Castle Eden
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Castle Eden 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 ...
, in England. The population of the parish at the 2011 census was 642. It is situated a short distance to the south of
Peterlee Peterlee is a town in County Durham, England. It lies between Sunderland to the north, Hartlepool to the south, the Durham Coast to the east and Durham to the west. It gained town status in 1948 under the New Towns Act 1946. The act also create ...
,
Wingate Wingate may refer to: Places New Zealand * Wingate, New Zealand, a suburb of Lower Hutt United Kingdom * Wingate, County Durham * Wingate Quarry, a Site of Special Scientific Interest in County Durham * Old Wingate, County Durham * Wingat ...
,
Hutton Henry Hutton Henry is a village in County Durham, in England near Peterlee, Castle Eden and Wingate, County Durham, Wingate. The population of the parish at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census was 1,565. It is situated to the west of Hartlepool, ...
, the A19 and
Castle Eden Dene Castle Eden Dene is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and National Nature Reserve in the Easington district of County Durham, England. It is located mostly in Peterlee, between the A19 and A1086 roads. The dene is the largest, and biolo ...
. The village is famous for the former Castle Eden Brewery which was home of the famous Castle Eden Ale; most of it was demolished in 2003 for a new housing estate and only the main front building remains today. This is a listed building and is now managed office space with a popular Italian restaurant. The A19 used to run through the village until it was bypassed in the 1970s. The deep and impressive nearby
dene The Dene people () are an Aboriginal peoples in Canada, indigenous group of First Nations in Canada, First Nations who inhabit the northern Boreal forest of Canada, boreal and Arctic regions of Canada. The Dene speak Northern Athabaskan languag ...
extends all the way to sea, and its many yew trees are a particular feature where they find the
dolomite Dolomite may refer to: *Dolomite (mineral), a carbonate mineral *Dolomite (rock), also known as dolostone, a sedimentary carbonate rock *Dolomite, Alabama, United States, an unincorporated community *Dolomite, California, United States, an unincor ...
soil advantageous.


Etymology

Castle Eden takes its name from the Eden
Burn A burn is an injury to skin, or other tissues, caused by heat, cold, electricity, chemicals, friction, or ultraviolet radiation (like sunburn). Most burns are due to heat from hot liquids (called scalding), solids, or fire. Burns occur mainl ...
that runs through it. ''Eden'' is a fairly common outcome in English of a
Brittonic Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to: *Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain *Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic *Britons (Celtic people) The Br ...
river name that can be reconstructed as *''ituna'' ('to gush forth'). The name is first attested around 1050 as ''Geodene'' and ''Iodene'', both representing the pronunciation .


History

The Parish Council Web site states that "Castle Eden has its origins in the 10th century when King Reinwald led a campaign of Danish raids and land acquisition". Ownership passed among various Danes until it was eventually taken by Bishop Cutheard and given to Ealfrith; just prior to the
Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conque ...
the estate was owned by Tilred.About Castle Eden
/ref> Both the
Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
of 1086 and the
King's Book The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (commonly abbreviated as the Thirty-nine Articles or the XXXIX Articles) are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the ...
record Castle Eden as a small village, but make no mention of any castle. In the 1100s, Castle Eden became the seat of Robert de Brus who may have had a castle near the settlement. In the 1760s, a farm labourer digging out a hedge discovered a fine glass beaker, known as "The Castle Eden Beaker". It now resides in the
British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...
. The historic listing states that "by 1678, Sir William Bromley owned the manor" and that in 1758, "William Throckmorton Bromley, sold the property to Rowland Burdon". At that time, "the estate was in poor condition and unenclosed, the chapel was in ruins and the mansion house had gone". Burdon enclosed the land, erected a church and built the manor house or " The Castle" as it became named. Rowland Burdon returned to the estate in 1766 to work on, adding the present
Regency A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...
Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...
wing. Sir
John Soane Sir John Soane (; né Soan; 10 September 1753 – 20 January 1837) was an English architect who specialised in the Neoclassical architecture, Neo-Classical style. The son of a bricklayer, he rose to the top of his profession, becoming professo ...
, renowned Regency architect, visited the completed castle on his way from another project. He drafted plans, proposing a potential Neoclassical remodelling of the structure. Burdon in the end chose not to commission him. The Nimmo family would go on in 1826 to found what would come to be known as the Castle Eden Brewery, trading as J. Nimmo and Son Limited. Other families such as the Savilles owned their rope works and bleachery for sail cloth manufacturing, making the village, at the start of the 19th century, a fairly industrious one. In the course of the 19th century, the village became much expanded but still lowly populated and spread out. It was served by the
Castle Eden Railway The Castle Eden Railway was a railway line built by the North Eastern Railway between Bowesfield Junction near Stockton-on-Tees and Wingate, County Durham, Northeast England. Although its route actually never went near Castle Eden, it was ...
and railway station, a police station and a magistrates' court. These were all closed in the 1960s, and their buildings demolished. The village also had its own primary school, but it was closed in the 1970s.


20th and 21st century

Until the 1980s, the village still had a post office, which subsequently closed, leaving the Castle Eden Inn, the cricket club, the golf club and the village hall as the only amenities. In 1998, the national brewer
Whitbread Whitbread plc is a multinational British hotel and restaurant company headquartered in Houghton Regis, England. The business was founded as a brewery in 1742, and had become the largest brewery in the world by the 1780s. Its largest division ...
s, which had purchased the brewery from the Nimmo family in the 1960s, announced its closure. For a short while, brewing continued there but the site was finally sold and, in 2003, redeveloped as houses. The only evidence that the brewery existed is the fine roadside Victorian façade, which was retained. Since 2015, Castle Eden branded beers have been brewed by an independent microbrewery in Seaham. The Grade II listed St James Church was built circa 1764 and was modified circa 1800 and 1896. There was a great deal of uncertainty in 2015 about the future of the church due to "dwindling members, soaring running costs and retiring volunteers". As of February 2021, however, the Parish Council Web site stated that the church "is open for Sunday services" and is "part of a United benefice with Blackhall and Hesleden St. Andrew". As of early February 2021, the undated Parish web site states that "in recent times the village has expanded with the building of new houses on the site of Nimmos brewery ... whilst Castle Eden Dene has regained its reputation as one of the most spectacular places to visit in County Durham and is a National Nature Reserve". The castle building and its 14 acres of land were for sale in 2020. At that time, the castle included 11 bedrooms and 15,102 square feet of space. Extensive restoration had been completed over the previous two decades. The Castle Eden Golf Club is located near the Castle building.


Notable people

* Ben Stokes,
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 N ...
and
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 ...
Cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
er lives in Castle Eden.


References


External links

{{authority control Villages in County Durham Civil parishes in County Durham