HER 58700; Oxford Archaeology North 2013). Once the ice melted, the lake emptied and the area subsequently accumulated potentially significant organic deposits, including peat. The survey established the extent of the lacustrine deposits in these lowland carrs and the position of some of the lake edges where there is higher potential for the survival of prehistoric archaeological remains. A second key feature was formed on the northern edge of the study area when the glacier melt-water, which had collected in another great lake, Lake Wear, found a weak point in the east-west aligned limestone escarpment ridge at what is now the Ferryhill Gap and broke through to empty southward. This may have occurred on a number of occasions during the repeated Ice Ages and is essentially the process responsible for the creation of the Ferryhill Carrs which remain marshland today.

Discoveries of late glacial elk and deer include elk in peat by the River Skerne in Darlington and the find of a giant deer (Megaceros giganteus) ‘in clay’ at Mainsforth, between Ferryhill and Bishop Middleham, on the northern edge of the study area.

6.2.2 Mesolithic hunters and gatherers (c. 10,000-4500 BC) With the end of the last Ice Age (around 10,000-8,000 BC), the glaciers and ice sheets finally retreated, allowing communities of Middle Stone Age (or Mesolithic) hunter-gatherers to recolonise northern Britain, taking advantage of the resources provided by the regenerating forest environment. The small communities probably formed extended family groupings, with wider kinship-based, tribal identities perhaps only occasionally activated, and may have ranged widely over large territories, following the movement of deer and exploiting seasonal resources such as autumn berries and migrating salmon.

The wetland landscapes of the as yet undrained lowland carrs both in the Gap itself and further south in the Tees lowlands around the headwaters of the Skerne, would surely have proved particularly attractive to such groups, offering abundant opportunities for fishing and wildfowling. Moreover the close juxtaposition of several different landscape environments – the Carr wetlands, the limestone escarpment ridge to the north, plus the Magnesian Limestone Plateau to the north- east, and the Tees Lowlands to the south, would have generated a wider overall range of plant and animal resources than available from one zone alone.

However, it must be admitted that there is very little definite evidence for Mesolithic activity in the Bright Water area. Two bladelets and one core – possibly of Mesolithic type – were found north of Summerhouse (HER 947). The excavations at Faverdale, north of Darlington, in 2003-2004 revealed an ancient wetland area in the northern part of the site which was still waterlogged yielding organic detritus dating to the Late Mesolithic/Early Neolithic (HER 58195). A very small assemblage of struck

38 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit flint was recovered from the entire excavation area, including a microlith typical of the Early Mesolithic (though occasionally also found in the Late Mesolithic), a blade also characteristic of Mesolithic industries and two scrapers which could be of similar date, suggesting only sporadic visitation to the site, perhaps from the Mesolithic period onwards (Proctor 2012, 21). In addition a cluster of Mesolithic era flint findspots have also been found on the NW margin of the Bright Water Landscape. These include one possible lithic working site between Chilton and Ferryhill (HER 2136), consisting of a small scatter of flint tools and waste material of later Mesolithic date, notably two delicate end scrapers and a core trimmer, and another such site near Middlestone (HER 2124), whilst flints were also found between Kirk Merrington, Ferryhill and Chilton (HER 2134), all these sites being just beyond the Bright Water boundary.

6.3 The Neolithic (4500-2300 BC) and Early Bronze Age (2300-1800 BC)

6.3.1 The Neolithic period: The first farmers and herders There is even less artefactual evidence for the succeeding period, 4000 BC onwards, known as the Neolithic era, when the first identifiable farming and pastoral communities emerged in northern Britain. These communities practiced ‘slash and burn’ agriculture in what would still have been an extensively forested landscape, cutting down trees with the stone axes and burning off the undergrowth, then cultivating for a number of years until crop yields began to decline through soil exhaustion when the group would move on to clear another parcel of woodland. However it is now considered that the herding of newly domesticated livestock – small, hardy cattle and agile sheep – is likely to have been more important to these communities than the cultivation of crops, with only limited evidence for arable agriculture across northern England as a whole until the Early Bronze Age.

No settlement sites or ceremonial monuments of the period have been identified within the Skerne catchment. Communities in the Neolithic period were capable of constructing sizeable monuments, indicating considerable social complexity, some of which continued in use into the Early Bronze Age. These include earthen long barrows or stone cairns, causewayed enclosures, long cursus monuments, and, from the Late Neolithic onwards, circular ditched and embanked henges. These were often grouped together in ritual landscapes signifying a continuing religious or ceremonial association with that particular area over many centuries. These often focus in major river valleys or overlooking river crossings, as at Hasting Hill, on the eastern edge of Sunderland, overlooking the Wear, where an irregular oval or ‘D-shaped’ causewayed enclosure lies in close proximity to a rectangular cursus, or ceremonial pathway, defined by two parallel ditches at least 200m in length.

The nearest monument of this kind to the Bright Water area is the long cairn identified at Old Wingate (HER 7701), NE of the study area. However the presence of presence of historic quarrying activity in the immediate vicinity, documented on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, and hence to potential for contemporary spoil heaps, means this interpretation should be treated with caution, until further investigation has been undertaken.

6.3.2 Flint arrowheads Leaf-shaped arrowheads are amongst the most characteristic finds of the Neolithic period. Arrowheads of this type are recorded amongst the material found in the vicinity of Newton Ketton (HER 322-4), but the uncertainties regarding how this assemblage or assemblages should be interpreted have been discussed above. It is likely that some of the other lithic finds made within the study area belong to this period as well, but without further analysis these cannot be distinguished.

Much later in date (Late/final Neolithic or Early Bronze Age) are the barbed and tanged flint arrowheads found within the study area. One was found in the garden of Quarry Cottage, Walworth

(HER 3756, possibly ex situ), and another to the SW of West House Farm (HER 3948), between Bishop Middleham and Fishburn, as well as further examples amongst the perplexing Newton Ketton collection.

6.3.3 Barrows, mounds and burials: monument building in the Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age The Early Bronze Age was still characterised by the construction of ritual monuments, like the Neolithic before it, though the morphology changes with smaller round barrows containing individual burials (often crouched burials in stone-lined cists) or cremations replacing communal long cairns/barrows from the late Neolithic onwards. This may point to a shift from veneration of a group’s collective ancestors to a focus on key high-status individuals and lineages, as power within society became more concentrated.

There is a relative dearth of confirmed sites of this kind within the main Bright Water Landscape Area, however, with a large number clustering on the southern margin of the Magnesian Limestone Plateau, just beyond the Bright Water boundary. Thus one round barrow is recorded at Catley Hill House, just to the west of Trimdon, and a second barrow with a cinerary urn at Trimdon Grange (HER 1087), whilst another possible round cairn, or ‘tumulus’, has been identified near Old Wingate (HER 7700), though this last case is complicated by the presence of historic quarrying activity in the immediate vicinity, evident on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, and hence could conceivably represent a quarry spoil heap rather than a prehistoric burial monument.

The most likely example of a round barrow within the study area is situated at Mordon Southside Farm, on the east side of lowland carrs, where a circular ditched enclosure with an internal circular feature has been identified as a cropmark (HER 406; NMR 876887; Durham University AP 114/3-5). In the HER this is assigned an Iron Age date, with the internal circular feature being interpreted as a round house, but the analysis presented in the HE Pastscape entry (Monument no. 876887) is more plausible represents a round barrow with a fragmentary external ditch 28m in diameter and an internal ring ditch 10m in diameter.1 It is uncertain whether the ring ditch cropmark, c. 25m in diameter, recognised at Coatham Mundeville (HER 1534) and the one or perhaps two ring ditches at Merrington Mill, near Rushyford (HER 2461), represent similar, levelled round barrows.

On the other hand the very large circular enclosure revealed by geophysical survey recently at Low Coniscliffe, in a field on the south side of the A67 (NGR NZ 2480 1420), may conceivably represent a henge, a type of enclosure though to be dedicated to ceremonial and ritual gatherings, rather than the ring ditch of a barrow, though the latter possibility cannot be excluded.

Three sub-circular mounds were also identified during a walkover survey at Woodham Country Club, NNW of Woodham village (HER 60064) in 2007, whilst another mound, tentatively assigned a Bronze Age date, was recorded on Butterwick Moor in 2006 (HER 9697). The function and date of these mounds remain to be confirmed, however.

Not all funerary sites were so monumental in form, of course. Two cremation burials found with Bronze Age flint tools were uncovered during evaluation at Whitworth Farm near the SW corner of Newton Aycliffe Industrial Estate in 2013 (HER 51741, E51740), for example.

1 The confusion has resulted in separate site entries in the ALSF survey (cf. Hewitt 2011, 141 Table 3.11 site nos 158 & 160).

6.4 The Later Bronze Age (from 1800 BC) and Iron Age (700 BC – AD 43)

With the advent of the Later Bronze Age and Iron Age the first time we have clear evidence regarding settlement, the kinds of places people were living in.

6.4.1 Hillforts and enclosed settlement The most significant site of this overall period within the Bright Water Landscape Area is the multivallate hillfort of Shackleton Beacon, near Redworth, in the south-western quarter. It is presumed to be Iron Age in date. However no excavation has ever taken place on the site and the hilltop has been planted with trees since the late 18th century, making it difficult to get a clear overall impression of the site. This is one of only two or three hillforts known in County Durham, the others being Maiden Castle (HER 1181) on the eastern outskirts of Durham city (though the modest nature of the defensive bank here have led some question whether this can really be classed as a hillfort or promontory fort, cf. Hewitt 2011, 54-5) and Toft Hill, west of Bishop Auckland (HER 1674, unfortunately now destroyed by quarrying). Shackleton Beacon is currently on the Heritage at Risk register.

Key Site: Shackleton Beacon hillfort (HER 1453; HE Scheduled Monument 1016867; NZ 2295 2331) The hillfort occupies a prominent position on the western end of a promontory, protected on the north and west sides by steep natural slopes, and forms a roughly oval enclosure 60m north west to south east by 75m north east to south west. The interior of the enclosure is on two levels. The western part, which is a level platform, measures 75m by 27m, while to the east, the ground falls steeply away to a lower area some 60m by 20m. On the north east side the enclosure is protected by double banks of stone and earth each 5m wide and standing up to 1m high, separated by a medial ditch 5m wide and 1m deep. On the south and western sides the defences follow the natural slope of the hill; on these sides they are stronger and there is a sequence of four ditches and ramparts which decrease in size and strength down slope. The ramparts vary in height from 2.5m to 0.2m and they are on average 7m wide. The ditches vary between 0.2m and 3m deep and are on average 7m wide. There is a causewayed entrance through the defences on the south eastern side of the monument, occupied by a later trackway. A post-medieval tower mill is situated within the western half of the hillfort. This was remodelled in the late 18th century to form a stone folly. It is visible as a stone circular structure 6.5m in diameter with walls 0.8m thick standing up to 3m high.

6.4.2 Rectilinear settlement sites Far more typical of the Iron Age settlement pattern than hillforts like Shackleton Beacon are the rectilinear enclosures which are encountered right across the lowlands of North-East England. The overall chronology of these sites is relatively broad however. Excavation elsewhere has shown that the life of some rectilinear enclosed settlements begins in the Late Bronze Age, at Pegswood in south-east Northumberland, for example, where the Iron Age enclosed settlement was preceded by an unenclosed settlement which originated in the Later Bronze Age. Some of the other forms of enclosure such as oval or D-shaped might conceivably belong to the Bronze Age, but without excavation no firm conclusion can be reached.

Conversely it is thought that in many cases occupation of the rectilinear enclosed settlements may continue into, or even begin during the Roman period (e.g. Faverdale – see below). Others were certainly restricted to the Iron Age, however, going out of use before the Roman conquest, as appears to have been the case with complex enclosure settlement at Great Chilton, excavated in 2012-13,. Without detailed excavation, however, it is impossible to be certain in any specific case.

Possible examples of rectilinear enclosures of this type have been identified by aerial photography within the Bright Water area at Barmpton (HER 672), Newton Ketton (two conjoined: HER 685), Little Burdon (HER 653 & 667), Low Copelaw (HER 1496), Summerhouse (HER 4975), West Park, Darlington (HER 5959) and Island Farm, south of Bishop Middleham (HER 9112 – see below).

Developer-funded archaeological investigation has, perhaps inevitably, tended to paint a more complicated and nuanced picture regarding settlement morphology and the development of individual sites. Thus at Heighington Lane West Industrial Estate, Newton Aycliffe, there was a D- shaped enclosure attached to a linear boundary, whilst to the east a series of roundhouses, pits and ditches lay within a concentrated area, perhaps representing an unenclosed settlement. It is likely that some of the extensive pattern of Romano-British settlement activity around Sedgefield (see below) also originates in the Iron Age.

Perhaps the clearest picture of an Iron Age settlement has come from the site on the north side of Great Chilton, just outside the Bright Water boundary, excavated as part of a community excavation in 2012-13. Initially identified as a group of cropmarks on aerial photographs, geophysical survey confirmed that the pattern of enclosures was very complex and probably represented multiple phases of activity. At the heart of the site was a large sub-rectangular or trapezoidal enclosure, its enclosure ditch apparently displaying three phases, which was in turn enclosed by an even larger trapezoidal enclosure extending further westward and containing a very large ring ditch some 18m in diameter. Surrounding these was a group of enclosures perhaps representing fields, paddocks or different phases of settlement enclosure which is impossible to disentangle sequentially without detailed excavation. Some round houses were located outside the main enclosures so it is likely that there was at least one (earlier?) phase of unenclosed settlement. Finds included quern stones for hand-grinding grain, one upper stone forming part of a beehive quern being almost complete, pottery of characteristic late prehistoric type, a jet bangle and a link from an iron snaffle horse bit, perhaps dating to the 5th century BC. However no Roman pottery was found nor any other indication the Great Chilton settlement continued on beyond the Iron Age into the Roman period.

6.4.3 Finds The introduction of metal-working, first in bronze then iron gives rise to new kinds of dateable artefact. From the Later Bronze Age there are the isolated finds of two socketed bronze axes, perhaps deposited as votive offerings. One was recovered from at the edge of a ploughed field at School Aycliffe and exhibited in 1926 (HER 3911), whilst the other was found in Mordon Carr (HER 344). Neither findspot is closely located however (NZ 2523 and NZ 3226 respectively.

Isolated Iron Age finds include a sword of ‘Brigantian’ type in its bronze scabbard with associated belt plate and loop (HER 310), presumably representing a votive offering, found by the bridge over the Skerne at Barmpton, or perhaps at a nearby gravel pit, and a fine blue glass bead with white spiral motifs from the grounds of Bishop Middleham Hall (HER 4573), dated to 800-400 BC.

6.4.4 Burials Funerary practices in the Iron Age are less well understood than those of other periods in Prehistory, in the Skerne catchment as elsewhere in the region. However an intriguing group of inhumation burials in the fissure of the Magnesian Limestone escarpment above a silt-filled cave was revealed by quarrying activity north of Bishop Middleham in 1932 (HER 1125; HE Mon no. 26024). At least 11 burials were found in association with pottery of Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age date and other finds tentatively assigned to the Early Iron Age. A similar site was identified by quarrying on the western edge of the Ferryhill Gap (at NZ 2999 3301; HER 254 & 1340) during the early years of the 20th

42 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit century. In this case four or perhaps five skeletons had been deposited in vertical crevices in the magnesian limestone escarpment, although the details are a little confused, with discrepancies between the various reports. Again a Bronze Age date has been suggested but there were no diagnostic finds here. It would appear that this tradition of placing inhumation burials in the fissures and crevices on the Magnesian Limestone Escarpment around Bishop Middleham and Ferryhill, probably begins in the Later Bronze Age, but extends into the Iron Age. Three stone-lined long cist burials at Faverdale north of Darlington were also tentatively assigned to the Iron Age by the excavator (HER 58196; Proctor 2012, 21-3).

6.5 The Roman Period (AD 43-410)

6.5.1 Roads and forts The study area is framed by the two major Roman north-south roads which traverse North-East England, namely Dere Street to the west and Cade’s Road to the east. In places, notably to the south-west and north-east, the routes cut across the Bright Water landscape area, but more typically they skirt along its edges. Of these two roads it was the western route, Dere Street, which was clearly the more important, with forts at Piercebridge, Binchester, Lanchester and Ebchester. In contrast only one fort is known for certain along Cade’s Road, situated at Chester-le-Street, where another route known as the Wrekendyke branched off to reach the fort at South Shields positioned at the mouth of the Tyne.

Dere Street Dere Street was the principal highway leading north from York and all points south through the Vale of York and the towns of Aldborough and Catterick to the crossing of the Tees at Piercebridge. North of Piercebridge, most of Dere Street’s course in and adjacent to the Bright Water area is still in use as a functioning public highway today and can easily be traced. The route traverses the south-western corner of the Skerne catchment, passing between Summerhouse and Denton (where it marks the boundary of several townships and parishes), and effectively bisects the modern town of Bishop Auckland, crossing the Wear at Binchester, where there was a large cavalry fort (HER 3176-3180, 3887; Margary 1973, 429-30: road 8c). From there it continued north and northwest to reach Corbridge and thence through Redesdale and over the Cheviots into Scotland.

Cade’s Road The second route, which takes its name from John Cade, the Durham antiquary who first suggested its course in 1785, led northward from Brough-on-Humber and York through the eastern side of the Vale of York and probably crossed the Tees at Middleton St George, though nearby Sockburn is a possible alternative, before continuing northward through Sadberge. Different opinions have been expressed over the course of this route in County Durham (see Fawcett 2014 for a recent overview). That shown on the current Ordnance Survey maps (and the Ordnance Survey Map of Roman Britain) is essentially the suggestion of O.G.S. Crawford (cf HER 3349; Bidwell and Hodgson 2009, 177; Margary 1973, 431-3, 441: roads 80a, 80b; also HER 3184-5, 3242, 3349-56, 7952, 8220). An alternative route between Great Stainton and Chester-le-Street by R. Walton following fieldwork in 1984-5, though reported observations of cobbles exposed by ‘excavation’ at various points are essentially uncorroborated. From Sadberge, the OS suggested route is represented by a still functioning minor road known as Hill House Lane and Elstob Lane, which skirts the eastern edge of the Bright Water landscape area, avoiding the marshy lowland carrs and running almost due north through Great Stainton, then west of Elstob and east of Mordon, where its orientation changes slightly to NNE. Here it passes to the west side of the Sedgefield, bisecting the large, recently

43 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit discovered settlement at East Park, before shifting direction again, this time towards the NNW, its course being followed today by the A177 and B6291 through the centre of Coxhoe and Bowburn towards Durham and Chester-le-Street. It thus cuts across the southern part of the East Durham Limestone Plateau and escarpment before descending into the valley of the Wear and continuing northwards to the bridge over the Tyne at Newcastle.

The date at which the road was established is uncertain. There is general acceptance that it was existence by the Hadrianic period, which corresponds with the latest excavation evidence for foundation of the fort at Chester-le-Street (Armstrong 2007; Proctor 2007), hitherto not thought to have been established before the second half of the 2nd century (Bidwell & Hodgson 2009, 185). Indeed the route may have been developed in stages, the section of the route in Yorkshire (Margary 1973, route 2e) certainly being early Flavian. The existence of link roads between Dere Street and Cade’s Road (see below) might reflect such piecemeal development, but several alternative scenarios are possible which cannot as yet be narrowed down with evidence currently available (Bidwell & Hodgson 2009, 14 (fig 5), 177; Proctor 2012, 10; see Bidwell & Snape 2002, 256-60 for discussion of possible alternatives).

Though this route clearly does not figure amongst those itemised in the Antonine Itinerary, a string of five sites listed in the Ravenna Cosmography, starting with Brough-on-Humber and finishing with Chester-le-Street, might represent settlements strung along the road’s course through Yorkshire and County Durham. They were perhaps taken from a map similar to the Peutinger Table that the Cosmographer was using. Though the placenames recorded in the Cosmography are slightly corrupted, their correct form (in italics here) can usually be restored from other sources such as the Notitia Dignitatum or Antonine Itinerary. The sequence begins with ‘Decuaria’, corrected to Petuaria (Brough-on-Humber), then continues: ‘Devovicia’ = Delgovicia (Wetwang?), ‘Dixio’ = Dicto i.e. Dictum, ‘Lugunduno’ = Lugudunum, and ‘Concanges’ = Concangis (Chester-le-Street) (cf. Rivet & Smith 1979, 208, citing RC V 31, 107/15-17). The location of Dictum and Lugudunum is not known, though it has been suggested that Dictum, which is also figures in the Notitia Dignitatum as the base of a late Roman military unit, may represent a fort located at Wearmouth or perhaps at the mouth of the Tees, whilst Lugudunum has been proposed as an earlier name of the fort of Arbeia at South Shields (Bidwell 2014). The evidence is not conclusive in either case, however, and it is possible that one of these might represent the large roadside settlement recently discovered at East Park, Sedgefield (see below).

