High Westwood is an English 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 ...
, a few miles to the north of
Consett
Consett is a town in County Durham, England, about south-west of Newcastle upon Tyne. It had a population of 27,394 in 2001 and an estimate of 25,812 in 2019.
History
Consett sits high on the edge of the Pennines. Its' name originates in the ...
, near
Ebchester and
Hamsterley. It once had a colliery and coke works.
Past and present
Once a thriving industrial village, High Westwood is now much reduced in size and amenities. There was a railway station on the
Derwent Valley line from 1904 to 1942.
The village is now surrounded by countryside and the old railway line part of a country walkway. Nearby oak woodland still has deer and glades of
bluebells, but the
red squirrel
The red squirrel (''Sciurus vulgaris'') is a species of tree squirrel in the genus ''Sciurus'' common throughout Europe and Asia. The red squirrel is an arboreal, primarily herbivorous rodent.
In Great Britain, Ireland, and in Italy numbers ...
s vanished in the 2000s.
Barn owl
The barn owl (''Tyto alba'') is the most widely distributed species of owl in the world and one of the most widespread of all species of birds, being found almost everywhere except for the polar and desert regions, Asia north of the Himalaya ...
s and
tawny owls are common, along with a wide range of smaller birds.
The site of the former Westwood County Junior Mixed and Infant School is now a housing complex, where the houses are named after one of the rows of colliery houses demolished in the early 1970s. There is also a row of six surviving bungalows. The school was built in 1879 and there was a centenary celebration held in 1979, but it was closed in about 2003 with too few pupils.
The village still has a cricket pitch that is used regularly, but the football pitch and the other sports and leisure amenities are overgrown.
On the 5 July 2016, planning permission was passed for a substantial commercial livery stable to be built in front of the village houses (ref Durham County Council planning portal) despite strong objections from the village and the risk posed by increased traffic on single track roads with no passing places and blind corners. The objectors' hopes then rested a
Coal Authority subsidence report on the stability of the land. It was alleged that no member of the planning committee had ever been to High Westwood.
Retrieved 12 August 2020.
/ref>
References
External links
Villages in County Durham
Consett
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