Hett is a village and former

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

, now in the parish of

Croxdale and Hett Croxdale and Hett is a civil parish in County Durham, England. It is situated approximately four miles south of Durham. The population of the civil parish as taken at the 2011 census was 866. The parish comprises the settlements of: * Croxdale * ...

, in the

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 �About North East E ...

district, in the ceremonial county of

Durham Durham most commonly refers to: *Durham, England, a cathedral city and the county town of County Durham *County Durham, an English county *Durham County, North Carolina, a county in North Carolina, United States *Durham, North Carolina, a city in No ...

, England. It is situated a few miles south of

. Hett is largely surrounded by farmland. To the south,

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...

fields are predominant while at the northern end,

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

are grazed all year round. To the north-west of Hett lies Sunderland Bridge, a small hamlet with a population of under 50 people (2004). Hett contains a small pond, village hall and a football pitch. It is believed to derive its name from its topography - the village sits on a low rounded hill shaped like a hat (Hætt in

old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

).Watts, Victor. ''A Dictionary of County Durham Place-Names''. English Place-Name Society, Nottingham, 2002. Hett gives its name to an

igneous Igneous rock (derived from the Latin word ''ignis'' meaning fire), or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or ...

dyke which cuts through the local

Coal Measures In lithostratigraphy, the coal measures are the coal-bearing part of the Upper Carboniferous System. In the United Kingdom, the Coal Measures Group consists of the Upper Coal Measures Formation, the Middle Coal Measures Formation and the Lower Coal ...

rocks. Hett is under the constituency of City of Durham.

Civil parish

Hett was formerly a

township A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

in the parish of Merrington, from 1866 Hett was a civil parish in its own right, on 1 April 1986 the parish was abolished to form "Croxdale & Hett". In 1961 the parish had a population of 148.

References

Villages in County Durham Former civil parishes in County Durham {{Durham-geo-stub