Catkill Lane and other link roads A further possible Roman road can be identified in the Bright Water area. Known as Catkill Lane, this takes the form of a bridle way and lane which branches off Cade’s Road at Petty’s Nook, 1km north of Sadberge, and follows a ruler-straight course running in a north-westerly direction towards Bishop Auckland and Binchester Roman fort. Beyond Fir Tree Farm, where Catkill Lane meets Salters Lane, the route can be traced along a series of field boundaries before resuming as Ricknall Lane and continuing to a crossing of the Skerne just above Ricknall Mill. Thence its course, still very direct, can still be followed through the modern town of Newton Aycliffe as Moore Lane, part of Shafto Way and then Burn Lane (on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey its entire course in this area is labelled Burn Lane). Thereafter its course becomes more difficult to follow, but it probably follows or runs parallel to the course of Moor Lane through Old Eldon, and eventually joined Dere Street before reaching Binchester fort. At least one Roman coin has been found on this lane, near Newton Ketton (HER 319, cf. HER 321).

Though not generally acknowledged in the specialist literature (it is omitted from the Ordnance Survey map of Roman Britain and Margery’s survey of Roman roads for example), the Roman origin

44 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit of this route is generally accepted in the locality, and, given its very direct course, seems highly plausible. It presumably functioned as a link road between the two more important north-south highways. It thus resembled the known route (Margary 1973, 438-9: road 83) which branched off Dere Street at Willington, a little north of Binchester, and proceeded in a north-easterly direction joining Cade’s Road in the area of Durham (the latter’s exact course is uncertain there), connecting the garrisons along Dere Street to the fort at Chester-le-Street and beyond to South Shields (Arbeia), at the mouth of the Tyne, and the crossing of the Tyne at Newcastle.

Forts The principal bases of Roman power in the Durham lowlands were the forts built to house garrisons of auxiliary troops. The nearest of these were the forts at Binchester (Roman Vinovia) and Piercebridge (Roman name unknown, possibly Morbio), located respectively just to the north-west and south-west of the Skerne catchment, where Dere Street crossed the Wear and Tees.

Binchester has seen considerable excavation in the last five years, under the direction of David Mason and David Petts, both within the fort itself and in the surrounding civil settlement, or vicus, which was clearly very sizeable, building on earlier work in the fort by Ferris and Jones in 1976-81 and 1986-91 (Ferris 2010). In the late 2nd and 3rd centuries it seems to have held a cavalry garrison, the ala Hispanorum Vettonum, reinforced during the 3rd century by the cuneus Frisiorum Vinoviensium, irregular troops from the coastal districts of what is now northern Holland. An indication of the extent of the vicus is provided by the double ditches of the defensive annexe protecting it, which have been traced through geophysical survey at least 225m south-east of the fort. The settlement contained some very substantial structures, including an extremely well- preserved bathhouse. Shrines are known from inscriptions and number of mausolea or mortuary enclosures have also been revealed north-east of the fort (Bidwell & Hodgson 2009, 151-3; Mason 2013).

Piercebridge, too, saw an extensive programme of excavation in and around the fort directed by Peter Scott in 1969-81 (Cool & Mason 2008). This revealed that the visible fort was built during the 3rd century with occupation continuing to the end of the Roman era and apparently well beyond as attested by finds of ‘Anglian’ pottery assemblages. Peculiarly, the fort contained an unusually large and elaborately decorated courtyard house in its south-east corner, equivalent in scale to the legate’s palace of a legionary fortress and perhaps designed to house some high-ranking late Roman official (Bidwell & Hodgson 2009, 148-50). The structural sequence of ditches protecting the east gate continues into the 5th century. Like Binchester, the fort at Piercebridge was surrounded by a very extensive vicus, with buildings recorded on both banks of the Tees.

In contrast, no fort is definitely known along the stretch of Cade’s Road adjoining the Skerne catchment. A rectangular enclosure in the field NW of North Farm, Elstob (at NZ 338 240), just beyond the Bright Water Landscape Area boundary, identified in oblique aerial photography taken by R Selkirk (DU neg. 8/22), has been suggested as a possible fort (Selkirk 1983, 44-5; cf Bidwell & Snape 2002, 257), but this interpretation has not met with universal acceptance (cf. Bidwell & Hodgson 2009, 182). On the other hand, a substantial, nucleated civil settlement has been uncovered lining Cade’s Road, at East Park, Sedgefield.

6.5.2 Civil settlements, villas and farmsteads

Key Site: Sedgefield East Park roadside civil settlement One of the most significant discoveries of this century with regard to Roman settlement patterns in the North-East has been the 2nd-3rd century small town/large village site at East Park, Sedgefield. This represents the single most important Roman site within the Bright Water Landscape and was entirely unsuspected before the late 1990s. It was initially identified through aerial photography and then, following initial survey and excavation by Time Team in 2002, was subjected to an integrated programme of investigation involving extensive geophysical survey, fieldwalking and partial excavation between 2005 and 2009 (Carne and Mason 2006; Mason 2007; Claydon 2008;Carne 2009; Petts and Gerrard 2006, 54; Mason 2010).

Covering a minimum of 32 ha (77 acres), the settlement straddled Cade’s Road, with a series of rectilinear enclosure plots, defined by ditches, lining the road and extending eastward of it along an irregular network of minor roads or lanes. The full extent of the settlement was not revealed. The ribbon development of enclosures extending northwards and southwards along Cade’s Road continued up to and probably beyond the bounds of the survey in both directions, though becoming more irregular to the north. In the central area, where the settlement broadened out, it clearly continued beneath the modern housing estates to the east and north-east. In this eastern zone the lanes focussed on a central open area which may have functioned as a public space – a green or market place? – with a single isolated enclosure situated towards the west side of this area containing a single building, perhaps a shrine or some sort of communal or official structure. Moreover neither geophysical survey nor excavation have yielded evidence of cemeteries which would have lined the approach roads on the periphery of the settlement.

The enclosures perhaps represented individual family plots, capable of accommodating a variety of functions including domestic, agricultural and industrial. Buildings were constructed exclusively of timber, with no evidence for dressed stone, mortar or brick/tile, and ranged from simple huts and shelters to aisled barns. Small-scale industrial activity, such as pottery manufacture (including a substantial double chamber kiln with flue) and copper smelting was identified in some enclosures, plus agricultural features such as stockpens and barns. Analysis of the finds indicated that intense occupation spanned the period from c. 120 to c. 250, but greatly diminished thereafter.

Unlike other extensive civil settlements and towns in the region such as Corbridge or Piercebridge there is, as yet, no indication of a military presence nearby. However, it is not inconceivable that a fort or fortlet might lie further to the east or north-east, beneath the modern housing estates, since the settlement does extend in that direction perhaps implying another focus of activity there.

The East Park site seems to have been the focus of a fairly dense distribution of late Iron Age and Romano-British rural settlement revealed by developer-funded archaeological investigation in the environs of Sedgefield. These include 1) a late Iron Age or Romano British enclosure 1km to the SW at Brakes Farm (HER E15813/E15883/E38400; Brogan 2010), 2) another just NE of nearby Home Farm (HER 8222), 3) a multi phase enclosure of probable Romano-British date at Eden Drive (HER 55041, E58381) and 4) an enclosed settlement south of Beacon Lane (HER 60857), on the S and SE edges of Sedgefield respectively, the latter with remains radiocarbon dated to the early Romano-British era (1st/2nd centuries AD), 5) yet another settlement characterised by ditched enclosures and pits yielding a significant quantity of Romano-British pottery at Whin Houses, near Butterwick Moor Farm, c. 4.5km to the ENE (HER E15876; Platell 2008), and 6) a potential Romano-British field system at Mordon North Farm (HER 1638). It is may also be observed that the individual ‘family unit’

46 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit enclosures which make up the East Park settlement resemble the basic components of the late Iron Age/early Romano-British rural settlement pattern, hinting that the village or town may represent a coalescence of rural settlements scattered in the wider environs into a single nucleated roadside site, perhaps attracted by the commercial opportunities presented by passing traffic on the road.

Enclosed settlements, villas and farmsteads Until recently the wider Romano-British rural settlement pattern north of the Tees has been somewhat elusive. Many rectilinear enclosed settlements have been identified from aerial photography and these are now generally recognised as being either of later Iron Age or Romano- British date. However it is usually difficult to determine on the basis of aerial photography alone which of these actually originated in the Romano-British era or at any rate continued in occupation during that period, having begun life during the Iron Age, and which belonged purely to the Iron Age. Thus the settlement at Great Chilton, just outside the Bright Water project boundary, recently excavated as part of the Limestone Landscapes Partnership Programme, yielded no finds of Roman pottery, implying occupation there did not outlast the Iron Age. In contrast, at Thorpe Thewles, in the Tees lowlands 6.5 km east of the Bright Water Area, an enclosed settlement of the later Iron Age, with a large central roundhouse, was succeeded by an unenclosed nucleated one, with a greatly increased number of roundhouses, which developed in the late 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, continuing in use through to the mid- to late 2nd century AD (Heslop 1987). By the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, sites such as Catcote, near Hartlepool, had acquired some Romanised trappings, including rectangular buildings with tiled roofs and mortared stone walls, with relatively large quantities of Romano-British artefactual material being recovered during excavation (Long 1988; Vyner & Daniels 1989; Cool & Mason 2008, 301-2).

If Catcote seems to have remained a lower status farming settlement, others evolved into Romanised estate centres, or villas as they are generally known. Once thought to extend no further north than Yorkshire, a number have been recognised in the North East during recent years, though, with one exception, the distribution of these villa sites does not yet extend north of the Tees valley, and Faverdale, on the north edge of Darlington, is the only possible candidate located within the Bright Water area itself. Other examples of such villa complexes recognized in recent years include Quarry Farm near Ingleby Barwick, Chapel House Farm at Dalton-on-Tees, Holme House near Piercebridge and Preston-on-Tees (cf. Archaeological Services Durham University 2013; Cool & Mason 2008, 301- 2; Proctor 2012, 11-13; Hewitt 2011, 68-70).

Only one possible villa has as yet been recognized further north, namely at Old Durham, on the south- eastern outskirts of Durham city, where a small bathhouse was discovered and excavated in the 1940s and 1950s (Richmond et al. 1944; Wright and Gillam 1951). Since no military site is known the vicinity and the bathhouse is most likely to be associated with a villa, whose main house and farm buildings remain undiscovered. Although it remains the northernmost of these high-status rural estate centres yet known in the Roman empire, the recent villa discoveries in the Tees valley have resulted in Old Durham appearing much less isolated than it did 20 or 30 years ago. It is possible, therefore, that continued fieldwork, perhaps in the course of developer funded investigations, will in future reveal a broader distribution of similar villa sites within the River Skerne catchment.

Key Site: Faverdale One of the most important factors in improving our understanding of the Romano-British period in the Skerne catchment areas has been the survey and excavation work at Faverdale, north of Darlington, during 2003-2004 (Proctor 2012). Settlement appears to have originated as polyfocal unenclosed farmstead in the late 1st century AD. In the 2nd century a substantial rectilinear ditched enclosure was constructed on a high spur of land. No dwellings survived within the enclosure, but the

47 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit artefactual material recovered from the ditch was characteristic of habitation, and, remarkably, a two-room stone-building, furnished with hypocaust heating and painted wall plaster decoration, which may have been a small bathhouse, was found within, suggesting the site was a high status rural complex. Extensive remains of fields, interconnected stock enclosures or paddocks, tracks and droveways were uncovered around the central settlement enclosures. Although the main residential core of the villa was not discovered, perhaps because intensive ploughing had severely truncated the surviving archaeology on this site, it may nevertheless be counted amongst the several villas to have been revealed in the Tees valley in recent years. The ditches of the main enclosure were deliberately infilled and heated structure demolished some time around the late 2nd or early 3rd century, followed by a lengthy period of abandonment. The erection of a substantial stone structure along with an east-west road, during the 4th century, indicates continuing activity in the later Roman period, also characterised by a few filed boundaries and enclosures. Since 2004 developer funded archaeological investigation has continued around Faverdale amplifying our understanding of the development of this Skerne catchment landscape through time.

6.5.3 Bishop Middleham A cluster of significant finds from the environs of Bishop Middleham, to the west of Sedgefield, suggest this may have been another focus of Roman activity. Most striking are the four cast copper alloy skillets, or paterae, discovered in one of the fields within Bishop Middleham deer park and now held by Bowes Museum (HER 4877). These had been ‘tinned’ to give them the appearance of silver and were probably stacked one inside the other when deposited, presumably as a votive offering. Along with the small, copper alloy statuette head with a radiate crown, representing an unidentified deity, found by a metal detectorist near Farnless Farm (HER 3880), these finds might hint at the existence of a shrine somewhere in the vicinity, though it is perhaps more likely that they were isolated votive offerings. Coins and a broach have also reportedly been found in the general area of Bishop Middleham (HER 7946-8), but the clearest indication of an actual settlement site is represented by enclosure at Island Farm.

Key site: Island Farm, Bishop Middleham Island Farm occupies a very prominent point on the crest of a hill south of Bishop Middleham village. A large rectangular ditched enclosure (HER 9112), typical of Iron Age/Romano British settlements, has been identified through aerial photography, the cropmark being particularly prominent to the north-east and east of the present farmsteading. There are also hints of features on the hillside north of the enclosure, tentatively interpreted as possible round houses. Intriguingly, numerous Roman coin finds have also reported at this location (HER 6326, 7953-4), though these are not firmly corroborated.

6.6 The Early Medieval Period (AD 410-1066)

6.6.1 Introduction The period of 300-400 years following the collapse of Roman imperial authority in Britain during the first two decades of the 5th century is one of the most obscure, particularly when addressed at the level of a discrete landscape territory such as the Skerne catchment. Much progress has undoubtedly been made in illuminating the early medieval period at the regional level in recent decades, with important excavations at key sites such as the monasteries of Jarrow, Monkwearmouth and Whithorn, the royal seats of Bamburgh and Yeavering and lesser estate centres like Thirlings in the Millfield Basin or nascent village communities such as Shotton in SE Northumberland. However when it comes to charting changing settlement patterns in a specific locality there is still very limited evidence available.

The period is of course marked by a shift from a Latin and Brythonic speaking culture with an overall Roman identity to an Early English speaking culture with an Anglian Northumbrian identity. The implications of this in terms of population continuity versus immigration from the North Sea districts of Germany, southern Scandinavia and the Netherlands are still especially controversial.

Recognising and then dating archaeological sites of the period are the key problems. There is the lack of common chronologically diagnostic finds. There are few coins until later in the period. Locally manufactured pottery is rare in the North-East until very late in the period and the hand-made vessel sherds do not survive well in the ploughsoil, whilst contemporary pottery types imported from continental Europe or the Mediterranean, were relatively high value and consequently rarely circulated outside the elite centres. Indeed it can almost be argued that it is the absence of finds which betrays an early medieval settlement, or the early medieval phases within a longer-lived site.

Another issue is the difficulty of spotting known early medieval site types on aerial photographs. Thus groups of rectangular timber halls constructed using individual ground-fast posts set in post holes are practically invisible other than to the most determined scrutiny and perfect conditions. Even the sunken-floored buildings, or grubenhauser, which often accompanied groups of rectangular timber halls, might be mistaken for geological features. However, two possible, early medieval post- built structures were identified during the ALSF aerial photographic transcription project. Both lie just outside the Bright Water boundary, near Hauxley Farm, Great Stainton at NZ 325215 and SW of Little Chilton at NZ 289 309 (Hewitt 2011, 74, fig. 2.30).

6.6.2 Continuity There is clear evidence of continuity of occupation at the Roman forts of Binchester and Piercebridge, well into the 5th century (Ferris 2010; Cool and Mason, 2008, 308-10). There is clear evidence that occupation continued at those sites well into the 5th century, echoing the findings from excavations at forts along Hadrian’s Wall, notably Birdoswald, Housesteads and Vindolanda. Thus at Binchester the commanding officer’s house was turned over to industrial activity and butchery during the very late or sub-Roman period. A 6th-century Anglo-Saxon burial cutting through the collapsed vault of the bathhouse attached to the house appears to have marked a definitive end to that sequence of activity. Further evidence of similar industrial activity was recovered during the 2009-14 excavations in the west corner of the fort (Mason 2013, 13). At Piercebridge the ditch defences at east gate appear to have been modified well into the 5th century. A North African amphora type points to the continued import of olive oil from North Africa during the 5th century and there are other identifiably late finds groups, including penannular brooches and distinctive form of spur, as well as appreciable amounts of Anglian pottery of suggested 6th-century date.

There is also evidence for continuing activity during the 5th and 6th centuries at the villa site of Ingleby Barwick, beside the Tees, notably in the form of three sunken floored buildings and over 200 sherds of Anglo-Saxon pottery. However none of the rural settlements in the Bright Water area, including the village/small town at East Park Sedgefield, have yielded equivalent evidence yet.

6.6.3 Cemeteries The most abundant evidence from the 5th-7th centuries AD is provided by cemetery sites. Though cremations are often found, these more commonly involved burial of the intact body (inhumation). These burials, the wealthier or better furnished ones at least, were accompanied with grave goods, which could include weaponry, such as spear and shield, in the case of men, whilst women were frequently interred with dress accoutrements, such as broaches, which would have been used to

49 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit fasten their clothing, as they were buried in the equivalent of their ‘Sunday best’, and sets of keys attached to her belt by a chatelaine ring symbolising women’s role as custodian of the home.

Numerous examples of such sites have been found in East Yorkshire and further south, but they are rarer further north, with single burials being relatively more common (perhaps representing the remains of local warlords or members of leading families). No such sites have been confirmed within the study area yet, but a couple of cemeteries recorded in the 19th century, at Stob Cross field, Thrislington, and Greenbank, Darlington, lie just outside the boundary, and a number of other important sites are located relatively close by in the Tees Lowlands and on the Magnesian Limestone Plateau. Moreover, metal-detected Anglo-Saxon finds from Coatham Mundeville and Denton, reported to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, may hint at the location of cemeteries within the study area itself (cf. ASDU 2013, 199) and likewise those recovered from a slight rise near Swan Carr Farm, Bradbury (R. Elder pers. comm.). Sherds of possible hand made pottery found around Bishop Middleham might also be relevant (HER 3828, 7951, though they could also be Iron Age!) and Saxon coins have also reportedly been found in the same general area (HER 7945).

The most informative site of this type in East Durham/Teesside is the large 6th-century cemetery containing 120 burials excavated at Norton, near Billingham in Cleveland (Sherlock and Welch 1992). Smaller, with only nine confirmed burials, but similarly rich in dress fittings brooches of various kinds, buckles and other belt fittings, rings, and other personal ornaments, was the 6th-century cemetery found on Andrew's Hill (HER 51; cf. Hamerow and Pickin 1995; Pickin 1991; 1993), south-west of Easington Village. Greenbank cemetery, Darlington, comprised only six skeletons, including a child (Miket & Pocock 1976). The finds were dateable to the second half of the 6th and first half of the 7th century and included weaponry – at least three spearheads, two swords and two shield bosses – brooches of various types, including great square-headed, cruciform and small-long types, and three pottery urns, though some have since been lost. The eight or nine skeletons found in Stob Cross field, Thrislington, in 1822 were probably 5th- to 6th-century in date (HER 1110; Surtees 1823, 397; Lucy 1999, 18, 33; Mackenzie & Ross 1834, 321; Fordyce 1857, 400; Miket 1980, 292). The bodies were laid in stone cists (where the sides of the grave were lined with stone slabs), and were not aligned east-west as was the practice with Christian burials. Iron spearheads were found in two of the graves, plus the bones of a horse and probably a dog in another. An example of a single burial is that found in 1775 beneath a cairn at Castle Eden (HER 162; cf. Austin 1987, 57-60; Miket 1980, 292; Lucy 1999, 33), which was accompanied by an exceptionally fine, claw beaker, made of green-blue glass in the Rhineland in the late 5th or 6th century (and now in the British Museum). Sherlock and Welch (1992, 5) note, however, that this burial could easily prove be the only recognised part of a substantial cemetery.

In the past the existence of such inhumation burials was seen as reflecting the arrival of a new population, Anglo-Saxons, from the Dutch, German and Danish coastal districts. The existence of such population movement is difficult to deny, given the linguistic change from Latin and Brittonic to English as the spoken language during these centuries, but the extent of that movement is now the subject of much debate. That is to say it is uncertain what proportion of the people that Bede describes as Anglians or Saxons in the late 7th-early 8th century were direct descendents of men and women who had crossed the North Sea at some stage to settle in Britain and how many were of indigenous origin, whose ancestors had adopted Anglo-Saxon customs, culture and language after they had fallen under the control of successful immigrant warriors.

6.6.4 The documentary resource: The Community of St Cuthbert and its shire estates

This cemetery evidence points to the existence of distinct communities or groups with a fixed place in the landscape, but the settlement pattern associated by the funerary archaeology remains opaque in the region under consideration.

