Houghall ron: /ˈhɒfl/is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

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 ...

, in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is situated approximately to the south 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 ...

city centre. It is also the location of the Houghall Campus of

East Durham College East Durham College, formerly known as East Durham & Houghall Community College, is a community college with campuses in Peterlee and Houghall, south-east of Durham. The college student roll at the time of a February 2014 Ofsted report was 1, ...

, associated gardens, a small number of houses and a restaurant. Coal was mined from the Hutton seam in Houghall from 1840 and a colliery village built during the 1860s although many miners lived in nearby

Shincliffe Shincliffe is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England. The parish population (according to the 2011 census) was 1,796. It is situated just over to the south-east of Durham city centre, on the A177 road to Stockton. Shincliffe is ...

. Mining declined from the 1880s and the village was demolished in the 1950s, the area landscaped and turned over to picturesque woodland. The foundations of some mining houses still remain. In 2009, heavy rain at the Houghall site caused the

River Wear The River Wear (, ) in North East England rises in the Pennines and flows eastwards, mostly through County Durham to the North Sea in the City of Sunderland. At long, it is one of the region's longest rivers, wends in a steep valley through th ...

to carve a massive trench through the grounds of the college, some 14 feet deep and 80 feet wide. This is thought to have been an old watercourse, created by monks to divert the river from

Durham Cathedral The Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert of Durham, commonly known as Durham Cathedral and home of the Shrine of St Cuthbert, is a cathedral in the city of Durham, County Durham, England. It is the seat of t ...

. This has attracted much attention and so has been dubbed Durham's

Grand Canyon The Grand Canyon (, yuf-x-yav, Wi:kaʼi:la, , Southern Paiute language: Paxa’uipi, ) is a steep-sided canyon carved by the Colorado River in Arizona, United States. The Grand Canyon is long, up to wide and attains a depth of over a m ...

. Houghall began hosting Durham Flower Festival on its campus in 2014.

References

External links

Durham Mining Museum - Houghall Colliery

East Durham and Houghall Community College

Flower Festival on Houghall Campus
Villages in County Durham {{Durham-geo-stub