Tudhoe Village

Tudhoe & Spennymoor Local History Society

Spennymoor High Street

TSLHS News

TSLHS Mar 2024 meeting.

Next Talk - Monday 25th Mar 2024 at 7.30pm- The Tudhoe Colliery Explosion of 1882. by Prof. Dr Frederick Smith.

Held at St. David's Church Hall, Tudhoe Lane, Tudhoe, DL16 6LL. Members free, Visitors £4.

Please note tea and biscuits will be served before the start of the meeting at a charge of £1.

Click to view our 2024 programme, also other events and on-line history talks.

Hannah Hauxwell Exhibition on Saturday 16 March 2024 10.30am-3.00pm at Bowburn Community Centre, Durham Road, Bowburn DH6 5AT.
Click for details of the Hannah Hauxwell Exhibition.

Spennymoor Mural Festival 2024. In preparation for next years festival a CIC (community interest company) has been set up to organise the mural festival, among other similar community focused arts and culture projects. To see the new website go to Cyan_CIC and reach them for any related inquiries on artist@cyancic.uk.

Bowes Museum have announced a major Cornish/Lowry exhibition from July 2024 - for more details click link Cornish/Lowry exhibition

Auckland Project Group Visits For details of group visits click here.

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Old News

March 1924 - Daddy's Happy Circle, Events at the New Town Hall,
Hints & Recipes for the Housewife,
Mr John Carroll - under-manager Newfield Colliery,
Eugene(Jean) Webb - Spennymoor Child Run Over by Motor Bus..

To view details of these news items click on the links.

Requests for Information

John Walker Gibson - Death of an Innkeeper at the Weardale Hotel 1872 and a fire 1899. Does anyone have a photo of the Weardale Hotel before it burnt down in 1899? For further information go to Requests for Information 2024

If you can help please e-mail tslhs@btinternet.com

The Society

The Society was formed in 1988 and its aims are to organise an annual programme of talks and outings and attend events promoting local history. For more details go to the Origins of the Tudhoe & Spennymoor Local History Society

Photographic Archive

Photo Archive - over 1,000 photographs of Tudhoe, Spennymoor and surrounding areas.

These images are protected by copyright licensing regulations and are for personal use only, they cannot be copied, published or distributed.

Archaeology at Durham University.

A collaborative project with Archaeology at Durham University.

Inspired by walking the many footpaths in her local area during lockdown, Sarah Semple from Durham University contacted Tudhoe and Spennymoor Local History Society (TSLHS) in 2020 to propose a collaborative and participatory project on investigating the origins and development of the medieval, early modern and modern settlements within Spennymoor township. Productive conversations with TSLHS have led to the co-production of a research project that will see a first season of investigation in August 2023 in Tudhoe village.

From 1st to 4th of August 2023, Durham University, with a small team of staff and students, undertook electrical resistance and magnetic surveys across the south east side of the village green. TSLHS and Durham University are particularly interested in relocating the site of the 19th-century free school marked on early maps at the southeastern end of the green. Tudhoe Green is also one of the longest known in County Durham and is certainly medieval in date and so the team are also excited to see if earlier archaeological features have been preserved beneath its extent.

We hope this is a first step towards a larger project and we are keen to welcome interested participants who would like to learn more about archaeological survey techniques and may be keen to join the team in further investigation of Tudhoe and Spennymoor.

Behind the Lines: a First World War Nurse and the fight for Survival

Blue

On 23rd October 2021 a Blue Plaque was unveiled at 30 Clyde Terrace, Spennymoor, the birthplace of the Great War nurse, Sister Kate Maxey, by her great niece Elizabeth Varley.

Sister Maxey's decorations were the Military Medal, the Royal Red Cross (1st class) and the Florence Nightingale Medal.

Behind The Lines.Our film about medical services on the Western Front and the contribution of Spennymoor people to them is free to view on YouTube under a creative commons licence.

View the Behind the Lines film on YouTube.

To view photos of the Film Premiere, details of DVDs, Education packs and film presentations go to Behind the Lines.

History

Situated on the south side of the Wear Valley, midway between the ancient settlements of Bishop Auckland and Durham, Spennymoor only came into existence during the mid 19C. Previously, eight villages, all now satellites of this small market town, surrounded the open common known as the Spenny Moor. Most of these, including Tudhoe, already existed when the Boldon Book, the North East’s equivalent to the earlier Domesday Book, was compiled in 1183.

650 years later, exploitation of County Durham's mineral wealth, principally its huge reserves of coal, began to help satisfy the needs of Britain's industrial revolution. This resulted in the creation or expansion of many towns and villages in the eastern half of the County. Spennymoor is one such example of this change.

By 1840, coal pits were being sunk around the Moor, soon accompanied by houses to accommodate the ever growing number of miners. An iron and steel works quickly followed, established here to exploit the large quantities of coal now being produced around the expanding settlement. While never completely absorbing any of the villages, it is now physically linked to Tudhoe.

By the turn of the 20th Century coal and steel had long given way to service and manufacturing industries while the expanded town now also functioned more widely as a dormitory to the large coastal conurbations set around the mouths of the Tyne, Wear and Tees. For more details go to History.

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