However, from the late 9th century onwards, documentary evidence begins to shed light on the administrative and tenurial structures which underpinned the settlement pattern and, indirectly therefore, on the settlement itself.

The catalyst for the growth in documentary evidence is increasing dominance over the Tyne-Tees region exercised by the monastic, religious corporation known as the Community of St Cuthbert (congregatio sancti Cuthberti). The community was descended from the monastery established on Lindisfarne or Holy Island in the 7th century, where the celebrated saint, Cuthbert, was bishop in 685-7. Increasing pressure from Viking raiding from 793 onwards finally caused the monks to abandon their island home in 875, carrying the body of their saint with them in its coffin, before eventually settling at Chester-le-Street in 883 and re-establishing the seat of the bishopric there. Just over a century later the bishop and community moved again, this time to the better protected site of Durham in 995.

The most important source for these events, amongst the various documents preserved by the Durham Cuthbertine community, is the Historia de sancto Cuthberto, which was probably compiled in the mid- to late 11th century, at the very end of the Anglo-Saxon period or even immediately following the Norman Conquest (though some scholars have suggested a date around the mid-10th century, as much as a hundred years earlier). The Historia records that the community was the recipient of numerous grants of land made by the Viking kings of York, notable rulers of newly emergent Kingdom of England – Athelstan and Canute – and prominent local lords during the course of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries (Roberts 2008, 154-7, 226-36). Indeed this process of land acquisition may have actually begun earlier in the 9th century, before the community’s move southward, as part of a deliberate effort to build up its southern holdings.

Whilst it is clear that the Lindisfarne community originally held relatively little land between the Tyne and the Tees, the earliest of string of land grants to the community occurred during the incumbency of Bishop Ecgred (c. 830-845) and took the form of a substantial grant, comprising the area between the Wear and Tees to the west of Dere Street (HSC 9). This might reflect the acquisition of control by Lindisfarne over pre-existing monasteries in that area notably Gainford. This may be a result of Lindisfarne backing the winning candidate in the struggle for the Northumbrian throne and thereby securing the suppression of the rival Hexham bishopric (Cambridge pers. comm.; Rollason 2003, 247; and in general Higham 1986, 290-92). It may have been Tyne-Tees region’s increasing importance to them which caused the bishop and monks relocate there from north Northumberland in the late 9th century, rather than the threat of Viking raiding for instance. By moving to Chester-le-Street, the community was shifting closer to the new centre of political power in Viking York, ensuring it could better exert its influence to protect its recent acquisitions in the area of County Durham, and was well-placed to expand its possessions there, a policy which appears to have been very successful.

The grants recorded by the Historia de sancto Cuthberto often comprised large blocks of territory and these frequently took a particular form in the document – an initial name of a place that was later a major parochial centre, such as Easington (HSC 19a, 22), Gainford and (Bishop) Auckland (HSC 31) or Bedlington in Northumberland (HSC 21), for example, followed by a dozen or so names of places sometimes helpfully labelled vills (villas), i.e. townships. Perhaps the clearest expression is represent by King Cnut’s donation to St Cuthbert of ‘the vill that is called Staindrop (Standropa) with its dependencies:’ (twelve names including Raby, West Auckland, Ingleton and Thickley), perhaps c.

1031. On other occasions the record was abbreviated, as with purchase by Bishop Cutheard (901- 15?) of ‘the vill of Sedgefield (Ceddesfeld) and whatever pertains to it’ (HSC 21). Each represents a shire or composite estate2, focussed on an administrative centre where the rents and other renders from all the surrounding dependent vills were collected. These shire estates were coherent blocks of territory (in contrast to the more fragmented baronies which were established after the Norman Conquest). The Community might in turn grant the combined estate to a noble, thereby incorporating him and any armed following he might have into its network of dependents and supporters. In these cases the religious community probably did not relinquish full control, but merely conceded to the noble in question the use of the revenue from these estates for the duration of the grant.

Key Site: Legs Cross (HER 37472; SM 1018638; LB 1323020 (II*); NGR: NZ 20721 22496) A tangible remnant of this estate system survives in the form of the mid-9th century cross shaft known as Legs Cross. This stands in its original position on the west side of Dere Street (the present B6275) at the very point where the boundary between the historic ecclesiastical Parishes of Gainford and Auckland St Helen intersects with the course of the road. It probably marked the boundary between the ancient estates of Gainfordshire and Aucklandshire. It is tempting to suggest that the cross commemorated the initial grant of land around Gainford to the Lindisfarne community during the tenure of Bishop Ecgred (830-845).

Visible remains at the site include the shaft, socle and an earth mound. The socle and shaft are composed of sandstone and stand to a height of 2.6m. The shaft is 1.7m tall and tapers towards its top. The base of the shaft is 0.3m east-west and 0.4m wide north-south. On the east face of the shaft the straight line mouldings which separated panels of interlacing are discernible. A grid of peck marks can be discerned which is all that remains of the interlace pattern itself. The cross reuses the position of a Roman milestone, but the base of the milestone is no longer visible. Perhaps the milestone was initially used as a marker when the estates were first demarcated.

The record provided by the Historia de sancto Cuthberto thus establishes the existence of two types of site, both of which can be identified in the study area. Firstly there are the estate centres which appear to be represented by the core settlements of the large, historic ecclesiastical parishes with their ancient churches, and secondly the ordinary vills which bear the same names as the rural villages recorded from the Middle Ages onwards.

6.6.5 Parish and shire capitals: churches and carved stonework In addition to the historical documentary evidence for the estate centres two other classes of evidence forming part of the historic resource are relevant to these sites, early medieval carved stonework and the built fabric of the parish churches themselves which often incorporates Anglo-Saxon work/elements (though not always in the parts of the walls one would expect).

Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture The carved stonework has been catalogued and analysed in depth in Volume 1 of the Corpus of Anglo- Saxon Stone Sculpture edited by Prof Rosemary Cramp (1984). Three parish churches within the study area have yielded pieces of pre-Conquest carved stonework including cross-shafts, -heads and -arms, grave-markers and hogbacks: St Andrew’s, Haughton-le-Skerne (14 surviving fragments) St Andrew’s, Aycliffe (17)

2 Other terms used for these large estates are ‘multiple estate’, ‘land unit’ and ‘great estate’’ cf. Dyer 2003, 26- 30.

St Cuthbert’s, Darlington (4, plus one piece of the Saxo-Norman overlap period)

Most of this material is relatively late – 10th or 11th-century in date – but a couple of pieces from Aycliffe may be somewhat earlier: a cross-arm of the late 9th to early 10th century and a triangular panel of possible 8th-century date (Corpus: 46-8, Aycliffe 10 & 14). Further carved stonework derives from churches just outside the study area, namely such as Great Stainton, Coniscliffe and Gainford.

Late Anglo-Saxon and Saxo-Norman church fabric As regards the built fabric of the churches, Ryder’s analysis has shown that three contain elements of Saxon and Saxo-Norman work (2011, 67-8, 83-4, 107-8). Aycliffe incorporates two possible phases of Saxon work at either end of the nave, St Cuthbert’s Church, Darlington, was mainly erected c. 1180-1250 but contains probable earlier fabric in the lower part of the west wall and the west responds of the nave arcades (Saxon or early Norman), whilst at Haughton-le-Skerne the walls of the nave and west part of the chancel may be relatively early post-Conquest (c. 1100). St Michael’s Church, Heighington, has also been claimed as having Saxon fabric following excavation of the footings in 1981, but this has been questioned (cf. Ryder 2011, 108-9).

The almost complete absence of pre-10th century sculpture implies that these parish churches did not originate as Northumbrian monastic sites or the pre-Viking era. Instead they may have been founded as minster churches (probably also termed a monasterium in Latin, mynster in Old English) staffed by secular clergy – priests rather than monks – and designed to served large royal shire estates, for instance, not covered by the network of monastic churches (cf. Cambridge 1984, 78-82; Cambridge and Rollason 1995, 96; Blair 2005, 313). These may initially have been built in timber, and might thus pre-date the earliest visible stonework or even the surviving carved stone monuments. Rebuilding in stone may have followed later, in some cases perhaps following donation of the respective estates to the community of St Cuthbert. The later, comprehensive medieval parochial system crystallised out of this process, in many cases preserving the outline of the earlier shire estates in the later parish boundaries, despite a degree of territorial subdivision as the system developed.

6.6.6 Vills, townships and the origin of villages Turning to the ordinary vills, several of the communities of the study area feature for the first time in the Historia de sancto Cuthberto, for example the terra of Bradbury (Brydbyrig) and of Mordon (Mordun), both perhaps part of Sedgefield shire estate (HSC 30), or Cockerton (Cocertune), Haughton (Halhtune) and Ketton (Ceattune), associated with Darlington (HSC 29).

Most of the villages in the study area have Anglian names, but a few in the southern part of the area, which once formed the Wapentake of Sadberge, have Scandinavian names or names combining an Old English element with Old Norse –by ‘farmstead’, perhaps signifying settlement on along the north bank of the Tees by some members of Scandinavian elite class, at least, following the Viking invasions in the late 9th century (cf. for example – e.g. Ulnaby, signifying ‘Ulfhethin’s farm’ combining the Old Norse personal name Ulfhethin and –by; Watts 2002, 128).

The places appearing in the documentary evidence should not necessarily be interpreted as village settlements yet. These subordinate places are described as vills, i.e. townships, terra – ‘land’ (territory might be a better translation), or a specified number of carucates (ploughlands) at the place in question is given. However, all this does imply that the named vills or appurtenances were distinct places with a designated territory, certainly by the mid- to late 11th century AD when the Historia de sancto Cuthberto was compiled, and perhaps even earlier in the 9th and 10th centuries, when many of the grants are supposed to have taken place. In theory the vills could still have had a dispersed settlement pattern at this stage, comprising a number of separate farmsteads or hamlets.

Nevertheless the fact that most of these territories not only bear the same name as a later medieval village and preserved their integrity throughout this period without obvious fragmentation or subdivision hints at a settlement pattern that was already nucleated rather than dispersed, which might have been more prone to piecemeal subdivision.

This need not signify nucleated settlement in the same village location throughout the period from the early medieval period to the present day. What the early development processes of the region’s medieval villages might actually entail has been illuminated by recent work in advance of opencast coal mining at Shotton, near Cramlington, in south-east Northumberland. Two successive phases of early medieval settlement were uncovered there, each occupying a different location c. 300m from the site of the later medieval village (McKelvey 2010; Muncaster et al. 2014). This process, whereby village settlements were initially established on different sites from those currently occupied and then underwent one or more shifts of position between the 8th and 12th centuries, before reaching their present locations, has been documented for certain sites elsewhere in England and is sometimes termed ‘the Middle Saxon shuffle’. This represents one of the clearest village settlement sequences yet observed in the North-east of England, but it is not the only possible model for village development.

The alternative model of village formation, whereby the population of a number of hamlets or isolated farmsteads, distributed throughout a particular territory, was deliberately concentrated into a single, much larger nucleated settlement, may also be valid in some places. However only a great deal of further archaeological investigation will determine which model most closely matches the origins of any particular medieval village communities in the study area.

6.7 The Later Medieval Period (AD 1066-1540)

The period following the Norman Conquest forms a marked contrast to the earlier periods discussed above, in terms of the much greater extent and range of the available heritage resource. This takes the following forms:  Documentary Resource – surveys, charters, rentals, court rolls etc.  Archaeological resource – deserted village earthworks, ridge-and-furrow field patterns, existing village layouts, buried archaeological deposits  Built resource – castles, manor houses and ancillary buildings  Material culture – recovered by archaeological excavation, as stray finds, most recently by widespread metal-detecting

6.7.1 The settlement pattern The overall settlement pattern in the Skerne catchment becomes clearer from the 11th century onwards. It was still overwhelmingly rural, with the vast majority of the population engaged in agriculture, but, rather than being distributed evenly throughout the area, the farmsteads occupied by this rural agricultural population were for the most part concentrated together in villages, forming a predominantly nucleated settlement pattern. Each of these villages formed a distinct community with a defined territory, the vill or township, and regulated many aspects of the exploitation of that territory collectively through communal juries and the manor court, notably the common waste and aspects of the open townfields.

There was only one borough, Darlington, situated on the Great North Road which gradually supplanted the former Roman roads as the region’s chief highway. This was the principal market and craft production centre in the area and was controlled by the bishop. In addition, however, some of

54 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit the villages exhibited larger more complex plans than the others, often focussed around large squarish greens. These were typically the centres of large ecclesiastical parishes (and former shire estates). They may have had market, or quasi market, functions and appear to have formed an intermediate tier as central places in the settlement hierarchy (cf. Britnell 2004, 23 for a similar tier on the Magnesian Limestone Plateau).

Finally, and less well known, there were also a few isolated farms. Some of these were the grange farms maintained by ecclesiastical lords like Durham Priory and the bishop. Thus the priory’s demesne farm in Ketton probably occupied a different location, at Ketton Hall perhaps, from that of the vill community’s focus (most likely at Newton Ketton; cf. Lomas & Piper Bursars Rentals, 214; Fielding 1980, 59-60, 106). Great Isle, though part of a secular lordship, may have functioned similarly, as a discrete manorial complex, for no village earthworks have ever been identified there. Others may be the result of colonisation of areas of former common waste, for example the priory’s holding at Coatsay Moor (Lomas & Piper Bursars Rentals, 213), and the discrete farms at Greystoke and Beaumont Hill mentioned in Bishop Hatfield’s Survey (Hatfield Survey, 7).

6.7.2 The documentary resource A wealth of medieval documentation survives for the area of County Durham and the Bright Water study area in particularly, as rich and varied as any comparable area in England. However this coverage is not evenly distributed across all communities in the study area. The main reason why there is such abundant documentary material relating to the area is that so much of the territory was held by institutions of the Church, in particular the Bishop of Durham and the Benedictine priory attached to Durham cathedral. The related documentary archives are both, in the main, now curated by Durham University Library, Archives and Special Collections. Those estates which were subject to secular lordship are significantly less well-recorded. In evaluating the level of documentation which might be available for any given settlement or estate, and what form it might take, it is therefore crucial to know what type of lordship that community was subject to and also any major changes in that tenurial control over time.

Historical background: Bishop and Priory, Barons and Knights Following the Norman Conquest, the hereditary priests, who had comprised the Community of St Cuthbert since the abandonment of the Holy Island monastery in the late 9th century, were replaced by a fully monastic convent of Benedictine monks, established by Bishop William de St-Calais in 1083 and attached to the rebuilt cathedral (Aird 1998, 100-141). The great landholdings of the Church of St Cuthbert were then divided between the Benedictine priory and the bishop (Aird 1998, 145-7, 155- 66), a process which was not without its complications. In addition, during the period up to 1150, the bishop granted some of his estates to a number of barons and knights – the barones et fideles sancti Cuthberti. (In some cases this may have done no more than confirm local families in the possession of estates they already held.)

The creation of this last group was by a process known as ‘subinfeudation’, whereby the bishop retained nominal possession, as the superior lord, over the land granted to the baron or knight, but in practice the recipient exercised largely unfettered control over their fiefs, extracting rents and labour services from the peasants of the manor. Consequently the actions of these manorial lords would have had a much greater day-to-day impact on the life of village communities which fell under their control than would those of the nominal overlord, the bishop. In return, the inferior lords were supposed to provide military service, in support of the bishop, the tenant in chief, who was himself bound to provide the king with military support. Some of these subordinate lords, those holding the largest number of knight’s fees and most numerous estates, would in turn have enfeoffed followers of their own to enable them to fulfil their military obligation to the bishop. The bishop’s feudal

55 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit tenants were also supposed to attend his court and generally act as faithful, supportive vassals, forming what is known as an honorial community, honour being another term for barony (for the composition of this group of barons and knights in the 12th century and the location of their land holdings see Aird 1998, 184-226; Scammell 1956, 222-9).

As a consequence of these two processes – the ecclesiastical division and the subinfeudation – the bishop came to be recognised as the universal, superior landlord between the Tees and Tyne – the area known as the Haliwerfolc (literally ‘the people of the saint’, i.e. St Cuthbert) or simply the Bishopric. That is to say he was not only a major landowner in his own right, but also the ‘sole landlord’, subordinate only to the king (Liddy 2008, 25). Even those estates which the bishop did not hold directly and which were held instead either by the priory or by his barons and knights were all notionally held of the bishop as ‘tenant in chief’ in a feudal relationship.

Thus landed estates in medieval County Durham fell into three categories of lordship:

1. The bishop’s directly managed estates – an extensive collection of lands distributed throughout the region retained under the bishop’s immediate control. 2. The patrimony of the cathedral priory established in 1083 or its subordinate daughter monasteries, or ‘cells’, such as Finchale priory or Jarrow and Monkwearmouth priories – another large block dispersed throughout the region. 3. A third category held by the subordinate barons and knights who were the bishop’s feudal tenants and formed his military following.

The Bishop’s estates The bishop was the largest single landowner within the Bright Water study area. Whilst not as well served as the priory’s lands, the estates of the bishop are fairly well-documented with two major surveys and numerous charters having survived from the Middle Ages. The most celebrated of these documents is the earlier survey of the bishopric’s entire estate, known as the Boldon Book, initially compiled around 1183 (though only surviving in the form of four later copies – cf. Boldon Book; Boldon Buke; and Offler 1996 for discussion). This is complemented by the still more detailed survey initiated by Bishop Hatfield around 200 years later in c. 1381. Bishop Hatfield’s Survey sheds some light on the impact of the Black Death a generation earlier and the bishop’s response to it, as far as possible trying to ignore the terrible epidemic’s profound implications (Hatfield Survey).

The following village settlements and farms within or directly adjacent to the study area were held in full or in part by the bishop: Sedgefield, Hardwick, Middleham, Cornforth, Mainsforth, Garmondsway, Grindon, New Ricknall (‘Ricknall vill’ in Hatfield’s Survey), ‘the other Ricknall’ (demesne in the hand of the bishop in 1183 – Ricknall Grange with demesne meadow and pasture in 1381), Heworth, Darlington Borough with Bondgate, Cockerton, Haughton-le-Skerne, Whessoe, the demesne of Ketton (temporarily – listed in Boldon Book, but relinquished to the priory shortly after, probably equivalent to Ketton Hall), Heighington, Killerby, Middridge, West Thickley, Redworth, Newbiggin (‘Newtown near Thickley’ in Boldon Book), School Aycliffe, Butterwick, Brafferton, Coatham Mundeville (acquired some time after 1274) including Beaumont Hill and Greystones, and Sadberge Borough (from 1189).

The Church Commissioners still hold land in the Bright Water area today, at Ricknall Grange, Copelaw and Archdeacon Newton, for example.

Durham Priory’s estates

The documentation relating to the estates of the Benedictine convent of Durham and its daughter priory cells are amongst the finest surviving from medieval England and have all ready provided the source material for numerous studies (e.g. Campey 1987 & 1989; Fielding 1980; Lomas 1973 and many volumes of edited source documents published by the Surtees Society). It includes a huge corpus of manor court records, account rolls, charters and surveys of one type or another (cf. Bursars Rentals; Halm; FPD). However coverage is best for the 14th-early 16th centuries and no early comprehensive survey equivalent to the Boldon Book has survived, though some 15th-century surveys incorporate material from a lost 13th-century predecessor which enables earlier arrangements to be restored (cf. Fraser 1955; FPD), and there are also a substantial number of 12th- and 13th-century charters many of which have been excerpted in the on-line catalogue. 3 Like the Bishopric’s records, the archive also contains a series of post-medieval estate maps, dating from the 18th century onwards, which nevertheless contain much useful information for understanding the medieval arrangements in the individual estates and townships covered.

The documents owe their survival to the seamless, literally overnight transformation of the Prior and Convent of Benedictine monks, attached to Durham Cathedral, into the Dean and Chapter of secular canons serving the same, when the monastery was dissolved by Henry VIII on 31 December 1539 (see Moorhouse 2008). Consequently the institution held on to most of its estates and the priory’s records continued to be preserved in the archives of the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral (now accessible via Durham University Archives and Special Collections). The following settlements within the study area are covered by the archive: Aycliffe, Bradbury, Newton Ketton (vill, with demesne farm probably at Ketton Hall), Barmpton, Skerningham, Burdon, the farm of Coatsay Moor, plus smaller parcels of land or tenurial rights in Chilton, Coatham Mundeville, Nunstainton, Sadberge and Woodham.

Ketton, along with Aycliffe, was the priory’s principal demesne farm in the Bright Water area. In the Boldon Book, c. 1183 (at a time when it was temporarily held by the bishop), the farm is described as having stock for four plough teams and four harrow teams, with a grange (grangia, i.e. barn) and ox- house (bovaria) and other buildings within the hallgarth (curia), which is enclosed by a ditch and hedge (Boldon Buke, 20, 57). It is noteworthy that Ketton Hall with it attached farm complex still sits within a rectangular enclosure with rounded corners, shown very clearly on maps from the 1st edition Ordnance Survey onwards.

