Shincliffe is a village and

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 authorit ...

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 ...

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 ...

. The parish population (according to the 2011 census) was 1,796. It is situated just over to the south-east 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 N ...

city centre, on the A177 road to Stockton. Shincliffe is also a civil and ecclesiastical

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

consisting of Shincliffe Village,

High Shincliffe High Shincliffe is a village in County Durham, England. It is situated about two miles south-east of Durham City, on the A177 road to Stockton-on-Tees. The altitude of High Shincliffe is approximately , and it lies above the River Wear at S ...

Sherburn House Sherburn House is a hamlet in County Durham, England. It is situated approximately south-east of Durham between Sherburn and Shincliffe Village. It is in the civil parish of Shincliffe. Sherburn House is the location of Sherburn Hospital ...

and

Whitwell House Whitwell House is a place in County Durham, in England situated a few miles to the south-east of Durham. It now consists of the hamlet of Whitwell Grange, but was from 1836 was the site of the village of Whitwell Colliery. The village decline ...

. Shincliffe is regarded as one of the most affluent villages in Durham City and has been designated a

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural, ecological or cultural values. There are several kinds of protected areas, which vary by level of protection depending on the ena ...

to preserve its historic character.

History

The place-name 'Shincliffe' is first attested in the ''Liber Vitae Ecclesiae Dunelmensis'' of circa 1085, where it appears as ''Scinneclif''. It appears in the

Charter Rolls A charter roll is an administrative record created by a medieval chancery that recorded all the charters issued by that office. Origins In medieval England, King John in 1199 established a fixed rate of fees for the sealing of charters and lette ...

of 1195 as ''Sineclive''. The name means 'the cliff of the spectre or demon, haunted cliff'. Shincliffe is the site of a mediaeval bridge over 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 ...

and archaeological investigations in 2005 suggest Shincliffe may have been the site of a Roman crossing. In the Middle Ages Shincliffe was an agricultural community belonging to the

Prior Prior (or prioress) is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be low ...

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 ...

. The population grew significantly due to coal mining at nearby Houghall, Old Durham and Shincliffe Colliery (now

) but declined following

mine closure Mine closure is the period of time when the ore-extracting activities of a mine have ceased, and final decommissioning and mine reclamation are being completed. It is generally associated with reduced employment levels, which can have a significa ...

s in the late 19th century. Durham's first railway station opened at Shincliffe in 1839 as the passenger terminus between the Durham area and

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

but closed in 1893 once a line had been run from Sherburn House to Durham itself. A goods line continued to Houghall and

Croxdale Croxdale is a village in the civil parish of Croxdale and Hett, situated about south of Durham City, in County Durham , England and on the A167 road, formerly part of the Great North Road. It is on the route of the East Coast Main Line and at ...

Colliery. In the 1920s, Back Lane along the eastern side of the village was enlarged to become a bypass for it.

Local features

Shincliffe Hall is a nearby woodland mansion. It served as a

Land Army An army (from Old French ''armee'', itself derived from the Latin verb ''armāre'', meaning "to arm", and related to the Latin noun ''arma'', meaning "arms" or "weapons"), ground force or land force is a fighting force that fights primarily on ...

hostel then as postgraduate hall of residence for

Durham University , mottoeng = Her foundations are upon the holy hills ( Psalm 87:1) , established = (university status) , type = Public , academic_staff = 1,830 (2020) , administrative_staff = 2,640 (2018/19) , chancellor = Sir Thomas Allen , vice_cha ...

. In 2005 it was sold into private hands.

Religion

Shincliffe was an outlying part of the large Durham parish of St. Oswald's. A rectory was built in the village in 1800, and a

Chapel of Ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a 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 ease is deliberately bu ...

in 1826. Shincliffe became a parish in its own right in 1831, however the Parish Church, St. Mary's, was not built until 1851.

John Wesley John Wesley (; 2 March 1791) was an English cleric, theologian, and evangelist who was a leader of a revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism. The societies he founded became the dominant form of the independent Meth ...

preached in Shincliffe in 1780. A (Wesleyan)

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

Chapel opened in Shincliffe in 1874. William Sever,

Bishop of Durham The Bishop of Durham is the Anglican bishop responsible for the Diocese of Durham in the Province of York. The diocese is one of the oldest in England and its bishop is a member of the House of Lords. Paul Butler has been the Bishop of Durham ...

(1502-1505) was born in Shincliffe.

Businesses

Although Shincliffe is primarily a residential settlement, it is also home to two pubs, a daycare nursery and the Poplar Tree garden centre. The former Post Office is now a private home.

References

External links

Shincliffe Community Association

History of Sherburn House Station, including further information on Shincliffe Station
{{authority control Villages in County Durham