County Durham

Historic County of England

Image right - New flag of County Durham, created in 2013 by Martin23230 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wiki Commons

This is the Umbrella Project Page for County Durham, England.

Related Projects

People Connected to County-Durham

County Durham Famous People

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Historical County Durham

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County Durham Monumental Inscriptions, Cemeteries and Graveyards

Go to People Connected to County-Durham

County Durham

• Administrative centre Durham
• County Flower - Spring Gentian
• People from County Durham are called - ?
• Famous for -

• The Bishop of Durham always holds a new Monarch's right hand at a coronation
  

• Places of interest -

• Washington Old Hall - George Washington's ancestral home.
  

County Durham is a ceremonial county of historic origin in North east England. Durham is the only English county name to be prefixed with "County" in common usage - a practice more common in Ireland.

The name comes from the Saxon word Dunholme, dun meaning a hill and holme referring to an island in a river (the rocky outcrop where Durham Cathedral now stands). The Normans changed it to Duresme, which was corrupted to Durham. Bishops ruled the area until 1836, so the suffix "shire" was never added. The name was first recorded in 1000 as Dunholme.

The county is hilly and sea-facing, compact and rugged with the Castled Durham at its centre.It lies between two great rivers, the Tyne and the Tees, and extends inland to Yorkshire and east to the Sea. There are industrial towns along the eastern coast facing the North Sea. There are many high cliffs and islands along the coast. The highest point is Beacon Hill. The county smooths inland along the valley of the Tees, with extensive stone wall ed fields and moors above.

The landscape is based on limestone in the west, then a clay plain with sandstone outcrops.

The Districts of County Durham

Image by Keith Edkins - Own work, derived from File: Durham Ceremonial Numbered.png, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wiki Commons

1. County Durham (Unitary)
2. Hartlepool (Unitary)
3. Darlington (Unitary)
4. Stockton-on-Tees (Unitary) *

• Only the part of the borough to the north of the River Tees is within the ceremonial County Durham.

The largest town is Darlington. Other towns include:

• Aycliffe
• Barnard Castle
• Billingham
• Birtley
• Blaydon
• Boldon
• Brandon
• Consett
• Easington
• Felling
• Ferryhill
• Hartlepool
• Hebburn
• Hetton-le-Hole
• Houghton-le-Spring
• Jarrow
• Newton
• Peterlee
• Ryton
• Seaham
• Shildon
• South Shields
• Spennymoor
• Stanley
• Stockton-on Tees
• Sunderland
• Washington

The county has a mixture of mining and farming heritage, as well as a heavy railway industry, particularity in the southeast of the county in Darlington, Shildon and Stockton. Its economy was historically based on coal and iron mining.

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Parish Map

Image from The Phillimore Atlas and Index of Parish Registers 1984.

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Resources

Main Reference WIKI County Durham Information shared under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License - see Creative Commons Licenses