The estates of secular lords It is the third category, the lands of the bishop’s barons and knights, which is the least well recorded. There are however a number of charters and deeds relating to such estates, some preserved because they were deposited in Durham priory for safe keeping (cf. Greenwell Deeds; Greenwell Deeds 2). In addition there is an important class of material known as Inquisitions Post Mortem or IPMs. These were surveys undertaken by the bishop’s officers on the death of one of the bishop’s tenants-in- chief, that is a baron or knight holding land directly from the bishop in return for military service. The purpose of the IPMs was to determine the extent and value of the feudal tenant’s estates, whether his heir was of age (if not the land reverted to bishop as universal landlord in the palatinate until the heir attained majority), and to make provision for the widow, if surviving (who was normally entitled to a third of the estate during her lifetime). Abstracts of these inquisitions were made subsequently by the bishop’s officers, and these have survived, beginning in Bishop Beaumont’s tenure (1318-33) and providing full coverage for the period from 1333 onwards (Liddy 2008, 28-9; Cursitors Records). 3 The main catalogue entry for The Medieval Muniments of the Dean and Chapter of Durham is http://reed.dur.ac.uk/xtf/view?docId=ead/dcd/dcdguide.xml;query=DCD;brand=default#d-10 and provides access to individual charter collections such as specialia and pontificalia.

These include a number of important sites, notably Great Isle, in the centre of the carrs, as well as a many of the settlements in the SW part of the study area closer to the Tees. This latter area formed part of the Wapentake of Sadberge, a detached portion of the county of Northumberland, excluded from the control of the bishop until 1189 when Bishop Hugh du Puiset purchased it from Richard I (Fraser & Emsley 1970). This area had a distinct character with placename evidence for a much greater degree of Scandinavian settlement, at least at elite level, than elsewhere in the North-East (cf. Aislaby, Killerby, Raby, Raceby, Selaby, Ulnaby and Sadberge itself). Indeed wapentakes were administrative districts only found in Danelaw. Powerful lordships had been established here in the late 11th/early 12th century, notably the Balliol barony centred on Barnard Castle, largely outside the control of the bishops of Durham (cf. Austin 2007).This part of the county was also the origin of the lordship built up by the late medieval magnate lineage of the Nevilles, the present tenurial descendent of which is Raby Estates.

6.7.3 The Archaeological Resource

Deserted/Shrunken Medieval Villages One of the most significant components of the study area’s heritage resource is the number of sites which feature the well-preserved earthwork remains of now deserted medieval villages. The term needs a little qualification. In most cases there is at least a farmstead present or small hamlet, so technically shrunken medieval village would be more accurate in many cases. Indeed the distinction between deserted, shrunken and surviving can be somewhat subjective. Whatever the semantics the deserted/shrunken sites reflect a profound process of change which affected rural society during the late Middle Ages and early modern era, as many small to medium-sized villages shrank to one or two farmsteads. The process was often very prolonged, however, not being completed until the 17th or 18th centuries in some cases and no one cause seems to explain it, though population decline and economic recession following the Black Death obviously played a part. It is best to treat every village as an individual case to be examined in its own right.

Archaeological investigations of this type of site in the North-East have been relatively few. The seminal investigations have been Michael Jarrett’s archaeological excavation of the deserted village of West Whelpington in Northumberland and David Austin’s rescue excavation of Thrislington between Ferryhill and Cornforth, just beyond the northern limit of the study area (Austin 1989). Jarrett’s work was conducted over a period of fifteen years from 1966 onwards and revealed a substantial proportion of a medieval village (Evans and Jarrett 1987; Evans et al. 1988). It remains fundamental our understanding of life in a medieval Northumbrian village Austin’s Thrislington excavations were carried out over a briefer timeframe of only two seasons (1973-1974), but it was successful in establishing the plan of the medieval village and remains the most extensive excavation of a medieval rural settlement in County Durham. A number of pioneering interventions on moated sites as well as villages were also undertaken in the lower Tees Valley by Leslie Still and others from the 1960s onwards (Pallister 1990; Daniels 1988). Most of the sites investigated lie to the east of the study area, notably West Hartburn village (Still & Pallister 1964; 1967; Pallister & Wrathmell 1990), but rescue excavations in advance of housing development were carried out at East Red Hall Moat (HER 308), opposite Haughton-le-Skerne, in 1966 (Still & Pallister 1978).

Within the Bright Water area itself topographic survey has been employed more commonly than excavation. An extensive programme of survey was undertaken by the RCHME in the 1983-4, involving a number of sites on the Magnesian Limestone landscape, eight of which were medieval villages, including Coatham Mundeville, Heworth and Woodham as well as the complex of earthworks at Great Isle Farm.

A particularly detailed survey with accompanying documentary research and interpretative analysis was undertaken by English Heritage at Ulnaby in 2007 (English Heritage 2008). This was subsequently followed up by a three-day excavation by Time Team. Ulnaby has many of the classic elements of medieval villages in the North-East – a broadly rectangular plan composed of regular rows of toft enclosures separated by a central green plus a manorial enclosure – but the detailed survey and analysis was able to show had the layout had been altered over time helping to chart the processes of expansion and contraction to the present shrunken settlement comprising Ulnaby Hall and associated farm and three cottages.

Ulnaby. (see above).

Walworth (see above) surviving earthworks N of the present small hamlet.

Archdeacon Newton (see above).

Whessoe (see above). N of Darlington conurbation. Village site lies S of Whessoe Grange Farm and is shown, already much denuded on John Micheson’s map of Whessoe, 1601. Village Field was bulldozed in 1952. The Iron Age & Romano-British site of Faverdale, excavated prior to development in 2003-2004, lies immediately to the south.

Ketton (now a several dispersed farms – Ketton Hall, Peartree Farm, Little Ketton and East Ketton, plus the hamlet of Newton Ketton, a later medieval foundation (mentioned from the mid-C14). Durham Cathedral Priory had one of its principal manorial farms at Ketton – exact location unknown – but most likely+ Ketton Hall).

Coatham Mundeville (see above). Surviving earthworks around Coatham Hall Farm on the W side of the A167 Durham Road, with present hamlet to E.

Heworth. Extensive earthworks to N of Heworth House.

Preston-le-Skerne. Extensive earthworks around Preston East Farm and Preston Manor Farm, extending as far as Preston West Farm. Scheduled Monument

Ricknall. Documentary sources mention a grange and a vill, each leased out to a single tenant in 1381 (Hatfield Survey, 25), but Ricknall Grange and Ricknall Mill farms are the only settlements today. However the slight traces of toft-and-croft plots village earthworks at Ricknall Grange can be tentatively identified on aerial photographs and LIDAR coverage, particularly to the west of the current farm, implying the village settlement and demesne farm may have lain adjacent to one another.

Grindon. Earthworks on W side of High Grindon (farm now demolished?).

Case Study: Woodham (HER 1497; NZ 2878 2674). Earthworks on the E side of the A167, close to the modern Woodham Village Newton Aycliffe. The tithe income recorded in the Durham Priory bursar’s accounts provides evidence of its decline from being the most prosperous place in Aycliffe parish, along with Aycliffe itself, in the early 14th century to being a deserted village by 1427 (Lomas & Piper Bursars Rentals, 214). It still features in 17th-century documents, being term a manor in 1615 and held by a group of freeholders 70 years later, but it is not clear if what that signified in terms of

59 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit settlement. On the 1st edition Ordnance Survey a cluster of farmsteads forming a small hamlet lie to the west of the medieval site on either side of the Great North Road.

The site comprises earthwork remains of medieval crofts, building platforms, a pond and hollow way. The crofts lie on the slope to the north of Woodham Burn running in a NW-SE alignment. The line of building platforms is evident along the crest of the slope to the NW of the crofts. A short section of hollow way can be seen to the south of the village on the opposite bank of the burn. To the east a fishpond is visible with associated ditch draining water from the top of the slope into the pond.

Surviving villages with medieval origins The attention given to deserted village earthworks should not lead us to ignore the evidence preserved in surviving villages, inhabited continuously from the Middle Ages onwards. These may not only preserve important archaeological deposits, but may also reveal a great deal about the form and development of villages over time through the analysis of their plans, particularly when combined with the analysis of all available historic mapping and the full documentary resource from medieval charters onwards.

Using such methods, Brian Roberts, has done most to shape our understanding of village morphology over more than 40 years of academic endeavour, beginning with his work on the green villages of County Durham (Roberts 1972; 1977b). He has been instrumental in classifying the various elements and characteristics represented in village plans, the presence or absence of building rows, and greens or streets, for instance, or the survival of toft enclosures and the presence of a continuous toft-tail lines and back lanes, separating the rear of the toft compartments from the fields beyond, as well as the degree of regularity displayed by any given plan. In doing so he has defined some of the classic forms of the region’s villages, notably the regular two row village, oblong in form with the two rows typically separated by a broad green, but sometimes just by a much narrower street. Middridge, as shown on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map (surveyed 1857), is a good example of this type with a broad regular oblong green flanked the main north and south rows plus a third very short row largely closing off the west end. In the rows the buildings all stand at the front of the tofts opening directly onto the green, with fairly continuous toft-tail lines at the rear, particularly on the south side. Fishburn is another example where the original rectangular green can still be seen clearly today, although the surrounding buildings all appear relatively modern. Such regular row villages convey the strong impression of having been deliberately laid out at a particular point in time, whether as a foundation from scratch or a radical reorganisation of an earlier vill. Other settlements, however, take the form of less-structured agglomerations which give the impression that they may have grown up more organically. If Middridge may be judged a classic North-East agricultural village, others, as noted above, display much greater complexity, featuring multiple rows and a very large green, sometimes accommodating a parish church at its core. These complex, multiple row villages, such as Heighington, Aycliffe and Sedgefield, typically have the status of parochial centres and ex-shire capitals. This analytical work in turn enables the process by which these villages were established to be explored (see Roberts 2008).

The following are amongst the surviving medieval villages in the study area: Haughton-le-Skerne, Cockerton (both absorbed into the Darlington conurbation), Great Burdon, Barmpton, Sadberge (with surviving earthworks on the N side of the village), Brafferton, Coatham Mundeville, Aycliffe (at the SE corner of Newton Aycliffe), Heighington, School Aycliffe, Redworth, Middridge, Bradbury, Mordon, Sedgefield, Butterwick (cluster of farms), Fishburn, Bishop Middleham, Mainsforth.

As noted above, many of these villages are itemised in the Boldon Book and other surveys listing the Bishop’s estates or in the wealth of documents relating to Durham Cathedral Priory’s holdings. Detailed 18th- and early 19th-century estate maps are also available for some of the settlements, including Aycliffe, Great Burdon, and Newton Ketton (DUL/ASC: DCD/E/AA/13/1-2, 14/1-3, 15 and DCD/E/AF/7/1-2). They may be investigated via the medium of village atlases and potentially through community test-pitting exercises, where sufficient participation can be secured.

6.7.4 The Built Resource: Churches, Castles and Manors The study area contains a rich and varied range of surviving medieval architecture. Perhaps the most visually impressive are the numerous ancient parish churches, many of which have complex histories locked away in their stone fabric. In some cases there is clear evidence for early medieval foundation, either in the form of surviving Anglo-Saxon masonry fabric and architectural features, or the discovery of assemblages of stone sculpture of the period.

As regards medieval secular buildings, it is the case that the largest of the county’s castles and palaces lie to the west and north of the area, such as Raby, Brancepeth, Barnard Castle, Auckland Castle and of course Durham. These were the seats of power of late medieval magnates, the Balliols, Beauchamps, Nevilles and the bishops of Durham. Nevertheless, a series of smaller castles and important manor houses are scattered throughout the Bright water area, home to the members of the lesser nobility and gentry, or parochial rectors, for instance. Archdeacon Newton, as its name suggests, probably housed one of the residences for the archdeacons of Durham, whilst at Bishop Middleham, we have an important fortified manor of the bishop of Durham, with the facilities required for periodic including a walled park for the favourite elite pastime of hunting.

Some of these buildings, for example Archdeacon Newton, have been recognised only relatively recently, by Peter Ryder, and many if not all are not fully understood and would merit further study. Moreover, further investigation of manor- and farmhouses and barns of ostensibly later date (C17/C18) may yet reveal more survivals of extant medieval fabric.

Historic Churches

Sedgefield, St Edmund the Bishop. A major 12th-century and later church with important post- medieval furnishings. A complex fabric which might benefit from further study; the chancel in particular has not been properly recorded since being stripped of render in the mid-20th century and would merit the preparation of stone-for-stone elevation drawings. An important high-status medieval grave slab re-used at the head of the newel stair in the tower is decaying badly, and in need of conservation work, and perhaps re-location.

Bishop Middleham St Michael. 12th- and 13th-century, important church associated with Bishop’s Manor House.

Aycliffe, St Andrew. A complex church with at least one phase of Pre-Conquest work; preparation of elevation drawings of the nave walls might help to elucidate the earlier phases of its history. This is another building that has a significant collection of early sculpture, including important Pre- Conquest pieces.

Heighington St Michael. An important 12th-century church in the centre of the green of a classic green village; the relationship of the church with the settlement, paralleled on a smaller scale with the contemporary chapel at nearby Walworth, merit a study in the context of medieval planning.

The church has been claimed to be partly of Pre-Conquest date on the basis of some excavation in the later 20th century, but this remains controversial.

Denton. 19th-century church (now house) adjacent to earlier chapel site. Some medieval stones.

Walworth Chapel. 12th-century chapel now farm building, on centre-of-green site in medieval village, of which extensive earthworks survive. (perhaps a failed borough, now largely a deserted village with extensive earthwork remains)

Haughton Le Skerne, St Andrew. Earliest parts Saxo-Norman (late 11th- and 12th-century), with later medieval work. Despite late 19th century restoration (and addition of transepts) an interesting building with an important collection of Saxon and later carved stones, and early Post-Reformation fittings and furnishings.

Darlington St Cuthbert’s Church. Major late 12th/13th-century cruciform church, associated with Bishop’s Manor House, Deanery etc.

Sadberge St Andrew. 19th-century church on medieval site, with some early stones, within ditched enclosure. Centre of the wapentake of the same name.

Secular Buildings

Darlington. Last remains of Bishop’s manor house demolished c 1860 but recent excavations have revealed footings, many architectural fragments – current problem of what to do with them.

Haughton-le-Skerne Rectory. Includes the medieval rectory retained as one wing (Butler House) , partly 14th-century with remains of a rare crown post roof, main block Georgian.

Hall Garth, Coatham Mundeville. Core of this large house is allegedly medieval, though the externally visible elements appear 17th-century, but the building, now a hotel, has never been properly studied.

Archdeacon Newton. Remains of a medieval manor house, now a barn, which has marked similarities to Seaton Holme, Easington, also the residence of Durham’s archdeacons. Extensive earthworks of defensible medieval village, including supposed chapel site, lie adjacent.

Walworth Castle. Some elements of this complex, multi-period house are most likely medieval, notably one of the drum towers (the other may be a later, 16th-century addition, to create a balanced aspect). Also has an unusual early Renaissance frontage. Requires more serious investigation and recording.

Whessoe Grange. Medieval manor house demolished (mostly?) in 1980s, DMV earthworks to south bulldozed in 1950s.

Great Isle. (see below)

Bishop Middleham. (see below)

Case Study: Houghton-le-Side Manor Farm and Dovecote

Manor Farmhouse (HER 34531) is a two-storey three-bay house, from a distance of mid-18th-century appearance (raised copings to the gables, small moulded kneelers); it has a short rear wing with a ‘1760’ date to its doorhead. However, there is an odd chamfered off-set c 2 m above the ground on the south, and the walls are said to be around a metre thick, so it seems likely that earlier, and possibly even medieval, fabric is incorporated.

The farm buildings are of late 18th- or early 19th-century character (HER 34522, 34779, 36274, 36621, 36623), except for a dovecote (HER 34523) sited c 50 m south-east of the house. This is a typical ‘Teesdale’ circular dovecote, with coursed rubble walls of slightly convex profile and two courses of projecting slabs; it is differentiated from others of the group (Barforth and Caldwell south of the Tees, Gainford and Headlam to the north) by having a pair of spur like buttresses, dying into the wall below the first course of slabs, on the south (downhill) side. There is still a roof of sorts carried on a framework radial timbers, although a raised lantern shown on an old photograph has gone. Access is by a small square-headed chamfered doorway to the north-west; inspection of the interior is severely hampered by an overhanging mound of guano; enough can be glimpsed to see that the walls are lined with stone nesting boxes in the usual manner.

Key Site: Great Isle (HER 337-9, 34895, 35202, 35692; Grade II listed buildings 1121503-4, 1322805; NGR: NZ 3030 2695): Major complex of house and farm buildings grouped around a rectangular yard, retaining some medieval or early post-medieval features. The associated earthworks survive to the south and east of the farm on the western bank of the River Skerne. The building and related garden earthworks, were surveyed at 1:1000 by RCHME in 1983, but no archaeological investigation has ever taken place. Previously tentatively interpreted as a series of large fishponds or water management features Martin Roberts has suggested they may represent late medieval garden features.

The Isle of Bradbury is mentioned in the Boldon Book (c. 1183), though it was not included amongst the bishop’s estates. By the mid-14th century it was in the hands of the de la Pole family who held the three manors of Bradbury, The Isle and Preston-le-Skerne, thereby controlling much of the low- lying carrland of the Skerne catchment, plus Bolam further west. Originally Hull merchants, the de la Poles rose to become Earls then Dukes of Suffolk, and ultimately potential rivals of the Tudors for the throne of England. By the mid-1430s, however the family had sold its Durham estates to Roger Thornton, son of the famous Newcastle merchant of the same name, whence they passed via Roger’s daughter and heiress to the Lumleys and were in their hands in 1509. At a later date Bradbury and the Isle must, however, have passed to the Nevilles for they were included in the lands forfeited to the Crown following the Earl of Westmorland’s participation in the 1569 Rising of the North. Thereafter both were granted by the Crown to the Sir George Bowes, but the Isle was purchased to the Tempest family in the early 17th century and retained in that line .

Surveys and inquisitions of the 15th and 16th century provide some indication of the composition of the manorial complex. A dovecote and watermill are mentioned in 1471, and two water mills in 1636. A hall, barn and stables are listed in the 16th century (Page 1928, 323) A late 16th century survey at Great Isle mentions ‘a fayre hall' (Fordyce 1857). Surtees in about 1820, describes the ruins of the old manor house.

The original listing survey mistakenly identified the farm building with the extant medieval windows as the site of a chapel rather than a manor house. The most recent examination is by Ryder (2005- 2006) and emphasises the complexity of the group. The principal remnant of medieval manor appears to be represented by the south wall of the single-storey shed at the SW corner of the group,

63 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit which contains a horizontal stone slab string course, 0.5m above ground level, with two infilled windows with four centred arches above. The north and east walls of the N-S aligned, two-storey stable to the west of the farmhouse also contains early features. Substantial medieval fabric may also survive in the farmhouse, though extensively altered, whilst the barn north of the farmhouse is at least mid-17th century in date if not older.

Key Site: Bishop Middleham Castle and Deer Park (HER 1116-17, 1119; Scheduled Monument 1002330; NGR NZ 3274 3104): Earthwork remains of a medieval manor house, one of the residences of the Bishops of Durham between the 12th-14th centuries. Defensive site, located on a promontory SW of St Michael’s Church, and surviving as a series of earthworks and masonry fragments protruding through the turf. The better quality masonry of the principal building (the hall?) is evident. Fishponds can be traced as earthworks on the lower ground to the south and west (one is mentioned in 1313). The site was surveyed in detail by the RCHME in 1991 and the visible remains correlated with the documentary evidence relating to the buildings present in the bishop’s manorial complex.

To the south of the manor there is an attached deer park (HER 1116; centred NZ 3293 3070). Its stone circuit wall can still be traced along its entire course, though collapsing in places, and has been estimated at nearly 2 miles in length. It stands to an average height of 1.5m and thickness of 0.7m. Along the west side the wall runs beside Fourmarts Lane. The slight traces of an internal ditch can be seen at the north end of this west wall.

Middleham does not seem to have been one of the bishop’s ancient possessions, part of the patrimony of St Cuthbert. Instead various entries in the Boldon Book (1183), plus contemporary charters, indicate that this block of episcopal holdings in Middleham, Mainsforth and Cornforth was only amassed or at any rate substantially augmented in the second half of the 12th century, under Bishop Hugh du Puiset (1153-95), with landowners being persuaded to exchange land in these townships for manors the bishop could offer elsewhere. Presumably Bishop Hugh had decided the promontory site at Middleham would form a suitable site for one of his principal manors and residences and deliberately built up a block of estates to supply this new administrative centre (Scammell 1956, 206). By the time of the Hatfield Survey (1381), however, Middleham was leased out, no longer being used as one of the bishop’s residences as it had been up to the early 14th century. It is likely that a decision was made to concentrated resources on Bishop Auckland which was transformed into an episcopal palace, Middleham Castle going into decline from this point on.

