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Village History

The parish of Shincliffe was created in 1831 from part of St. Oswald's in Durham. With the sinking of the colliery in the late 1830s there evolved two main communities; the old village of Shincliffe with its agricultural associations and Shincliffe Colliery.

Today Shincliffe nestles quietly among wooded hills bordering the river Wear while the more recently developed High Shincliffe spreads itself beyond the confines of the old colliery village with distant views of the Cathedral City to the west and the magnesian limestone escarpment to the east. On the eastern boundary of the parish is Sherburn House with its 12th century hospital.

In 1998 a group of people with an interest in the history of Shincliffe met with a view to promoting research and creating a picture of the way in which the community has developed. This group became the Shincliffe Local History Society and now has a membership of some 40 people from the village and surrounding area. The Society holds regular meetings to deal with its business, to discuss matters of local interest, and to hear speakers on a variety of subjects.
The Society has a formal constitution to govern its business and a committee to help with the running of events.

The first major project that the Society undertook was the setting up of a digitised data base which included the archival materials which have accumulated since the Parish Council Exhibition of 1994, to this has been added a photographic record of all the buildings and structures as they existed in the year 2000.

The database is still being developed but its purpose is to record the existence of archival materials, their
location, a description of individual items and a computerised image.

Contacts names and telephone numbers are:-

Chairman - Mr. J. Lightley 0191 3847900
Secretary - Mr. W. Hateley 0191 3865916