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Eastgate is a village in
County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly â€About North East E ...
, England. It is situated in Weardale, a few miles west of Stanhope. In the 2001 census Eastgate had a population of 163. Eastgate originally marked the eastern border of the private hunting park of the Prince Bishops of Durham. This was second in extent only to the royal hunting park of the New Forest in Hampshire. To the west of Eastgate are a number of medieval sites. A suspected hunting lodge near Round Hill (Cambokeels) and a settlement site at Westerhopeburn. The latter is described as a hunting lodge or shielding and may be connected to the “Westirhirstshele” mentioned in Robert Strangeway's lease of the park in 1419 (described in the Calendar of Rolls of Bishop Booth). It was in use during the period when Strangeways and later his son held the grazing rights in the park. It may have been abandoned around 1458 when the lease was split up. The hunting lodge and supposed chapel at Cambokeels may also have been part of the Strangeway’s estate. Excavations suggest a five-roomed building with pottery and coin evidence suggesting occupation between 1430-1460, and later pottery indicating secondary occupation into the 16th century. It was suggested that the site was a hunting lodge of the Bishops of Durham. A Wesleyan Methodist chapel was built in 1826 and became a schoolroom when the present chapel was built in 1891. The Anglican parish church of All Saints was built in 1888 by J.R.W Hildyard of
Horsley Hall Horsley Hall is a 17th-century country house, now in use as a hotel, near Stanhope, County Durham, England. It is a Grade II listed building. The manor house at Horsley was built in the 17th century but much enlarged during the 18th century. ...
. A
chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ea ...
was also listed on various 19th century ordnance survey maps (just to the west of the current church) and was certainly active in 1828. The Cross Keys public house was built early to late 18th century. William Emerson, the mathematician, had an estate near Eastgate where he would repair to work throughout the summer on projects as disparate as stonemasonry and watchmaking.
Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge Emerson Muschamp Bainbridge (5 December 1845 – 12 May 1911) was an English mining consulting engineer, philanthropist and Liberal Party politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1895 to 1900. Life Bainbridge was born in the village of ...
, the founder of the world's first department store, was born in the village.


Geothermal plant

In 2004 it was announced that a hot
geothermal power Geothermal power is electrical power generated from geothermal energy. Technologies in use include dry steam power stations, flash steam power stations and binary cycle power stations. Geothermal electricity generation is currently used in 2 ...
plant would go ahead on the site of a former cement works. The geothermal plant was planned to heat the UK's first geothermal energy
model village A model village is a type of mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. Although the villages are located close to the workplace, they are generally phys ...
, the official working title being
Eastgate Renewable Energy Village The Eastgate Renewable Energy Village (otherwise known as Eco-Disney) is a multimillion-pound project planned for the village of Eastgate in Weardale, County Durham. The plan is to showcase five different forms of renewable energy and create a comp ...
. But the plan fell through, and instead of the village a large outdoor set was built for the filming of the ITV series Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands, first broadcast in 2016. The exploratory geothermal borehole drilled in December 2004 was the first to be completed in the United Kingdom for more than 20 years. The water temperature at a depth of was found to be 46.2 Â°C, and it was estimated that the water temperature of a production borehole with a depth of about would be in the range of 75–80 Â°C, with a volume of water similar to that already being exploited in the existing geothermal energy scheme in Southampton.


Weardale Railway

The plans for the energy village included constructing a terminus for the
Weardale Railway The Weardale Railway is an independently-owned British single-track branch line heritage railway between , Witton-le-Wear, Wolsingham, Frosterley and Stanhope. Weardale Railway began services on 23 May 2010, but decided to run special trains r ...
, which currently runs between
Bishop Auckland Bishop Auckland () is a market town and civil parish at the confluence of the River Wear and the River Gaunless in County Durham, northern England. It is northwest of Darlington and southwest of Durham. Much of the town's early history surro ...
and Stanhope


See also

* Geothermal power in the United Kingdom


References


External links

{{authority control Villages in County Durham Stanhope, County Durham