6.8 The Post-Medieval Era

The end of the Middle Ages was imperceptible to those living at the time, in the decades after 1500. What we think of as the beginning of the Modern era was not a sudden break with the past, but rather a gradual transformation, the combination of multiple processes which gathered force as the 16th and 17th centuries progressed, slowly becoming apparent in the archaeological record. Unfortified manor houses and classical mansions replaced towers and castles as the residence of the elites. The Reformation entailed the dissolution of the monasteries and new patterns of worship, as the growth of non-conformist sects eventually challenged the hold of the Anglican Church on the souls of its parishioners. The rural landscape was transformed by enclosure, with the division of open fields and common moors into more compact closes bounded by hedges or walls, and by the creation new farmsteads dispersed throughout the township territories. Many village shrank or disappeared altogether as a consequence (a process underway from the mid-14th century onwards), but others

64 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit prospered as market centres, and even grew, exploiting the increasing commercial opportunities and improving transport connections. The growth of industry, initially dependent on water or wind power, came to exercise steadily greater significance as the 19th century approached.

6.8.1 Enclosure One of the most dramatic changes to impact on rural society, transforming virtually the entire agrarian landscape of the communities in question, was the enclosure of the medieval open arable fields, or ‘townfields,’ and their division into hedged fields or closes, plus the accompanying enclosure and division of areas of common moor. This replaced the multiple scattered strips of arable land and common grazing rights, characteristic of tenements of the High Middle Ages, with smaller enclosed fields grouped into compact, coherent farmholds.

Piecemeal enclosure of a few closes here and there may have been underway in a number of places during the late Middle Ages, but the township-wide enclosures probably began in the 16th century – Walworth is a possible candidate (cf. Tate 1946, 135 n.48) – but gathering far greater pace in the following century. Later on, in the 18th and 19th centuries, land was increasingly enclosed by specific parliamentary acts, but this mostly affected the extensive tracts of upland common attached to townships in the west of the county, in the Pennine dales and moors. The enclosures carried out in east Durham in the 17th century or earlier were generally accomplished by private agreement on the part of the landowners and freeholders, and then in many cases confirmed by a Decree Award in the Durham Chancery Court (cf. Durham County Local History Society 1992, 36-7).

The table below outlines the known enclosure agreements relating to the townships within or adjoining the study area, derived from the lists complied by W E Tate (1946, 128-38).

Table: List of recorded enclosure agreements or awards in the Bright Water Parishes and Townships (from Tate 1946 – dates are the Award or Agreement/Decree or confirmation) Date Description Township Area (acres) 1551? Walworth 1634/1636 Townfields Sedgefield 2662 1637 - Ferryhill - c. 1637 Townfields Heighington - 1638/1640 North, South & East Townfields Middridge 590 & Ox Close c. 1652 Townfields Great Aycliffe - 1654/1686 Aycliffe Moor Great Aycliffe 306 1662/1662 Part of Grange Close Cockerton 50 c.1662/1667 Pasture, Moor and Smeeths Redworth 186 1665/1666 Haughton Moor Haughton-le-Skerne 545 1668/1668 Remainder of Grange Close Cockerton 245 & 1669 1693 Townfields Bishop Middleham 625 1704/1705 Middridge Moor Middridge 421 1782/1786 Bolam (T) in Gainford (Parish) 800 Act/Award

The enclosure affected both the open town fields and common moors of communities which were divided up and enclosed by agreement to form a series of coherent leasehold tenant farms. Surviving estate maps of the 18th century record the outline of some of these new leasehold tenements. The winners in this process were the main landowners and the established yeoman farmers, the losers the landless poor who may have grazed a few livestock on the commons and who were now even more dependent on securing work as wage labourers.

6.8.2 Population and social structure A good snapshot of the townships of the Bright water area in this enclosure period is provided by the hearth tax returns of the later 17th century, which offer an indication of population size and, in particular, the number and relative wealth of households (Durham Hearth Tax, 1-86). At one end of the spectrum apparent in the Lady Day Assessment of 1666 are communities like Bradbury, Mordon and Middridge. Bradbury had only 11 tax-payers, all but three of whom had only a single hearth each and none exceeded two hearths. Neighbouring Mordon was similar with 12 tax-paying householders, though one had three hearths and five each had two hearths. Middridge again had no tax-payers in its total of 19 who accounted for more than two hearths apiece and 12 of the householders had only a single hearth each. At the other end was somewhere like Sedgefield with 85 tax-payers, which in the study area was only exceeded by Darlington in the number of tax payers. 53 of these householders paid for only one hearth, but three gentlemen, Nicholas Frewell, Ralph Davison and Joseph Nailor, possessed properties with 14, 11 and 9 hearths, respectively. The tax-payer accounting for the greatest number of hearths, however, was John Jennison esquire, in Walworth, with 23 hearths. In between were communities which appear to have had a greater number of householders of middling prosperity than Bradbury or Middridge. Thus two of the 18 tax-payers at Brafferton had properties with 7 hearths and only nine accounted for a single hearth each with the remainder spread between 2 and 4 hearths, whilst, of the six tax-payers at Great Burdon, no less than four held 3-hearth properties and one of the others had 2 hearths. It should not be forgotten that many other householders in these communities were listed as ‘non-solvents’, individuals living in one-hearth, or, very occasionally, two-hearth, properties, who were too poor to pay anything at all (ibid, 106-70).

6.8.3 Villages and farmsteads: The creation of a more dispersed settlement pattern The next logical step, following enclosure and the associated creation of coherent, consolidated farm tenancies distributed throughout each township, was the establishment of a farmstead at the centre of each holding, instead of the vast majority of the farms being concentrated in the villages as previously. The consequence of this process was the shift from a nucleated settlement pattern, whereby virtually all farms and dwellings within a township or vill were concentrated in a single villages or hamlets, as largely prevailed in the study area during the Middle Ages, to one comprising a mixture of nucleated villages or hamlets and dispersed farmsteads.

This process doubtless began in the mid- to late 17th century, though how rapidly it proceeded is unclear. It is difficult to chart the process in detail before the later 18th century when the publication of more detailed county maps, such as Armstrong’s map (1768), begins to give a clearer, though it is not until the publication of Greenwood’s county map in 1820, followed by the tithe maps of the 1830s-1840s and the 1st edition of the Ordnance Survey in the late 1850s, that a fully comprehensive picture is gained. It is then that the differing degrees to which townships were affected becomes evident. Thus Thrislington consists of just the hall and a single associated farm by 1839 (DRO EP/BM 26/2), whilst Ulnaby is scarcely larger with a hall and three workers’ cottages. At the end of the spectrum Sedgefield, Aycliffe, Heighington and Ferryhill, for instance, clearly remained substantial population centres, functioning as market towns, service centres and parochial centres, rather simply as agricultural villages. However, although desertion and shrinkage affected many of the Bright Water’s former villages, resulting in the deserted village sites which are an important part of its

66 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit heritage today, a greater number continued function as rural communities, predominantly focussed on agriculture, continuing to accommodate some farmsteads and performing limited service roles.

These villages preserve much of the record of their post-medieval history in the fabric of their buildings and the details of their layout. A selection in the core of the Skerne catchment area are categorised below, but it is likely that more 17th-century houses await discovery in these villages and hamlets, were the settlements to receive more intensive examination, with Barmpton, Preston-le- Skerne and Newton Ketton:

Villages

Aycliffe. Large village laid out around a large squarish green on a sloping site beside the Skerne. Some surviving 18th-century buildings.

Barmpton. Single-row village on the north bank of the River; the bridge looks a 20th-century rebuild. Barmpton Hall is an 18th-century brick building with later extensions; further east some old cottages, but mostly remodelled or rebuilt. Elly Hill House on the south of the Skerne also looks to be an 18th- century Georgian farmhouse.

Bradbury. A few surviving 18th/19th-century vernacular buildings, but most have been rebuilt. 1985 Methodist Chapel now a house.

Brafferton. Two 17th-century houses recognised. Manor Farm. A low, two-storey hearth-passage farmhouse, with a short but tall high-status(?), rear wing of similar date, two-and-a-half storeys. At the W end of the village Nos. 2-4 The Green, represent another 17th-century hearth-passage farmhouse.

Bishop Middleham. Hall, next to St Michael’s Church, c. 1765 on site of an earlier building. Other 18th-century buildings include Manor House (late 17th/early 18th-century) and the former Dun Cow public house and stable, incorporating painted low-relief panel with 17th-century style figures.

Great Burdon. A green village on the east bank of the River, some old properties on the east, and the Hall a good 18th-century house (with attached buildings) on the south of the road to Stockton (A66). Little Burdon 1 km east on the S side of the A66 also has extensive 18th-century (or earlier?) brick buildings.

Cockerton. The houses around the green include cruck-framed cottages. All probably post-medieval in date.

Coatsay Moor. 17th/18th-century houses.

Fishburn. Ancient green (to the west of the main north-south road), but little in the way of pre-1850 properties and much late 20th-century remodelling. On Butterwick Road, Aged Miners Homes of 1935 (with inscribed foundation stones) and contemporary ? Welfare Hall adjacent to west.

Heighington. Some surviving 17th/18th-century buildings around the green (some NEVAG surveys).

Mordon. Old village around a green, but most houses rebuilt; one or two old cottages with steep roofs, but heavy altered.

Sedgefield. A clearly-defined historic centre consisting of a green and several broad streets, with a fine medieval parish church at the centre (which would benefit from further recording work/analysis; the complex fabric of the chancel, concealed by render for many years, was only exposed in the 1960s). Many good 18th-century houses survive, some doubtless containing earlier fabric; it is not clear how well these have been examined and recorded although a modern heritage trail etc point to current interest. The best-preserved pre-industrial small town in the area.

Manor Houses and farm houses The Bright Water area is characterised by substantial manor houses of the 16th or 17th century, sometimes with possible earlier, medieval components, and large Georgian farmhouses, home to the type of gentleman-farmers who pioneered the methods of the agricultural revolution at places like Ketton Hall.

A selection of potentially interesting examples are listed below:

Coatham Mundeville. Hall Garth, Large house, 17th-century or earlier in parts (core allegedly medieval), now a hotel, never studied. Coatham Hall Farmhouse is probably early 17th-century with early 18th-century and 19th-century additions. Nearby Coatham Hall is a large house comprising an early 18th-century centre with early 19th-century wing to the left and mid-19th century wing to the right.

Middridge Grange. An important 16th/17th-century house refurbished with support form English Heritage.

Houghton le Side. Manor Farm, an 18th-century or earlier house, with adjacent farm buildings, including a probable medieval dovecote.

Walworth Castle. A complex multi-period house that has never been seriously studied, medieval in part and with an unusual early Renaissance frontage, now difficult of access (hemmed in by later additions). In use as a hotel.

Denton. Hall. 18th-century?

Low Walworth Hall. 17th and 18th-century.

Thornton Hall. Important 16th/17th-century house.

Ulnaby Hall. Substantial 16th/17th-century house (NEVAG have surveyed) next to the extensive DMV earthworks.

6.8.4 Country Houses and Designed Landscapes Much less common than manor houses and Georgian gentlemen-farmers’ residences in the study area are large country houses set amidst designed, emparked landscapes, residences of the national elite. Only two large country house estates of this type, featuring grand classical architecture and extensive designed landscapes, exist within the Bright Water area, both towards its northern edge, namely Windlestone Hall and Hardwick Hall. It is noteworthy that these are the only houses shown with large emparked grounds attached (designated as drawings of palisaded enclosures) on Armstrong’s county map (1768). These still stand out in a category of their own, as the largest areas of parkland landscape on Greenwood’s map (1820), designated by a dense tone of shading, though the parkland attached to Walworth Castle is also shown to be extensive. Robert Surtees’ Mainsforth

Hall (demolished 1962) and Christopher Mason’s Chilton Hall, at Great Chilton, and perhaps also Hall Garth at Coatham Mundeville, represent a lower tier with smaller areas of designed parkland and gardens. Today, both Hardwick Park and Windlestone Hall, Park and Garden are designated as Registered Parks or Gardens of Historic Interest, along with Ceddesfield Hall Gardens, the only such sites in the study area.

Hardwick Hall, a relatively modest L-shaped building, was built in 1634 on the site of an earlier, medieval manor house, and remodelled in the 18th century, probably by John Burdon who purchased the estate from the Frevile family in 1748. It was Burdon who began laying out the grounds and commissioned James Paine to design a series of garden buildings c. 1754, which were executed by the local Durham architect, John Bell. These include a neoclassical temple called the Temple of Minerva, a gothick summerhouse, called Bono Retiro, and a folly in the form of a ruined castle, which survive, though others such as the bath house and Banqueting House have been demolished. The aim was to create a landscape which appeared entirely natural, though actually heavily engineered, with vistas opening up in the course of a circuit walk, the buildings being designed to form focal points in those views. A central unifying feature in the landscape was a 15 hectare lake, described by Hutchinson as ‘the finest sheet of water in the north of England’ (1794), but drained in the late 19th century, though the 3km long serpentine lake, designed to resemble a meandering river ,does remain. The whole concept marked a decisive break with the formal gardens popular through to the early 18th century.

Belonging to the same overall period, though far smaller in scope, were Ceddesfield Hall Gardens, a formal garden of the early 18th century laid out around the medieval rectory, then partially remodelled according to plans prepared by the landscape architect Joseph Spence, in 1756, bringing a degree of informality and the picturesque into the design. The medieval rectory was destroyed by fire in the late 18th century and replaced by a new rectory building in 1792.

The current Windlestone Hall was built for Sir Robert Johnson Eden in 1834, it is thought by Ignatius Bonomi, but incorporates parts of an earlier, 16th-century house. The outbuildings were built before 1820. The gardens and park to the south, east and west of the hall are broadly similar in date with elements of the park being laid out in the late 18th century and the garden terraces in the late 19th. Hardwick Park is now under the stewardship of Durham County Council and, with the assistance of the Friends of Hardwick Park, has been undergoing a long term restoration programme since 1997, involving archaeological and architectural recording. The hall itself is in use as a hotel. Having been used as a residential school since the 1950s, when the Eden family sold the hall to Durham County Council, Windlestone Hall has recently passed into private hands. A number of structures there remain on Historic England’s Heritage at Risk Register, specifically main hall itself and the early 19th- century clock tower straddling the gateway into the stables court.

6.8.5 The Agricultural Revolution Enclosure and the reorganisation of farm holdings was an essential step in paving the way for the ‘agricultural improvement’ movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, by which landowners sought to increase the productivity and profitability of agriculture on their estates. Substantial investments were made to increase the size of livestock through breeding programmes, and to sweeten pasture and improve crop yields by the use of better crop rotation, field drains, fertilising with lime and other innovative techniques. Ultimately this agricultural revolution was a child of the Enlightenment, driven by the desire to ensure investment in agriculture was guided by scientific method, with new practices adopted on the basis of systematic trial and error, rather than tradition. County Durham was greatly involved in this process, and the gentleman farmers of the Bright Water Area, in particular, were to play a leading role in it.

Most famous were the Colling brothers, Charles and Robert, who farmed at Ketton Hall and Barmpton Hall, respectively (Trow-Smith 1959, 235-41; Proud & Butler 1985). Their father, Charles the elder, farmer at Skerningham, on the opposite bank of the Skerne, had begun efforts to improve the local ‘Teeswater’ Shorthorn breed, but these efforts were taken much further by his sons from the 1780s onwards. By intensive in-breeding they were the first to make substantial improvements to the Shorthorn breed in terms of delivering economical meat, whilst also managing to maintain the renowned hardiness of the breed. Their work was very influential, culminating the birth of the celebrated Durham Ox in 1796, which toured the country between 1801 and 1807 like some sort of bovine rock star, and the less famous, but perhaps equally important, White Heifer, and above all the bull, Comet, born in 1804. The latter sold for 1000 guineas at the 1810 Ketton sale, which marked Charles Colling’s retirement from cattle breeding, and its descendants spread around the world.

Similar developments were occurring only a little later in the northern part of the Skerne area, where the Society for Experimental Agriculture was established in 1803, its 21 members meeting four times a year at Rushyford on the Great North Road (presumably at the coaching inn now known as the Eden Arms Hotel), under the presidency of Sir Henry Vane Tempest, Bart. The society’s stated objectives read like a manifesto for the entire agricultural revolution: 1) To examine, by experiments, the different kinds and merits of grass, seed and grain; to investigate their habits, and endeavour to ascertain what soils are best adapted to each kind, and to devise means to obtain such seeds, etc pure. 2) To attend carefully to the rearing of fences, the draining of land, and the best and most expeditious way of cleaning and working different soils. 3) To examine the nature of different manures, and ascertain the best mode of applying them. 4) To find what stock is best calculated for certain situations; to compare the relative quantities of food consumed by different kinds of stock; what food is most congenial, etc.

Local gentlemen farmers, such as Thomas Arrowsmith, of Manor House Farm, Ferryhill, were certainly keenly interested in these developments and took part in experiments carried out by members of the Rushyford Society. In his View of Agriculture in County Durham (1810), John Bailey records the premiums which Arrowsmith achieved for some of his sheep and hogs during the first seven years of the society and describes the management of his beef cattle and his success in improving their weight (NEVAG n.d., 1).

Similarly Christopher Mason of Chilton Hall, the principal landlord in Great Chilton from the 1790s, is described by Robert Surtees (1823, 290n) as the ‘first breeder in the North of England’ quoting some of the prices obtained or even refused by Mason for his improved stock Durham Short Horn cattle (again citing Bailey’s View of Agriculture in County Durham as a source). Thus in 1807 Mason refused a price of 700 guineas for his cow Marcia, whilst his bull Charles was let for the highest sum ever obtained for a bull in England – £450 for two seasons 4. Mason also invested in the latest agricultural machinery. When the Great Chilton estate was put up for sale in 1838 following his death two years earlier the accompanying sales particulars proclaimed that it was equipped with ‘a thrashing machine, which is worked by a steam engine of nine horse power’ (DRO D/El 15/110).

The new farms

4 For agricultural improvement and stock breeding developments which formed the wider background to Mason’s cattle breeding activities see Brown 2008 - http://familyrecords.dur.ac.uk/nei/NEI_breeders

The wave of agricultural improvement from c. 1780 onwards, coupled with the 17th-century enclosure which preceded it, has been instrumental in shaping the landscape of the Bright Water area today.

Perhaps the most tangible remnants of the period are the farms which dot the landscape. In their plan and organisation these too reflect the principles of the agricultural revolution, with the various farm buildings typically laid out around a stackyard in such a way as ensure the most efficient working. Horse driven mills, or gingangs, typically circular in plan, were also commonly adopted, to drive machinery for threshing, for example, whilst water-power may have been exploited in some cases. Byres and stables for housing livestock were given stone floors with drainage channels to provide a hard standing, intended to facilitate mucking out and improve the health of the animals.

A particularly well-preserved example of a typical tenant farm can be seen at Peartree House Farm (HER 36169; Grade II Listed), next to Ketton Hall. This comprises U-plan ranges, late 18th-early 19th century of several builds, standing around a foldyard, accessed from the east, and includes a gingang standing in the yard, attached to the south range. A series of three, adjoining, parallel ranges are attached to the south side of the south range (the central timber structure perhaps forming originally an open space between the other two), immediately to the west of which stands a hipped roofed farmhouse, the whole complex sitting in a slight hollow on a south-facing slope. Rows of huge modern sheds stand immediately to the north, beside Ketton Lane, dwarfing the original farmstead.

The buildings at Peartree Farm typify many of the problems facing such structures. Though they remain in use to house livestock, they are not readily adapted to the needs of modern agriculture, which favours much larger sheds accessible for large machinery. This in turn means that only limited repairs appear justifiable and they tend to be subject to piecemeal modification. Thus, at Peartree House, the north range is supported by a large makeshift buttress constructed of concrete breeze blocks, to counteract the lean of the south wall, and the roof requires substantial repairs involving replacement of the main roof beams. Furthermore the continuing consolidation and merger of farm holdings results in farmsteads becoming redundant, in which case the only option may be conversion of the entire steading into housing. Whilst preserving the buildings, this radically alters the character of the group and may even involve wholesale rebuilding, particularly if the buildings are in poor condition. The Countryside Stewardship programme does, however, provide grants for the maintenance of weatherproof traditional farm buildings pre-dating 1940, as part of its Higher Tier and Mid-Tier options (HS1).

Draining the Carrs Another important aspect of this era is progress made in draining the Carrs. On Greenwood’s county map of 1820 much or the carrland area is shown in a different tone implying it was unenclosed marshland probably used simply as rough grazing like common moorland. This is particularly the case in the southern half of the carrs (labelled Mordon Carrs), where the entire expanse is depicted in this way, but smaller parcels of similar land are also shown further north, near The Isle, Swann Carr Farm and Bradbury. At a similar date Surtees refers to the ‘dreary morasses of the Skerne’ and describes the ‘mansion house’ of Great Isle as standing ‘on a little plot of rising ground, surrounded by a marshy level always liable to be inundated by the sluggish waters of the Skerne’ (1823, 43-4).

By contrast the 1st edition Ordnance Survey (1857) shows extensive drainage works had by then been implemented in the Lowland Carrs, particularly to the south, in Preston Carrs, where a tight grid of drainage ditches is evident. The course of the River Skerne’s main channel had also already been canalised by this stage. To the west, Woodham Beck still followed a sinuous, unmodified course, apart from its southernmost stretch, straightened out to form the Main Stell, but the beck was

71 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit duplicated to the west by a second, much straighter channel, Land Stell, which ran on a roughly parallel course. More research is required to better understand the chronology of this process and how it was undertaken.

6.8.6 Improving Transport links Road transport steadily improved in the 17th and 18th centuries, as measures were introduced to ensure better maintenance of the highways, and more comfortable coaching services and reliable goods carriers increasingly operated along them (Gerhold 2005). Spearheading this process, particularly in the 18th century, were the turnpike roads, whereby a particular route was effectively privatised, with responsibility for its maintenance being handed over to a trust which, in return, was given the right to levy tolls at points along it (Hindle 1993, 105-30). The cumulative investment in roads generated by the work of turnpike trusts brought down journey times quite dramatically. Doubtless the increasing traffic generated considerable income for the inns, hotels, smiths, saddlers and farriers in places along these roads. Distributed at intervals along the major highways were a series of coaching inns, with a notable example represented by the Eden Arms Hotel, at Rushyford, on the Great North Road, which is still in use today as a hotel today.

The Great North Road Turnpike Of great significance in the long term was the steady development of the Great North Road, unquestionably the region’s principal north-south highway from the Middle Ages onwards, when it was termed the ‘Royal Road’ (via Regia) in documentary sources. The proceedings of Durham Priory’s halmote court – i.e. manor court – relating to Aycliffe in 1365, refer to the tenants responsibility for repairs to the road (Halm., 41). The practice of devolving responsibility for road repairs onto the inhabitants of the township or parish which it passed through remained standard up until the 18th century, and clearly could impose a substantial burden on townships which happened to be traversed by a major highway like the Great North Road. The earliest depiction of its route from Darlington to the northern boundary of the study area is provided by Ogilby’s route map of 1675 (DRO DCL 23/9). Thereafter county maps, such as that produced by Robert Morden in 1695, tended to incorporate the road using Ogilby’s information. The route shown, from Darlington via Coatham Mundeville, Aycliffe village, Woodham, Rushyford, Chilton and Ferryhill, and beyond to Durham, is now largely followed by the A167 (formerly the A1). A turnpike trust, the Boroughbridge, Darlington and Durham Trust, was established in 1745 to maintain, manage and improve the Great North Road from Boroughbridge to Durham via Darlington with the right to levy tolls. The road is shown on Armstrong’s county map of 1768, its superior status as a turnpike being indicated by being highlighted in a deeper tone and bounded with thicker lines to make it stand out. The mileage along the route is also noted and the position of turnpike toll-bars occasionally marked.

Key Sites: Ketton Bridge and the Salters Lane Investment was not limited to the major routes, however. Ketton Bridge (HER 307, 35602), a low and narrow, hump-backed packhorse bridge, which spans a dry, former channel of the Skerne, just south of Ketton Hall, was probably constructed in the late 17th or early 18th century. Now protected as a scheduled monument (1002345) and Grade II listed building (1185904), the bridge is only 2m wide at the centre of its span, but additions to the parapet walls splay out to enclose 3.8m at its southern end and 6m at its northern end. This would certainly have been beneficial when driving stock over the bridge and may hint at an important later function of the bridge, whether reflecting long distance droving or local movement of stock.

The bridge is connected to a track which leads northward to Newton Ketton, roughly following the Newton Beck, which it crosses by means of a small, stone-arched footbridge devoid of parapets, some 700m NE of Ketton Bridge, the footbridge, still local authority maintained, may be

72 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit contemporary with Ketton Bridge itself. North of Newton Ketton the route adopts a much straighter course, labelled Salters Lane, running past Fir Tree Farm to a junction with Lodge Lane at Preston Lodge/Oat Hill Farm. On the 1st edition Ordnance Survey, this route can be traced SSW across the Skerne, reaching the Great North Road on Harrowgate Hill, but then turns sharply SE towards Haughton-le Skerne (the route of the present A1150 and a minor road) and crosses the Skerne again via Haughton Bridge, continuing due south along Lingfield Lane, before the name Salters Lane resumes. It then turns SE again along what is now Neasham Road, heading towards Neasham Abbey where the Tees could be crossed via one of the two fords, High Wath or Low Wath.

The name Salters Lane implies that the route was involved in the salt trade, presumably distributing the commodity from coastal or estuarine saltings. Nor does it seem to have been alone. A number of other north-south oriented trackways in the region were also called Salters Lane. Thus, further north, the same name was given to what is now the B1278, which runs for c. 8km, from Wingate Lodge to Sedgefield, skirting the western edge of Trimdon and Trimdon Grange and passing through Fishburn. Still further to the north-east, yet another Salters Lane can be traced for c. 14-15km, from the southern outskirts of Sunderland as far south as the former colliery village of Wingate, its course being followed in part by the present B1280, but also by minor roads, lanes and bridle paths.

It should not be assumed that salt was the only thing carried along these routes, but it may indicate that they became particularly associated with that commodity at the height of the trade. This does point towards the existence, in the early modern era, of relatively long distance traffic along secondary routes which were optimised for packhorses, rather than the wagons or coaches that were becoming more and more common on the main highways (cf. Gerhold 2005, 5-9, 59-68; Hindle 1993, 84-90, 93-4). Commodities like salt, which could readily be formed into appropriately sized loads for packhorses, were suitable traffic for such routes. Moreover local communities, which were responsible for repairing roads and building bridges, would wherever possible try to avoid building structures which were larger and more expensive than necessary, favouring packhorse bridges over those wide enough for wagons or carts. Packhorse carriers, whose horses were not usually shod, may even have preferred to use country lanes rather than the principal highways which were more likely to have hard metalled surfaces. The evolution of these routes and the traffic they carried is poorly understood, however, having been little studied.

6.8.7 Mills Watermills and windmills had been a feature of the Skerne river catchment since the Middle Ages. Their principal function was to grind corn, though fulling mills are also known in this period (one is mentioned at Aycliffe in 1368 – Halm., 73 – and another at Sedgefield, situated next to Cornforth in 1381 – Hatfield Survey, 192). However these were more common in upland areas with extensive moorland pastures, where sheep-rearing and wool production was prevalent. As recorded in Boldon Book and equivalent surveys, each township was furnished with a corn mill, under the control of the lord, where the village tenants were normally compelled to grind their grain. Thus the mills of Darlington, Haughton-le-Skerne and Ketton together rendered 30 marks (£20) to the bishop of Durham (Boldon Buke, 17, 54), whilst those of Heighingtonshire collectively rendered 12 marks – £8 (Boldon Buke, 21, 58). The lord would typically lease the running of the mill out to a professional miller who would recoup his outlay by charging the tenants a fee for grinding their corn.

Townships which lay beside the Skerne itself or its tributaries typically used watermills. Those on the Magnesian Limestone Plateau, along the northern edge of the study area, where reliable water courses were rarer, often erected windmills instead, and in some townships, such as Ferryhill (Halm., 43, 51, 73, 75-8, 166) and Sedgefield (Hatfield Survey. 188), there is evidence for both a watermill (molendinum aquaticum;) and a windmill (molendinum ventriticum). There is also mention of a

73 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit horse-driven mill (molendinum equorum) at Oxenhall south of Darlington (Boldon Buke, 17, 55), but this was a rare occurrence. Watermills needed supporting water management infrastructure, such as weirs, leats and sometimes millponds or dams, to function, in addition to the mill building and its wheel. Consequently once established they tended to occupy the same site for centuries, even though the mill building may have been rebuilt several times and there may be no obvious trace of its medieval origins. By contrast windmills were not so fixed to the same spot. All that was required was a reasonably exposed, elevated point, unobstructed by trees or other shelter, which would disrupt the wind flow, and reasonably accessible for those bringing in sacks of grain to be ground and then carting away the ground flour.

In post-medieval period, as the operation of mills became more commercialised, they sometimes switched from corn-milling to a different function when ownership changed or new opportunities presented themselves, such as glass, paper- or textile mills, whilst in other cases entirely new mills were established, particularly along the Skerne. The five mills lining the Skerne between Ricknall Mill in the north and Brafferton Mill in the south, and also including Aycliffe Mill, the paper mill in Banks Wood on the east bank and Holme Mill, south of Aycliffe, have been the subject of a preliminary study by the North East Mills Group (https://northeastmills.wordpress.com/mill-research/the-mills- of-aycliffe/). Stirk (2006, 123) notes that there was a spinning mill at Aycliffe and also a short-lived mill making brown paper operating there in c. 1822-1830, but the paper in Banks Wood is shown as functioning on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey, so either this was a separate, later operation or the paper mill the original paper mill had resumed operations.

Information on the location of operational mills is provided by the more detailed county maps which began to appear in the second half of the 18th century, beginning with Armstrong’s map of 1768, though the recorded distribution certainly cannot be considered comprehensive until the 1st edition Ordnance Survey in 1857/9 or at any rate the respective township tithe maps c. 1840. Thus Armstrong’s 1768 map shows no more than four definite mills in the study area, a picture unchanged in the map’s 1791 revision. Though unnamed, these represent Bradbury Mill, Windlestone Mill, a little upstream of Rushyford, and two mills between Aycliffe and Coatham Mundeville, which appear to correspond to Holme Mill and Brafferton Mill. There is also a building called Mill House shown south of Sedgefield which corresponds to Sedgefield Mill on the headwaters of Shotton Beck, just outside the Skerne catchment. A much fuller record is preserved/presented by Greenwood’s 1820 county map, a generation later, with ‘High Mill’ (Merrington Mill), Windlestone, Bradbury, Aycliffe, Holme, Burdon and Haughton mills, plus three more in Darlington, all shown along the banks of the Skerne or its tributaries. A second Mill House, shown south-east of Fishburn and still extant, may mark the site of an earlier windmill, though clearly not the same as that in use by the time of the 1st edition Ordnance Survey, just east of the village (‘Fishers Mill’).

Medieval windmills were typically fairly simple post mills, constructed of wood. By the 18th and 19th century these were replaced by brick- or stone-built tower mills. Surviving examples of such tower mills include Redworth Windmill (HER 1456, 3175), on the summit of Shackleton Beacon, Aycliffe Windmill (HER 5936; now Windmill House), on the hillside east of the Skerne, overlooking the village and at Ferryhill (HER 5942), near High Hill House, just west of the village. Others are known from historic map and documentary evidence, such as trade directories, but have since been demolished, as is the case with Fishburn Mill (HER 5943/61132), just east of that village, for example. Some of those shown on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey may well have been relatively new creations, constructed as speculative commercial ventures, though their construction dates can be difficult to pin down precisely. That on Shackleton Beacon must have been erected sometime before the latter part of the 18th century, when the hilltop was planted with trees and the tower converted into a gazebo-type folly, Mr Crozier Surtees ‘pleasure house’, but it may well have been built on the site of

74 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit an earlier, medieval mill. At Ferryhill, on the other hand, fieldname evidence suggests the medieval windmill, known from documentary evidence, was situated further south, on the opposite side of Merrington Road, where a large area encompassing several fields is labelled Windmill Piece on the 1765 Dean and Chapter estate map (DCD E/AA/17/1, field nos. 83-7), and the surviving structure was probably constructed c. 1841. Even Fishburn Mill may have been a post-medieval creation as the Boldon Book mentions mill-pond of Fishburn (Boldon Buke, 11, 50), implying the existence of a watermill rather than a windmill there too in the late 12th century, presumably on the upper course of the Skerne south of the village.

The 1st edition Ordnance Survey gives the clearest impression of the distribution adding a number of additional sites which were probably simply omitted by the earlier cartographic sources. These include Hardwick Mill, Coatham Mill, and Middridge Grange Mill (see below). The survival of these mills is very variable today. At one extreme is the Coatham Mill complex (HER 797, 34790) which has been converted into four dwellings, but retaining the large iron water wheel in its pit with drive shafts pulleys and gearing. Thomas Porthouse established the mill to spin yarn from flax for the linen industry, having been the first to develop and patent the process with John Kendrew in 1787 (Kendrew opened a flax mill of his own at Haughton-le-Skerne). By the time of the 1st edition OS it was operating as a shoe thread mill, but was converted to grind corn in the 1860s and refurbished after fire in 1884. In other cases all trace has been removed as with Haughton Mill, Brafferton Mill, just upstream of Coatham, and the Aycliffe paper mill in Banks Wood (though the site is difficult to inspect closely). Any remnants of Bradbury Mill, were obliterated by Junction 60 of the A1M. The reported discovery of substantial, vertically-set timber planking during construction of the road presumably related to part of the mill sluices, leat, wheel pit or other associated features, rather than a Roman barge wharf as more recently supposed (R Elder pers. comm.). More commonly, the mill building survives in whole or in part, in varying states of repair or ruination (e.g. Merrington, Windlestone, Ricknall, Aycliffe, Holme, Great Burdon and Middridge Grange Mills) and may preserve features which could provide more information on the operation of the mill (see below).

Case Study: Middridge Grange Mill (HER 2938-9) Approached by a track from Redworth Village to the south, but associated with Middridge Grange, an important 16th/17th-century house on higher ground to the north-west. The mill consists of a range, apparently of 18th-century date. The mill house at the east end has been recently renovated, but the taller mill building itself, standing empty and derelict, has some interesting features. The wheel was external at the west end, where the lower wall is of ashlar and shows scars from which the size of wheel could perhaps be calculated, Internally there are close-spaced axial beams at this end of the first-floor frame, like the ashlar wall a structural consideration to lessen the effects of vibration from the turning wheel. The wheel was fed by a pond on the rising valley side to the north-west of the building, which in turn was supplied by a head race running along the side of the valley, where there is now a prominent hedge line. A full survey of the mill building would be of value.

6.8.8 The coming of the Railways A number of mills were operating along the Skerne in the 18th and early 19th centuries, whilst Darlington was home to several large scale industries –textile factories, breweries, foundries and brick, tile and tanning yards – by the time the railway arrived in 1825 (Cookson 2003, 67). Textile production was particularly important, with around 500 looms employed for linen weaving and 300 looms, 100 combers and 500 hand spinners preparing and making wool worsteds according to Bailey’s Agricultural Survey of Durham (1810). Nevertheless, it was the railways which really sparked the growth of Darlington into major industrial town, beginning with the opening of the Stockton & Darlington in 1825.

Unusually for County Durham, the Skerne area itself was never a significant coal-producing district. It is only along the western and northern fringes of the study area that pits can be found. Those to west were earlier, part of the longstanding Durham coalfield, as the coal here was more accessible, the underlying bedrock being Carboniferous deposits. However getting the coal from this inland coalfield to more distant markets was a major problem, as there was no waterway which was navigable even by keelboats with their relatively shallow depth, the upstream limit on the Wear being around Chester-le-Street. Further south, in Yorkshire and beyond, canals were constructed in the 18th century, whilst to the north, on Tyneside and Wearside, wooden-railed waggonways were laid to transport the coal down to transhipment points along the navigable sections of the Tyne and the Wear, using gravity-descent downhill and horse-drawn haulage of the empty wagons uphill. In contrast, the price of coal from the Shildon/Bishop Auckland pits, carried in panniers on packhorses and asses, trebled by the time it reached Darlington, as compared with the pithead price (Hoole 1965, 115). A number of abortive canal schemes were proposed from 1768 onwards, which would have run relatively close to the Tees, connecting Stockton and Darlington, but never actually approaching the coalfield. Instead, by the early decades of the 19th century momentum began to swing behind plans for railway lines to solve the problem, the first of the competing schemes to come to fruition being the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

In addition improving techniques meant that from the 1820s onwards shafts could be sunk to much greater depths, making it possible to exploit the previously inaccessible seams of the concealed coalfield beneath the East Durham Limestone Plateau. Railway lines were constructed from the 1830s to serve new pits in this area as well, using the rapidly advancing technology of locomotive haulage developed on the Hetton Colliery Railway and the Stockton & Darlington Railway.

The rapid impact of these developments is graphically summarised in maps of the period notably Bell’s detailed plans of the Hartlepool (1843) and Auckland (1852) districts of the Great Northern Coalfield. Collieries are shown along the northern fringe of the study area at Bishop Middleham, Thrislington, Little Chilton and Chilton Buildings (‘Mason’s Pit’) and railway lines – in particular branches of the Clarence Railway – slice through the landscape of Limestone Escarpment Ridge.

6.8.9 Stockton & Darlington Railway Celebrated as the first public railway, the Stockton & Darlington Railway was designed primarily to haul coal from pits further to the west, around Shildon and Bishop Auckland, down to ports on the Tees to the east of the study area, initially Stockton, later Middlesbrough, whence it could shipped out to markets such as London.

Though it employed locomotive haulage from the start, passenger trains were initially provided by separate contractors and horse drawn and there were also rope-hauled inclines powered by stationary steam engines on the western colliery branches – the Brussleton inclines west of Shildon and the Etherley inclines leading to Phoenix Pit north of West Auckland, stretches considered too steep for locomotives. These were later replaced by diversions on gentler gradients, thereby enabling locomotive haulage throughout.

Parts of the original S&DR line have been closed, notably the stretch between North Road Station Darlington and Oak Tree Junction near Dinsdale (HER 3510), now paralleled by the course of the Darlington Eastern Transport Corridor (B6279), as well as the western incline sections and the original alignment between Eaglescliffe and Stockton. Nevertheless much still remains use today, in particular the North Road-Shildon stretch incorporated in the Darlington to Bishop Auckland route, plus Oak Tree Junction-Eaglescliffe, both of which still carry passengers.

Ironically, the demands of running a functioning modern railway mean there is relatively little to see of the original S&DR infrastructure on the stretches that remain in use, the trackbed often having been widened. The best-preserved sections are those that closed first, such as the Brussleton Incline (HER 860-1, 2598-9, 60086). Much of the course of the incline sections has been scheduled, recognising its national importance (SM 1002315), extending from the site of the original terminus at Phoenix Pit, Etherley Bank Top, as far as Burnshouse Lane, next to Bankfoot Farm (HER 2600, 36360), plus a further short stretch at Low West Thickley Farm, including the farm accommodation bridge 10m west of Brusselton Lane (HER 861, 35622; LB 1160402), a grade II listed building.

Stone sleepers used in the original trackbed were also identified during assessment work along the Darlington Eastern Transport Corridor (Green 2000), for example, and a trackbed, revetment wall and culvert were excavated here in 2008, prior to construction of the new road (HER 60735). These features were thought to represent modifications to the original line possibly dating to 1839 or 1841.

Key Site: Skerne Railway Bridge Most famous of all, perhaps, is the bridge over the River Skerne (HER 811; SM 1002331), immediately to the east of North Road Station. Often called the Five Pound Note Bridge because it featured on the pre-2002 bank note, this is depicted on John Dobbin’s celebrated painting of the Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway 1825 (actually painted as late as 1871 on the basis of a sketch probably drawn from memory a few years after the opening). Designed by the renowned architect, Ignatius Bonomi, the single span bridge features a large central arch with curving wing walls containing smaller pedestrian arches. The south side retains its parapet but the north side has been affected by later widening. It is the oldest railway bridge in the world still in use.

There is however little clue as to the importance of this building on site today, with views of the bridge being somewhat obscured by later developments. Ugly steel-fenced compounds intrude into the view on both north and south sides of the bridge, whilst substantial metal pipes follow the course of the river channel through the arch. On the north side, the view of the original bridge is obscured by the pair of substantial stone piers. These formed part of a later widening of the bridge to accommodate more tracks, which in turn have been removed more recently, along with the associated metal decking and parapet, as part of rationalisation measures, giving the bridge a rather peculiar, unfinished aspect on this side, made worse by the concrete parapet with metal railings added to the original bridge.

In addition there is a complex of surviving buildings associated with the S&DR around North Road Station, which now serves as the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum housing the Ken Hoole Collection. However, with the exception of the Skerne Bridge itself, all represent later additions to or redevelopments of the original 1825 railway infrastructure:

Skerne Bridge; SAM 87; LB 2/; SMR no. 811; NMR ; NGR NZ 292156 Elegant stone bridge across the River Skerne designed by Ignatius Bonomi for the Stockton and Darlington Railway. Probably the first railway bridge to be designed by an architect. The bridge is depicted in the famous painting by John Dobbin of the opening of the railway in 1825, which is reproduced on the current five pound note, and in other views of the event. Listed Grade II*.

North Road Station; LB 5/95;; NGR NZ 28901571; Passenger station for the S&DR. Opened in 1842 to replace the original 1833 station located on the east side of North Road (demolished in 1864), and later much-extended. Still partly functioning as a station on the Darlington-Bishop Auckland service, but most of the complex is used as a railway museum. Listed Grade II*.

North Road Goods Station; LB 2/334; NGR NZ 28981563 Merchandise station located ESE of the 1842 passenger station. Built in 1833, to replace the original goods warehouse on the east side of North Road, and enlarged in 1839-40, when the clock tower was added. Made redundant by the construction of Hopetown Goods Station [21], opposite North Road station, in 1857. It subsequently served as a railway fire station and road motor repair depot. Now used as a repair workshop for preserved locomotives. Tall single storey with square clock tower. Listed Grade II.

Stockton and Darlington Carriage Works; LB 2/; NGR NZ 28781571 Carriage works built for the S&DR in 1853 (first appears on the 1 st edition Ordnance Survey – 1855/6). Listed Grade II.

1 and 2 McNay Street; LB 2/335; NGR NZ 28971560; Two storey building erected in 1840 to house the offices of the S&DR goods department. Contemporary with and part of the North Road Station complex. Converted into two flats in 1931. Listed Grade II.

Northgate Railway viaduct; LB 3/420; NGR NZ 29041565; Stone viaduct carrying the S&DR over North Road. Said to have been built by George Stephenson (engineer) and Joseph Brown (architect) for the opening of the railway in 1825 and later widened in brick in 1854 (Listing Description; Pevsner, rev. Williamson 2002, 149). However early maps (up to and including the 1st edition Ordnance Survey – 1855/6) and illustrations depicting the opening day appear to show a level crossing at the intersection of the S & DR and North Road. The bridge was not built until 1856-7, following authorisation by an Act of 1855 (Hoole 1965, 124; Fawcett 2001, 17-18). Listed Grade II*.

The Railway Institute; NGR NZ 29041585 Located on the north west corner of Whessoe Road and North Road. Built in 1861.

Another key centre of railway heritage is the important cluster of railway monuments at Shildon, all focussed on the National Railway Museum beside the former Shildon sidings. These include Timothy Hackworth’s house (HER 1478, 35608), now a museum to the railway history of Shildon, with the attached Soho Cottages (HER 34592), the adjacent Soho Engine Shed built c. 1833 (HER 35625), the most important surviving fragment of Hackworth’s Soho Engine Works, and the range of coal drops immediately to the east (HER 35606), built c. 1856, (all Grade II listed buildings), plus the East Thickley footbridge over Shildon Railway sidings (HER 4888). With manufacturing of the latest and most advanced railway passenger vehicles underway again at the Hitachi factory down the line at Newton Aycliffe, the Bright Water area encompasses the oldest and newest aspects of the railway story.

6.8.10 The Clarence Railway Named after the popular Duke of Clarence (later to ascend to the throne as William IV), the Clarence Railway company was a major rival of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, for the all important west- east coal trade from inland pit to river port., notably Port Clarence. Its main east-west line ran to the north of the Stockton & Darlington line, but roughly parallel with it, from Stockton and the newly established Port Clarence on the Tees westward via Billingham, Redmarshal and Stillington to a junction with the S&R line at Simpasture, north of Heighington Station, bypassing Darlington altogether. However to access the collieries further west the Clarence needed running rights over the S&DR lines, for which the latter levied hefty fees, acerbating the Clarence’s financial problems. This made the series of branch lines which the railway constructed to the north all the more important as they gave direct access to the pits being sunk contemporaneously along the southern and western margins of the Magnesian Limestone Plateau and Escarpment Ridge.

Branch lines Most important of these branches was the Ferryhill line, which diverged off the Clarence Railway’s main east-west line at Stillington and then passed through Mordon and west of Bradbury. This is still open for freight traffic today. It was intended to reach the City of Durham (though in fact it got no further than Coxhoe Junction near Thrislington). Ferryhill was reached in 1834 and the railway then used the natural north-south corridor provided by the Ferryhill Gap to cross from the Tees basin into the Wear Valley (slicing through the promontory known as Rudd’s Hill, in order to shorten the distance). At the northern end of the gorge two branches diverged, one which headed north-east and was intended to reach Sherburn, though it got no further than Coxhoe (opened in 1835), and the Byers Green branch (Hoole 1965, 168-70), which ran westwards to reach various pits and ironworks to the north-west and west of Ferryhill, opening to mineral traffic in March 1837. Passenger services from Coxhoe to Stockton via Ferryhill commenced in January 1836 and were initially composed of horse-drawn carriages, but by 1839 locomotive haulage had been introduced by a contractor who was leasing the rights to operate these services. South of Ferryhill, a further branch was driven westwards through Chilton Township to Christopher Mason’s Great Chilton Colliery (‘Mason’s Pit’ at Chilton Buildings in the centre of the modern Chilton village) in 1835, and reached Leasingholme Colliery in the following year. Yet another branch, diverging northward off the Chilton line towards Merrington, was abandoned, though it was reopened much later in the 19th century to serve Chilton Colliery.

6.8.11 Competition and disputes Relations between the competing railway companies were usually complicated, often difficult and occasionally verged on open warfare. The Stockton and Darlington Railway sought to block construction of the Clarence Railway by obstructing the progress of its authorising act through Parliament and the Clarence Railway in turn fought a bitter and very prolonged battle to try to prevent the authorisation and construction of the rival Great North of England, Clarence and Hartlepool Junction Railway (GNECHJR) from 1839 well into the 1840s. A particularly contentious issue was the right of the GNECHJ to cross the Clarence Railway’s Coxhoe branch to enable it to reach the Byers Green branch. By an oversight in the enabling act this crossing was not specifically authorised and this loophole gave the Clarence the opportunity to obstruct its potential competitor, resulting in a prolonged battle in the courts and even with gangs of workmen seeking to demolish the offending bridge or build blocking walls (see Hoole 1965, 150-51, 168-70; 1984, 95-8; Ferryhill Village Atlas). The Clarence Railway’s branches around Ferryhill were particularly important to the company as they give it direct access to collieries instead of coal traffic having first to travel along the Stockton & Darlington Railway to reach its tracks, for which the S&DR levied a hefty surcharge. Even so the Clarence Railway was never very profitable and was eventually taken over by the West Hartlepool Harbour & Railway, both being absorbed by the mighty North Eastern Railway (NER) in 1865. The Stockton & Darlington Railway followed suite in 1874, giving the NER a virtual monopoly on rail traffic in the region. Henceforth commercial harmony was maintained by NER hegemony.

56.8.12 The East Coast Main Line Later to arrive but in the longer term indubitably the most important railway line to be constructed through the Skerne area was the Darlington to Newcastle section of what was to become the East Coast Main Line. Built by the Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railway (N&DJR) in 1844, through a series of amalgamations this became the flagship line of the North Eastern Railway (NER) in 1854 and a major link in the national transport network. This too utilised the Ferryhill Gap, the easiest route through the Magnesian Limestone Escarpment Ridge, its tracks running parallel with those of the Clarence Railway. To the south, however, the line was obliged to cut through the Carrs, the soft marshy ground posing significant construction problems and indeed still occasionally creates challenges for the managers of today’s rail network. The main line originally continued north via

Shincliffe, Leamside, Penshaw and Pelaw (the ‘old main line’). By 1872, however, new links were completed which allowed trains to run north from Ferryhill to Newcastle via Durham and the Team Valley, the new route diverging from the old one at Tursdale Junction. It is this ‘Team Valley line’ which constitutes the present East Coast Main Line.

The completion of the main line, along with the S&DR, soon augmented by other routes running to the east, west and south-west, turned Darlington into a major railway hub with profound consequences for the town’s industrial growth and overall development.

6.8.13 Industrialisation and the growth of Darlington The residential development and evolving townscape of Darlington have been studied in detail by Cookson (2003). The town’s expansion in the first half of the 19th century, from a regional market town servicing the needs of the surrounding rural area servicing a predominantly agricultural economy to a major industrial manufacturing centre, can be charted with the aid of historic maps. John Wood’s detailed town map surveyed in 1826, just as the railway arrived, is followed by two plans of the town in 1830 and 1840 reproduced in the 1850 Report to the General Board of Health on Darlington (Smith 1967), and the tithe map of 1847. These show how the town’s initially compact plan was steadily stretched northward and then eastward towards the two railway hubs of North Road (S&DR) and Bank Top (main line) stations. By the time of the 1st edition Ordnance Survey (1857/9) this process was already well-advanced, with two emerging industrial quarters, Hopetown to the north-west and Bank Top to the east.

The railways required a supporting nexus of heavy engineering facilities to sustain their operations and set about creating these which in turn created a wider base of skills which new manufacturers could take advantage of. Thus, as well as the carriage works and Hope Town Foundry near North Road station, a large complex of engine fitting shops are evident beside the main line north of Bank Top on the 1st edition OS. Particularly prominent were the blast furnaces and forges of the South Durham Iron Works in the NW angle between the S&DR and NER lines.

However, the banks of the Skerne remained a focus of industrial activity, as they had been in the 18th century. Following the course of the river from the southern end of the study zone, beside Low Park Fields (now South Park), and citing only the establishments clearly identified on the successive maps, we find in turn, Low Mill, a worsted mill on the east bank (where Kendrew and Porthouse first tried spinning linen yarn from flax), then the Pease textile mill, straddling the Mill Race (by this stage the main river channel), with factories immediately to the north on both banks including those run by the Peases (east bank), then a carpet manufactory (west bank), an area of open fields labelled ‘bleaching ground’ on Wood’s map and finally, Railway Mill, another worsted mill, on the west bank again, just south of the gasworks standing in front of the Skerne railway bridge. Industrial activity continued along the river bank throughout the second half of the 19th century and well into the 20th century, though apparently consolidating into fewer larger operations. The old Pease mill straddling the Mill Race was demolished and by 1900 there were two large textile mills on the west bank, situated on either side of Priestgate, just north of St Cuthbert’s Church, then further north towards the S&DR railway line, a complex of saw mills stood on the east bank, followed by another complex of textile mills on the west bank and then a pair of gas works on either bank in front of the Skerne Bridge and S&DR line.

The size of these industrial works was dwarfed by some of engineering works located beside the railway lines. The locomotive works established by the NER in Rise Carr just north of North Road Station, was especially important, essentially transferring Hackworth’s locomotive works from Shildon to Darlington, leaving the works at Shildon to specialise in building freight wagons. Opening

80 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit in 1863, it remained in use until 1966, providing a base of heavy engineering skills in the town for more than a century. A little further east, on the site of the South Durham Iron Works, Darlington Forge was on a similar scale and was matched on the other side of the main line by a group of operations the Railway Appliance Works, the Alliance Works, Skerne Works, Wire Mills and Nestfield Wagon Works. Other engineering firms had plants to the north and south of Bank Top station. In 1900 Robert Stephenson and Co – known as “Stivvies” – relocated from Tyneside to a site beside the East Coast Main Line at Springfield, on the northern edge of the town, where they specialised in building locomotives for export. It was obviously easier to find large sites in these more peripheral locations in what were in effect ‘green field’ sites. Moreover 19th century textile mills did not require such extensive areas as these engineering works. Nevertheless, as the 20th century progressed, the value of very large, integrated manufacturing operations with economy of scale became more apparent and the sites along the river bank seemed increasingly constrained. Ultimately this was to spur a move out of the town centre altogether into purpose-built factories on greenfield sites such as Lingfield Point and the industrial estates of Newton Aycliffe.

Relatively little early industrial heritage is evident along the river bank today, however, as a perambulation along the course of the Skerne demonstrates (see Appendix 1), much having already been demolished. A number of late 19th- or early 20th-century industrial buildings survive north of Russell Street, at Weir Street, on the north side of Oxford Street and south of John Street, as well as an collection of bridges of various dates, some of considerable significance such as the Skerne Railway Bridge and Albert Road bridge.

6.9 The 20th century

6.9.1 The Bright Water communities in war

Memorials and Monuments The communities of the Skerne catchment contributed men to the forces in both World Wars of the first half of the 20th century. The names of those who did not return are recorded on poignant war memorials in churchyards and village greens throughout the study area. In most cases these were first set up after the First World War, with names from the Second World War later being added. Fine examples of these war memorial crosses can be found in the churchyards of St Andrew’s, Aycliffe (HER 48818), St Michaels, Heighington (49336), St Michael’s, Bishop Middleham (48864), just east of St Andrew’s, Haughton-le-Skerne (49313), on the village green at Middridge (49447), outside St Luke’s Chapel, Sedgefield (50162) and opposite the North Eastern Rail Institute, Shildon (49598). Earlier losses from the Boer War (1899-1902) are commemorated on a monument in St Cuthbert’s Churchyard, Darlington, a reminder of how appalling the losses from that conflict seemed at the time, only to be dwarfed by the later calamitous struggles, whilst most recently a memorial to the dead of all wars was unveiled outside St Clare’s Church, Newton Aycliffe (49480).

The Home Front: factories and camps It is World War II that has left the most traces of its impact on the region. The largest country houses in the area were pressed into service to accommodate military training camps and prisoner-of-war (POW) camps in their grounds. Windlestone Hall had already been used as a Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD) hospital during World War I. In WWII a military camp, used as a training ground and POW camp, is also documented to have lain near the hall during WWII, though its precise location is unknown and no traces have been identified (HER 9015, 44393). Walworth Castle was also commandeered as the site of a POW camp (HER 9016), with a number of hut structures shown on the east side of the castle, extending towards the fish pond, on the 1948 Ordnance Survey revision,

81 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit published in 1951. Another military camp was also established in the grounds of Hardwick Park in 1938-9, laid out on the west side of Salters Lane, just south of Winterton isolation hospital, north of Sedgefield (HER 48666). The Nissan huts and administrative buildings set within a rectangular compound can be seen on aerial photographs from the mid-/late 1940s and on the 1948 Ordnance Survey revision.

Key Site: Royal Ordnance Factory 59, Newton Aycliffe The most substantial local contribution to the war effort and the infrastructure of victory was surely the Royal Ordnance Factory (ROF) Aycliffe (HER 5691) constructed on an 867 acre greenfield site off Heighington Lane, just west of Aycliffe village, opening in Spring 1941. It was a marshy location, shrouded in fog and mist for much of the year, which was considered ideal to provide cover against bombing by the Luftwaffe. Designated ROF 59 (Filling Factory 8), the site operated continuously, 24 hours a day, employing 17,000 workers, mainly women, who became known as the Aycliffe Angels. Filling factories were where the raw ingredients of explosives, casings and detonators were brought together and assembled into bullets, shells and bombs. This was the most dangerous part of munitions production. The workers filled bullets, shells and other ordnance and assembled detonators and fuses, and it is estimated they produced some 700 million bullets and countless other munitions over the course of the war.

With the end of the war, the factory was closed and the site was then turned into the Aycliffe Industrial Estate in the late 1940s. Many of the original buildings are still standing today though often much altered. One such building, the former Pressworks Metals Factory, has recently been refurbished and reopened as a mixed leisure facility, ROF 59. The munitions factory was top secret and protected by high barbed wire perimeter fences and pillboxes for guards. Elements of these perimeter defences still survive to the SW of the industrial estate, near Brakkes Farm and Cumby’s Plantation, where four surviving pillboxes can be seen, along with three rows of munitions bunkers, which remain in use as storage units, two other rows having previously been demolished (bunkers: HER 8936; pillboxes: HER 46062, 46064-5, 46067; http://www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/military- sites/21709-guard-pillboxes-rof-aycliffe-munitions-store.html#.V6C6vDXz5oU).

Countering the aerial threat: decoys and shelters One of the most ingenious responses to the threat posed by the Luftwaffe to industrial towns like Darlington and vital sites like ROF 59, was the elaborate system of decoys involving diversionary fires and simulated urban lighting, as well as dummy aerodromes and dummy factories and buildings. The urban decoy fires were known as ‘Special Fires’ or Starfish and every town was protected by a cluster of these, designed to simulate a target which had successfully been set alight, with variation in fire type, duration in burning and speed of ignition, the fires being set in discrete areas confined by firebreak trenches and controlled from a remote shelter. One of these control shelters survives within the study area in fields near Great Burdon and has been given the protection of scheduled monument status (HER 6689; SM 1020759). The rectangular brick-walled and concrete-roofed control building survives, as does the concrete plinth for associated Nissen hut, but the site of the guard house and the actual decoy fires and their safety enclosures is unknown. The control shelter housed the ignition apparatus and telephone communications for the decoy site. The blast wall which would have shielded the entrance door does not survive above ground and the top 1m of the surrounding protective mound which would have covered the sides of the shelter has eroded away.

6.9.2 The Later 20th century

Industrial estates and new towns

The decision after the end of WWII to turn the redundant Royal Ordnance Factory into an industrial estate was to prove the catalyst for a dramatic new development in the Bright Water area. By August 1946 sixty firms had set up on the new industrial estate, employing some 6,000 workers.

To house this workforce the decision was taken to build a ‘new town’, under the direction of the Aycliffe Development Corporation, with the name ‘Newton Aycliffe’ eventually being agreed after much debate. New towns were seen as one of the ways forward to provide clean, modern living conditions for the masses. Newton Aycliffe was essentially adopted by Lord Beveridge, the architect of the new welfare state, as the flagship for his wider project of social and economic renewal, and even came to live in the town. Beveridge envisaged a ‘classless’ town, where manager and mechanic would live next door to each other in council houses. Newton Aycliffe was to be ‘a paradise for housewives’ with houses grouped around greens, so children could play safely away from the roads (http://www.great-aycliffe.gov.uk/info/about-aycliffe/the-newton-aycliffe-story/). The first house was opened by Beveridge on Tuesday 9th November 1948. By 1953 1000 homes had been built, though facilities in this early ‘pioneering phase were a little makeshift, with a primary school being run in a block of flats, the church congregation meeting in a deserted farmhouse and the community association meeting in an adapted cow byre. The town grew steadily throughout the period from 1950 up to the end of the 1970s, with the population nearing 28,000 by the end of that decade, despite sometimes negative press coverage. The 1980s brought recession and many closures in the industrial estate as well as administrative reorganisation, with the winding up of the Development Corporation in 1988 following transferral of its housing stock to Sedgefield District Council in 1978 and sale of the industrial estate to Helical Bar in 1987. However conditions improved from the end of the 1980s, with companies investing and expanding once more in the industrial estate, taking employment there to 9000 by 2005, and, despite ups and downs, the town has evolved into a mature settlement with a range of housing. A number of more recent high-profile investments in the Industrial Park, notably the establishment of the Hitachi Rail Manufacturing Centre, suggests Newton Aycliffe will remain an crucial part of the regional economy for the foreseeable future.

The growth of Darlington Over the same period the urban expansion of Darlington has continued, completely enveloping the historic villages of Cockerton and Haughton-le-Skerne. This process was already underway by the 1930s, with newly laid out housing estates under construction right around the north side of Cockerton village and also beginning to extend along the south side, evident on the 1938 Ordnance Survey revision (published 1947). New housing was also being laid out to the west and north of Haughton at the same date, though not quite on the same scale yet. Expansion was also underway to the west and east continuing after the war to form districts such as Mowden and Hummersknott the west and Eastbourne and Firth Moor to the east.

By the mid-20th century a number of new and very large industrial sites/complexes had been established on peripheral Greenfield sites around the town, for example the Faverdale Wagon Works opened in 1923 to the NW of the town centre, on the north side of the Darlington-Barnard Castle- Penrith/Tebay line (the site is now occupied by Faverdale Industrial Estate). Following WWII this trend continued, perhaps the most important development being the construction, between 1946 and 1951, of Paton & Baldwin’s massive factory dedicated to the production of knitting wool at Lingfield, to the east of the town. Formed by the merger in 1920 of J & J Baldwin and Partners, of Halifax, and John Paton Son and Co., of Alloa, Paton & Baldwin took the decision to close most of their existing factories and its Halifax headquarters and move production to a new, purpose-built, 140 acre site on the south side of the Stockton & Darlington Railway. The choice of Darlington was made in consultation with government. The single-storey factory was developed at a cost of £7.5 million and had its own railway sidings and internal railway system, whilst underground ducts carried services and steam around the site to maintain the correct temperature and humidity fro the wool.

Employing 4,000 people it produced 113 tons of yarn every week. The facilities for the workforce were impressive. There were two canteens capable of seating 2000, one of which doubled up as a ballroom for functions at weekends and nights, as well as 12 tennis courts, bowling greens, sports pitches and gardens. The centrepiece was the factory headquarters, Lingfield House, an impressive Art Deco building with a dramatic double-height reception area featuring a stylish sweeping double staircase.

Darlington’s economy had suffered during the Great Depression of the 1930s, being designated a redevelopment area during WWII, as a consequence. Nevertheless, with the opening of new factories like Lingfield and the period of growth following the war, Darlington’s population would have looked forward reasonably confident that the town’s manufacturing base would provide widespread employment into the foreseeable future. However, from the 1960s onwards, this manufacturing economy was to experience dramatic change and decline due to a variety of factors. In the 1950s the various railway engineering workshops in Darlington employed around 7000 men. However the transition from steam to diesel and electric traction on British Railways in the 1950s and 1960s, combined with rationalisation programmes, meant far fewer locomotives and rolling stock were required leading to drastic overcapacity in the railway’s workshops. As a result all the railway workshops in Darlington closed during the 1960s, including the North Road works in 1966, which alone employed 4000. Darlington had been a railway town but by the end of the 1960s this was no longer the case. Textiles, another major plank of the local economy, also suffered decline and eventual extinction in the face of competition from lower-cost textile producing centres overseas. Even the state of the art Paton & Baldwin’s factory could not withstand this pressure, releasing a third of the site to other companies in 1975 and finally closing in 1980.

As a consequence of such blows Darlington has been forced to develop a more diverse economic base over the last 50 years. Manufacturing still features, but services and retailing have assumed greater importance than previously, a pattern typical of the British economy generally. Only fragmentary traces of the old industrial core along the Skerne remain. Remaining manufacturing operations are concentrated in industrial estates typically located on the outskirts of the conurbation with good road access. These are intermixed with trading estates and business parks which tend to incorporate a more diverse range of companies, including services and retailing. The fate of the Paton & Baldwin site into Lingfield Point symbolises this process of transformation. Taken over by developers Marchday, in 1998, the site has been refashioned into business park, refurbishing existing buildings, notably the magnificent Lingfield House and the former ballroom, and erecting stylish new ones, designed to provide accommodation for a wide range of companies – large and small – operating in a variety of sectors, but also including mixed-use elements including services, arts and cultural facilities and some residential development.

6.9.3 Farming around the Skerne The campaign ‘Dig for Victory’ aimed at feeding the nation during the Second World War, gave farming a clear direction and goal – to increase production as far as possible after a long period when the agricultural economy had been enduring very depressed conditions. After the war the drive for increased productivity was maintained throughout the following decades leading to further intensification, as farmers responded vigorously to the incentives provided, and an overall shift towards greater arable cultivation. This had the unfortunate side effect that some valued landscape features, such as hedgerows, were lost in places, areas of ridge and furrow were levelled by the plough and even entire DMV earthwork sites were bulldozed and ploughed in a few instances, for example Whessoe in 1952 and High Grindon at some point between 1985 and 1992.

Perhaps the most elaborate instance of investment in production-driven intensification in the Skerne catchment was the renewed drainage programme undertaken in the Carrs. In 1978 a large scheme

84 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit was begun by Northumbrian Water to the west of the East Coast Main Line, affecting Bradbury Carrs in particular, as well as parts of Preston and Ricknall Carrs. This involved new field drains being laid by the farmers, work on the drainage ditches or ‘stells’ and flood defence embankments, and construction of a pumping station at Drakes Nook designed to lift water from the field stells into the channel of the River Skerne. The better drainage resulting from this enabled arable cultivation of some of the fields and improved the quality of pasture elsewhere. (R Elder pers. comm.)

In many respects this seems to have marked the high point of the post-war agricultural intensification effort. No sooner was it introduced than the proponents appear to have begun to question whether the farmland of the Lowland Carrs was worth the cost of all this investment, particularly as other factors were beginning to work against it. Whilst the coal mines were operating on the Magnesian Limestone Plateau, the Skerne channel had been regularly cleaned out to remove the colliery waste which was released into it, which also had the effect of preventing any build up of silt over the gravel bed of the channel. With the closure of the collieries in the area, between the 1950s and 1970s, this practice seems to have ceased (the last pits to close on the Skerne periphery were Mainsforth and Ferryhill Dean & Chapter in 1969-70, and Fishburn in 1973, though the cokeworks there stayed open till 1986). As a consequence, the channel of the River Skerne is filling with silt raising the level of the bed and making it more prone to flooding. Pit closure also meant that the pumps which had drained the mine levels were switched off. As a result the water level in the workings has gradually risen which is now leading to a corresponding rise in the water table along the northern edge of the Skerne catchment, the most dramatic indication being the large pools, even lakes, of permanent standing water which have appeared around Bishop Middleham. Investment in maintaining the flood embankments appears to have been reduced, leading to points of vulnerability developing which were implicated in recent severe flooding that did great damage to the pasture of Bradbury Carrs. The pressures of farming such a low-lying former wetland environment may only increase with the climatic trends for higher rainfall and more frequent extreme events generated by global warming.

Over the same period a new philosophy favouring less intensive production has gradually taken hold motivated by concern to preserve cultural heritage remains and ecological diversity. This has been supported by schemes such as Countryside Stewardship (currently the Higher Tier and MidTier options). Greater diversification may be necessary for the farmers of the Bright Water area, developing farms shops, Bed & Breakfasts and other associated businesses. However, perhaps most of all, adaptability may be required. After the gyrations that agricultural policy has undergone over the last 70 years it would be courageous to predict with absolute confidence where it might take the study area’s farmers and wider rural community in the next decades.

7. CONCLUSIONS

On the basis of the foregoing heritage audit it is clear that the Skerne catchment has a rich and varied cultural heritage resource featuring remains of all periods from the Mesolithic to the present day.

Occupation during the earlier periods of prehistory – Mesolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age is not so well characterized. There are a number isolated finds of diagnostic artefacts (such as socketed bronze axes) and many recorded flint assemblages from the Bright Water area though the records pertaining to these suggest that some might be better described as collections rather assemblages deriving from a single location (with both leaf-shaped and barbed-and-tanged arrowheads present in the same group). In addition aerial photography has resulted in the identification of a large number of cropmarks of uncertain periodisation. Whilst some may represent fragments of field systems of relatively recent date, many may belong to some phase of prehistory, however this cannot be confirmed without further investigation. A few are identifiable as possible Bronze Age burial monuments.

With the advent of the Later Bronze Age and Iron Age there is greater clarity, with distinct settlement sites apparent in the archaeological record, the most characteristic being enclosed settlements, comprising ditched enclosures typically rectilinear or trapezoidal in form containing a number of round houses, stockyards and other structures. Excavation of such sites across the North- east has shown they can have complex histories, sometimes beginning as unenclosed round house settlements or going through phases when the houses increase in number and expand beyond the enclosure. However the most notable Iron Age monument within the Bright Water area is the hillfort on Shackleton Beacon, near Redworth, one of only three possible examples known within County Durham and certainly the most impressive and best surviving. However nothing is known of its history prior to the 18th century as it has never been excavated and geophysical survey is virtually impossible due to the dense tree cover on the wooded hilltop.

The Romano-British rural settlement pattern in the Skerne catchment probably grew out of preceding Iron Age one, with few signs of major ruptures, but there is evidence that some of these farmsteads evolved into fully Romanised estate centres, or villas. A small bathhouse typical of such complexes has been excavated at Faverdale, just north of Darlington, though the main villa building did not survive and may have been destroyed by intensive ploughing. The major centres of Roman power – the forts at Piercebridge and Binchester – lay a little outside the bounds of the Bright Water area, along Dere Street, but a very large settlement, perhaps sufficient in scale to merit the label of ‘small town’ has been revealed and partially excavated at East Park, Sedgefield. Interestingly this lay along the postulated course of a Roman road known as Cade’s Road which runs on a parallel, but more easterly, course to that of Dere Street. A possible link road between these two major routes, now known as Catkill Lane, has been identified in the course of this study and merits further investigation. An interesting cluster of finds around Bishop Middleham might point to activity focussed on a site somewhere near that village – some kind of shrine has been tentatively suggested – though the most obvious settlement is the rectilinear enclosure beside Island Farm.

Settlements and cemeteries of the early medieval period have proved harder to identify, though one 6th-7th century Anglo-Saxon cemetery was revealed at Greenbank in Darlington during the late 19th century and the work of the Portable Antiquities Scheme collating metal detectorists’ finds may yet reveal others. What does distinguish the period is the carved stonework found at some of the

86 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit historic churches in the area, such as St Andrew’s, Haughton-le-Skerne and St Andrew’s, Aycliffe, a reminder that some of the Bright Water’s ancient parish churches originate in the early Middle Ages. Many of the area’s present-day communities, such as Sedgefield, Darlington and Bradbury, first appear in the documentary record during this period, in documents of 10th- or 11th-century date pertaining to the monastic Community of St Cuthbert (which was based initially on Lindisfarne but later at Chester-le-Street and finally Durham) and relating to events occurring from the 9th century onwards. The bulk of this record relates to the acquisition by the Community of extensive blocks of estates between the Tyne and the Tees. A tangible relic of this process of estate formation is probably represented by Legs Cross, a cross-shaft positioned next to Dere Street, on the SW edge of the Bright Water area’, and probably serving as a boundary marker between two major estates (perhaps Gainfordshire and Aucklandshire).

Highlights of the Later Medieval Period include the numerous, well-preserved deserted and shrunken medieval village sites (DMVs and SMVs) which survive as earthwork monuments in the area. Many of these have been surveyed in detail by the RCHME, but very little excavation has taken place. A programme of geophysical survey and excavation of selected examples would represent an outstanding opportunity to learn more about the lives of medieval rural communities in the region. Much can also be learnt from the study of the morphology of surviving village settlements, both large – such as Aycliffe, Bishop Middleham, Sedgefield, and Heighington – and small – for example Bradbury, Mordon and Brafferton.

In addition the standing remains of a surprisingly large number of medieval manor houses and small castles still exist within the Bright Water area, notably at Archdeacon Newton (the Old Hall), Haughton-le-Skerne (Butler House) and Walworth Castle, whilst others may as yet be unidentified, waiting to be teased out of complex later building histories. Thus at Manor House Farm, Houghton- le-Side, not only is there a surviving dovecote – a classic manorial ancillary structure – but also the farmhouse displays features suggesting it may well preserve elements of the medieval manor house.

Two key sites comprise Bishop Middleham and Great Isle. The former comprises a ruined castle on a small promontory with surviving stretches of masonry walling protruding from earth-covered mounds, an attached, walled park, an adjacent parish church (St Michael’s) and a large adjoining village, the descendent of the dependent medieval vill. This was one of the most important manors of the bishops of Durham in the 12th-14th centuries, being developed by Bishop Hugh le Puiset during the later 12th century, and the survival of all its principal components gives the site an especially high group value. It thus represents a potential flagship project focus for the Bright Water Landscape Partnership, through community excavation of the fortified manor, analysis of the entire village and its surrounding historic township through a village atlas, and the formulation of a conservation strategy for the park wall.

At Great Isle, fragments of medieval manor house survive, incorporated in the buildings of the present farm, whilst associated garden and fishpond earthworks lie adjacent. This site standing in the midst of the carrlands was the manorial administrative centre for the lords of Bradbury and the Isle. Investigation of the complex will be crucial to understanding how this unique marshland landscape was exploited in the medieval past and how that may in turn may have contributed to the evolution of the present carrs.

The Bright Water area preserves a rich heritage of vernacular buildings deriving from the early modern era – manor houses and farm houses of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries, whilst the built environment of Sedgefield, in particular, represents an excellent example of a small post-medieval market town.

One of the most significant aspects of the Bright Water area’s history is the contribution made by its tenant farmers and gentry landowners to the technical and scientific process of farming improvement known as the agricultural revolution. Notable contributions in the field of cattle stock- breeding were made by the Colling brothers of Ketton Hall and Barmpton Hall, and by the members of Rushyford Society at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century. Today the most visible evidence of this period is represented by the planned farms of 18th- or early 19th-century date, which are distributed throughout the area. These were associated with the dispersal of farmsteads away from the village centres and the establishment of compact, coherent farmholdings, following on from the enclosure of the open common arable fields and wastes of the Middle Ages (which were mainly enclosed during the 17th century in the Bright Water area). Many well-preserved examples of such farm complexes comprising rationally organised groups of buildings laid out around foldyards, have survived in the area, for example Peartree Farm at Ketton and Ricknall Grange.

The watermills which were established along the Skerne and its tributaries to grind corn or full cloth for their respective townships during the Middle Ages were adapted for a variety of industrial purposes in the post-medieval period, including papermaking, grinding glass and weaving cloth, as well grinding corn. A number of these structures survive, including examples at Aycliffe, Coatham Mundeville and Middridge Grange. These mills tended to occupy the same location over many centuries, though the structural history of the building occupying the site and the surviving buildings represent only the most recent phases of activity. A number of tower windmills were added in this period with a well-preserved example surviving west of Aycliffe and one in very ruined condition on the top of Shackleton Beacon.

Features associated with improvements to the infrastructure of transport and communications constitute another important facet of this early industrial landscape. This not only includes the infrastructure of turnpike routes like the Great North Road, such as the coaching inns which still remain along its course, but equally the country lanes which were for a time, in the 17th and 18th centuries, optimised for the transport of salt and other commodities by packhorse, acquiring the label of ‘salters lane’ and being furnished with packhorse bridges of which Ketton Bridge is the most notable example, formerly spanning the course of the Skerne.

The advent of the railways, with the launch of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, forms another of the Bright Water’s area’s cultural heritage highlights. There are clusters of particularly important railway structures around Shildon and North Road Station, Darlington, as well as the stretch of the S&DR’s original course which is now a scheduled monument. Particularly in need of enhancement is the S&DR bridge spanning the Skerne in Darlington, which featured on John Dobbin’s famous 1871 painting of the opening of the railway in 1825, and more recently on the now withdrawn issue of the five pound note.

Much of the early industrial development in Darlington occurred along the banks of the Skerne, only gradually shifting away to increasingly large, greenfield sites, as railway expansion took hold. Although some traces of this riverine industrialisation, in the form of mill buildings and warehouses, do still remain, much has now been swept away. However, numerous bridges, belonging to a variety of periods, span the river one after the other and form a highly distinctive industrial heritage trail all of their own.

The 20th century also left its distinct mark on the Bright water landscape. Original buildings can still be seen of the Royal Ordnance Factory at Aycliffe (ROF 59), which made a major contribution to the British war effort in WWII. This complex was transformed into Aycliffe Industrial Estate after the war,

88 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit which in turn provided the raison d’etre for the creation of Newton Aycliffe, the new town which, with the patronage of figures like Beveridge, architect of the welfare state, was, for a time, to provide a paradigm for the brave new post-war world.

Transformation was also to come to the rural landscape with the dramatic intensification of agricultural production, which began during WWII and continued throughout the second half of the century. This resulted in much of farmland shifting from pasture to arable cultivation. In the 21st century this agricultural programme faces an uncertain future as society tries to balance the need for food production with issues of environmental sustainability, preserving biodiversity and cultural heritage and grapples with the impact of climate change. This crucial dialogue is one which the Bright Water Partnership can contribute to through the projects it fosters. The recommended Cultural heritage projects are set out in Part 2 of this report.

APPENDIX 1: Darlington – Skerne Corridor and Cocker Beck Visual Survey

Some notes from visual survey, following R Skerne N from S edge survey area, then following Cocker Beck from High Northgate west through Denes to Cockerton (PFR 05/05/2016)

Bridge at entrance to South Park. Rock-faced piers ornamental cast-iron rails (modern?), metal bridge central pair of piers with central foliate crocketted capitals 1900?

Victoria Embankment on E long run terrace houses late Victorian, many bays remodelled. Railings of fluted cast iron posts with two levels of chains, grassy river bank old trees.

Only rough rubbly slope on west of the river here. At the N end of Victoria Embankment is a 1960s concrete bridge under the ring road. Decent Victorian houses on N side Victoria road.

Skerne in long tunnel under ring road, then Leadyard Bridge may be recent? Iron posts moulded capitals, metal handrails uprights with ogival finials ball topped rails ashlar piers low pyramidal caps. Goes with riverside wall continuing N on E side, older brick wall to churchyard on west.

St Cuthbert’s Church. Rails to churchyard have fleur-de-lys spike tops, wall on east of river rock-faced stone with pilasters overhanging corbelled top. Close to Stone Bridge in the churchyard is a War Memorial, a big block of Shap? granite on a two-stepped base, with the figure of a soldier. ‘This memorial was erected as a tribute to the brave men of Darlington who served the Empire in the South African War 1899-1902’. Plaques with names on all four sides.

Tubwell Row (Stone) Bridge, metal girders three bays, rock faced piers with pointed cutwaters, moulded copings to their capitals, at road level squared piers with fielded square panels and moulded tops carrying attractive street lamps. On bridge plaque ‘St Cuthbert’s Bridge rebuilt AD 1895 out of funds provided by the County Council of Durham …’

Abutting in on N row of probably C18 properties (with nameplate ‘Stone Bridge’), much altered.

Priestgate Bridge Metal, modern railings but old substructure. Central round-ended ashlar pier. Maker’s plate ‘GILKES.WILSON AND CO MIDDLESBRO ON TEES 1846’; main girder with sunken panel (Gilkes Wilson, opened 1843, manufactured locomotives as well as bridges). On W bank for c 50 m south old rock-faced walling with modern rails above, then more recent brick. Modern concrete wall on E side S of this bridge. N old walling (much vegetated) on W side and modern concrete on E.

East Street Bridge C20 concrete bridge a little to N before ring road, then modern bridge on ring road.

Russell Street Bridge Plate ‘Erected by Messrs Pease & Fry 1881 John Dunning Engineer’ Lozenge- shaped ashlar piers with fielded panels to faces and with low pointed moulded caps, metal criss-cross latticed rails, Separate arch to flood route on west. Concrete apron c 2 m wide along E bank with old rubble wall behind; just upstream is the weir. On north of bridge to west of separate arch is blocked circular opening c 3 m diameter.

N of Russell Street narrow walkway on west bank); on both sides river are old stone walls both sides coursed roughly-shaped stone, maybe re-used. Buildings derelict, look late C19/early C20. Then industrial buildings (late C19?) on W bank a little way back, facing south – then a broad back lane

90 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit heading north, with between it and the river mostly C20 sheds but one building of c.1880?. Then a large old block on west of lane, northern part being older (darker brick).

Chesnut Street Bridge; On N plate ‘Pease & Fry 1880 John Dunning Engineer’; criss-cross rails cast iron, square ashlar piers with stop chamfered angles, sunk roundels and octagonal stepped pyramidal caps.

Oxford Street (west of river); derelict industrial building on north, brick with splayed lintels, perhaps mid-19th century.

Cocker Beck joins Skerne from west, difficult to inspect. Bridge under the former A1 divides Northgate to south, High Northgate to north. On E of High Northgate is Leadenhall Street – on junction is interesting mid-19th century brick house with ashlar detailing, rough-faced bands and cornices and carved detail heads on keystones of windows etc.

Returning to Skerne. Block of 19th-century semi-derelict buildings c 100 m S of John Street on W bank.

John Street Bridge concrete.

Then old Stockton and Darlington Railway Bridge over Skerne, historically important although defaced with pipes, graffiti etc. Ashlar with segmental arch with arch ring, central part set back between broad pilasters with oversailing course. Moulded cornice. Wing walls of rough-faced stone (later?). Flanking pedestrian arches. Bridge extended in rock-faced stone to the N but this section has lost its superstructure (which carried further railway lines).

Albert Road Bridge looks similar to S&DR bridge, but concealed by extensions; S side has added stone piers with attached polygonal half shafts, behind is older bridge with four rings of brick voussoirs and squared stone above, flanked by pedestrian arches. Main arch and pedestrian tunnels have skewed brick intrados. Similar extension on N as well.

Beyond Albert Road all is landscaped and sylvan, no old features apparent, until: Main Line Railway Bridge. Five lofty segmental arches, rock faced with brick soffits to arches heightened in modern concrete quite impressive. A short distance further upstream is metal footbridge dated ‘1998’ with stovepipe ‘sculpture’ at N end

Next bridge is footbridge close to Haughton Road, modern, metal segmental arch Haughton road last modern footbridge segmental arched iron; abutment of older stone bridge remains on west bank adjacent to north.

(Nestfield Methodist Church, derelict at time of PFR 2004 survey, now seems to have been demolished)

The Cocker Beck Valley Bridge under Northgate. Has been widened but old arch (just) visible beneath.

Cockerton Denes – originated as pleasure gardens of C19 mansions

Cockerton. On main road at entrance to village is attractive C19 house ‘The Orphanage (blue plaque) 1879-1897’ with C18 harled and whitewashed cogged-eaves pantile-roofed cottage attached to N

91 The Archaeological Practice Ltd. 2016 Bright Water Landscape Partnership: Heritage Audit end. Cockerton Green has a long row of old properties on S, mixture of dates, some C18, low eaved group to E of Methodist Chapel includes no 39 (undergoing refurbishment when visited) has exposed cruck frame. Front roughcast, modern pantile roof, eastern two bay part being re-done. 2 upper cruck trusses exposed inside (photographed). Then 43 Bierfield Georgian brick flat arches to windows, brick painted orange.

On west side of Green C19 church and to N old row of three (107 with 109 and 109A to north) with brick fronts and cobble side walls. Two bays with doorway at N end, flat arched brick lintels. Property to S of Church (103) is old, its N wall is S gable end of a demolished property, a stone building, has two light window (brick mullion) at attic level.

Properties on N side green mostly rebuilt but at west end is no.92, former United Methodist Free Church 1873, brick gabled front.

REFERENCES

Published Documentary Sources

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